http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/27/national/27EXEM.html?todaysheadlines=&page wanted=print July 27, 2001 Many States Ceding Regulations to Church Groups By PAM BELLUCK State officials in Missouri were distressed earlier this year when they received a complaint that a religious boarding school in the rural town of Bethel was punishing students by forcing them to muck out deep pits of manure. The state was unaware that such a practice was going on. But there was no reason it should have known. In Missouri, residential schools and homes for troubled youths are exempt from virtually all state regulation if they are run by religious organizations. "They have no obligation to even make themselves known to us," said Denise Cross, director of the Missouri Division of Family Services. "There is no regulatory body for those facilities." When it comes to exempting religious institutions from state laws and regulations, Missouri is not alone. Some states grant exemptions to religious academies or boarding homes; others allow day care centers run by religious groups to operate without licenses. Increasingly, legal experts say, religious organizations have been seeking and winning exemptions from other areas of the law, from land-use regulations to health requirements, like immunization. In the last few years, more than a dozen states have passed or considered legislation to prohibit state and local laws from interfering with religious practices or beliefs unless the state or city can show that a compelling public interest is at stake. A similar federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, was enacted in 1993 and was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1997. As a result, nine states, including Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island and Texas, have enacted so- called religious protection measures. And supreme courts in six other states, including Massachusetts and Minnesota, have issued rulings that have the same effect. Last year Congress passed a measure allowing religious institutions to be exempt from land-use rules that impose "a substantial burden on religious exercise." Under the law, a house of worship seeking to, say, build a sanctuary violating height or historic preservation ordinances might be able to exempt itself. "We're in an era when government is extraordinarily deferential to religious organizations," said Marci A. Hamilton, a professor of constitutional law at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, who challenged the federal religious protection act before the Supreme Court. "Legislators think that in this era there's a lot of political benefit in doing good things for religion, and saying no to religious requests is hard for them to do." David Gibbs III, general counsel for the Christian Law Association, which advises legislators and groups on gaining religious liberties, said that "there is a push to get religious freedom restoration acts imposed on a state level" and that his group and others had been trying to make state and local governments aware of the federal land-use law. "People ask why should there be a religious exemption," Mr. Gibbs said. "No. 1 is the First Amendment, which guarantees that government would not excessively entangle itself with religion. No. 2, lots of the traditional government regulations will conflict with the purpose of a religious organization," including, he said, the ability to hire only people of a certain faith, to proselytize and to incorporate the Bible throughout the programs. Mr. Gibbs and others said they expected that efforts by religious organizations to expand legal exemptions would intensify in light of President Bush's proposal to increase federal financing for charitable works of religious organizations. That proposal, passed by the House of Representatives, would allow religions that receive federal money for charitable work to continue hiring solely within their faith. Under current law, religions are allowed to impose such a hiring restriction, using private money, to maintain the character of their faith. Civil rights groups argue that the president's proposal would amount to federally financed discrimination in hiring. The debate over exemptions can be passionate, particularly when it concerns children. Religious sites run by evangelical Christian groups, for example, may resist licensing so they can use corporal punishment or hire employees whose experience caring for children comes primarily from being parents, not from training or education that the state might require. Most children are put in these places by their parents; advocates of licensing say state regulation is needed to keep children safe. "It's a little war that's going on," Ms. Hamilton said, "a heated battle between children's advocates and religious representatives." But in the roughly 15 states that have religious exemptions for day care centers or residential academies, the exemptions are often fashioned in a more shaded manner. Religious groups agree to follow basic health and safety requirements in exchange for being allowed to teach, discipline and hire as they please. In Florida, church day care centers and residential homes for troubled youths used to be licensed by the state, but now they are allowed to be accredited by an association of their peers instead, provided they get