The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging an appeals court in a friend-of-the-court brief to uphold a district court ruling that limits a troubling prison ministry from continuing to operate in Minnesota.
Plaintiff Anthony Schmitt, who calls himself a minister, for more than a decade has been allowed to enter the Minnesota Correctional Facility-St. Cloud under the pretext of offering rehabilitation, in order to screen videos “based on biblical principles” to prisoners. The videos and his post-screening discussions inculcate conservative Christianity, homophobia, toxic masculinity and other reprehensible views. He has preached to male inmates that women are to blame for their problems and that “soft men” are an issue in prisons and society. Schmitt has told prisoners “‘authentic manhood’ is modeled by Jesus Christ and directed by the Word of God.”
After being denied access to prisoners because his program conflicts with prison policies, Schmitt argued that the U.S. Constitution gives him the right to enter a prison and promote his program to prisoners. FFRF’s brief argued that Schmitt cannot change one crucial fact: He is an outsider without a direct First Amendment interest in accessing materials inside of a prison.
If the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agrees with the Department of Corrections that the department’s programming is government speech, then the state wins outright, FFRF’s brief asserts. Schmitt then simply has no constitutional interest in directing the government to speak. If instead the court — like the lower court — finds that the programming is not considered government speech, FFRF’s brief insists that the court must apply the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Turner decision, balancing constitutional rights and security concerns.
“Turner applies to First Amendment rights,” states the brief. “Multiple clauses within the First Amendment have received Turner scrutiny.”
The Supreme Court has always balanced constitutional rights and the security concerns that arise with running a prison. That means that anyone challenging a prison regulation needs to show that the regulation is unconcerned with rehabilitation or security. Schmitt defiantly asks the federal courts to give religion a special place in a prison because he is an outsider. That is not in line with precedent from either the 8th Circuit or the Supreme Court, so FFRF’s brief merely urged the former to follow the law.
As importantly, the alleged violation implicates First Amendment rights belonging to a hypothetical prisoner, not to Schmitt, and would be better resolved under Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the brief contends. Schmitt is an outsider trying to assert a constitutional right that simply does not exist: a right to show videos to prisoners. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act is the appropriate method for challenging alleged restrictions on religion in the prison context; this tool simply is not available to Schmitt.
So, all of Schmitt’s claims fail under Turner and its progeny, FFRF’s brief concludes. Schmitt is simply the wrong party bringing the incorrect kind of claim. That’s why the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals must affirm the decision of the district court.
“Schmitt’s religious bigotry supplies no rehabilitative value to the most vulnerable in our society,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Bigoted religious polemics and proselytization should not be allowed in our prisons under the phony cover of ‘rehabilitation.’”
FFRF’s purposes are to educate the public about nontheism and to preserve the cherished constitutional principle of separation between religion and government. It currently has 40,000 U.S. members, including more than 900 members in Minnesota. Its amicus brief seeks to protect the right of conscience of Americans, including those who are incarcerated.
