I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
One of our sister sites, the Minnesota Independent, has an interesting article about Jim Ramstad, the Minnesota Republican who is being considered for two positions in the Obama administration, either head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) or head of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Looks like Ramstad has a pretty serious problem with one earmark he requested.
Earlier this year, Ramstad sponsored a $235,000 earmark for the Minnesota Teen Challenge (MNTC), an Assemblies of God drug treatment center with a history of controversial therapies and overt religious indoctrination.
MNTC is part of a national network of drug treatment and “discipleship training” centers called Teen Challenge.
More info on Teen Challenge:
Teen Challenge programs across the country typically describe themselves in these terms:
“Being a Christian discipleship program, it endeavors to minister to the whole person, helping them to become mentally sound, emotionally balanced, socially adjusted, physically well, and spiritually alive through a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Teen Challenge’s overt Christian message is extends to outright conversion — at least according to its leaders. During a congressional hearing in May 2001, Congress members challenged the ability of Teen Challenge and other faith-based initiatives to offer government services without overt religiousness. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) asked Teen Challenge Executive Director John Castellani if the organization hired non-Christians. Castellani said no. When asked if Teen Challenge takes non-Christian clients, Castellani said they did and he then bragged that some Jews who complete Teen Challenge programs become “completed Jews.”
Like many similar programs around the country, judges often sentence people to complete them as an alternative to prison. This is a serious first amendment problem for obvious reasons. The Messenger previously reported on the Joseph Hanas case in Michigan, where a Catholic man was required to enter a Pentecostal drug rehabilitation program that offered no actual drug treatment and was little more than a boot camp for Pentecostalism.
The ACLU of Michigan won an important federal court victory on behalf of Hanas in late 2007. A similar ruling from the 9th circuit underscored that victory. If the first amendment means anything at all, it must mean that the government cannot use coercion, de jure or de facto, to force people into programs of religious indoctrination.
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