no government financing. Ed MacClellan, director of the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies, which accredits residential homes for youths, said the association's standards exempted homes from state rules on hiring and religious teaching. "Initially we started the group when it was a period where the state was using the licensing to effect a religious agenda," Mr. MacClellan said. "They wanted you to take down the crosses and the pictures of Jesus, but we didn't want them to go. And there were some concerns about not wanting to give a lick or a spank to a kid. But if a program is biblically based then in our state they can still give a spanking." In South Carolina, religious day care centers must either be state licensed or registered. If registered, they are exempt from regulations on personnel and curriculum. That allows Grace Day Care in West Columbia to "teach them to be born again, the Ten Commandments, things like that," said the center's director, Carolyn Moss. Children at Grace may also be disciplined with "one or two swats" with a wooden ruler or paddle, if other disciplinary methods have failed, Mrs. Moss said. Some states allow religious day care centers to be exempt from licensing if they operate part-time, less than two days a week in New Mexico, for example, or less than 24 hours a week in Louisiana. Illinois exempts religious day care centers if they are part of a nonprofit religious elementary school, receive no government money, meet health and fire standards and care for children age 3 or older. More wholesale exemptions tend to be approved in states with large numbers of conservative Christians. In Mississippi last year, a bill to require residential youth homes to be licensed stalled until legislators agreed to exempt religious institutions from the law. In South Carolina, a few years ago, a similar exemption passed. "People were very concerned," said Becky Sharp, director of planning and development for the South Carolina Department of Social Services. "But we have a large Christian Coalition base in the state." In Missouri, legislation has been introduced in recent years to eliminate religious exemptions. But in a state with many evangelical Christians, the bills have not gotten far. The only ones to pass have been modest, requiring religious day care centers to comply with basic health and safety regulations and compelling agencies that care for children to register employees with the state. Richard C. Dunn, former executive director of Boys and Girls Town of Missouri, who a few years ago testified on behalf of a bill to prohibit exemptions, said religious advocates "filled the halls up, talking about paddling and all the rest of it." "The question was raised about one of the places that testified against us, `Do you have an operation manual?' " Mr. Dunn said. "The guy said, `Yes, here it is,' and pulled out a copy of the King James Bible." Some religious facilities say increased regulation would put them out of business because they could not afford to meet licensing standards. Jay Craig, business manager at Shiloh Christian Children's Ranch in northeast Missouri, said that in other states "regulations have strangled homes or have come close to it." For example, Mr. Craig said, "if we had to be licensed by the state, for children to swim in any type of pool there would have be a water-safety trained person there. Perhaps it's more safe and secure with the regulations, but sometimes regulations get on top of each other to where you have the law of diminishing results." Critics of exemptions say the lack of regulations encourages unlicensed facilities to spring up. They cite the case of Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy, which left Mississippi after tangling with juvenile- court officials and came to Missouri in 1987. It was not until 1998, however, when a 16-year-old was killed by fellow students, that Missouri officials became aware of the school. "Anybody in Missouri can come in and decide you're a church and open a home for children," said Joe Ketterlin, executive director of the Missouri Coalition of Children's Agencies, whose members are licensed. "Nobody knows who they are or where they are until some fiasco happens." While critics of exemptions say that many religious homes are well- intentioned, they also question the safety of their practices. They object to homes like Heartland, which wean students from prescribed psychiatric medication. They also contend that punishments — working in manure pits at Heartland, forced walking at Shiloh — are too harsh. At Heartland, five employees have been charged with child abuse. "I think often they are uninformed, not making good decisions, clear decisions about discipline, not schooled in psychology or therapeutic issues," said Ruth Ehresman, policy director for Citizens for Missouri's Children, a public interest group. "They have sort of a simplistic approach that once the young person gives his or her life to Jesus, that's the turning point." Karen Culler, executive director of Show Me Christian Children's Homes, sees things differently. She says that religious schools support children in ways the state cannot. "The children know people are helping them who want to and don't have to," Ms. Culler said. "I think they appreciate it more." 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