Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You might remember the Hanas case here in Michigan, where a young man was sentenced to go to a Pentecostal drug rehab program with the Inner City Christian Outreach Program that ended up not having any actual drug counseling but was purely religious in nature and contained tremendous coercion to convert and forbid him from practicing his own Catholic faith.
When he left the program because of its sectarian nature and asked to be placed in an alternative program, the drug court judge declared him to have violated his sentencing agreement and put him in prison. The ACLU initially filed on his behalf in state court but got nowhere with it. After the Supreme Court denied cert in an appeal from the state court, they filed in Federal court and now a Federal judge has ruled in Hanas' favor.
At this point, we don't know a lot of the specifics. The judge announced his ruling from the bench but has not yet released a written decision, so the specifics of what and how he ruled are a bit vague (Hanas asked for punitive damages as well as different declaratory judgments). There is also a second Federal case going, a habeas corpus case to reverse his conviction; that case has yet to be decided. When I have the full ruling, I'll write in more detail.
Comments
Ed, I really have to ask. Why cut in the middle of a post and only include one additional paragraph after the cut? I've noticed that you seem to do this a lot, have unnecessary cuts in really short posts. Why bother?
Posted by: Mephisto | December 5, 2007 10:54 AM
More clicks which leads to more ad revenue.
In fairness to Ed, it's a pretty common thing to do.
Posted by: Russell Miller | December 5, 2007 2:22 PM
In a similar case, the 8th Circuit on Monday upheld the trial Court in the Iowa prison ministries case.
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/o/632/12-04-2007/eef70019ff312b19.html
Cue STACLU: Three, two, one...
Posted by: kehrsam | December 5, 2007 3:01 PM
"LIBERAL JUDGE OUTLAWS PENTECOSTAL CHURCH; WAR ON RELIGION CONTINUES!!!!"
Sound like the headline at STACLU?
Posted by: dogmeatib | December 5, 2007 6:36 PM
I guess if you are mindless enough to try and shove the Christian faith down someones throat......then it stands to reason that you will also overlook the fact that both Pentecostals & Catholics are Christians!
Posted by: Cheddar | December 5, 2007 8:21 PM
Two evangelical Protestant Christians I know were raised to believe that Catholics are not "true" Christians but are instead a "cult" that doesn't even worship the same deity. Since these people don't even believe there are such things as facts but believe instead that everything is a point of view or a belief, there was no convincing them otherwise.
Posted by: deang | December 5, 2007 8:33 PM
According to Jack Chick, Catholicism isn't Christianity, either. Instead, it's a "religion".
Posted by: Skemono | December 5, 2007 9:48 PM
The whole Protestant/Catholic relationship has changed radically in the past 40 years. Well at least in North America it has. In the 1960's denominational barriers began to break down. But ironically it was the religious right that sped up the process. The comtemporary Christian right is an alliance of Protestant evangelicals and Conservative Catholics. If you sat down and made a list of all the prominent relgious right leaders you would find just as many Catholics and you would Protestants. They have buried the hatchet and are completely on the same page. Does Rick Santorum sound any different than say Pat Robertson? It is true that there are still a few ultra-conservative Protestants out there who condemn Catholics. But they are few in number and have been ostracized.
Posted by: Cheddar | December 5, 2007 10:09 PM
Hey, everyone knows that Catholics worship Mary and drink blood.
Also, the main difference now is that the Catholic conservatives still have to play friendly to the unions.
Posted by: Mephisto | December 5, 2007 11:06 PM
Russel Miller -
There are other reasons. On a lot of blog formats, you set it to break after x number of paras. It then does it automatically for posts that exceed that number of para breaks, even if there is only one more and it is a short sentence.
Also the breaks are a way to avoid feedsites crossposting your complete articles.
Cheddar -
It is not nearly so ecumenical as you seem to believe, nor is the lack of appreciation limited to ultra-conservatives. I know a lot of Christians, who while not liberal by any stretch, are anything but rightwingers, who do not consider Catholics to be Christian. Indeed, most of the ecumenicals I know, tend to be rather conservative, especially on the Catholic side.
Posted by: DuWayne | December 6, 2007 2:07 AM
The comtemporary Christian right is an alliance of Protestant evangelicals and Conservative Catholics.
That'll last until they win. The Creationists are willing to ally themselves with Islamic fundamentalists against secularism over there, too.
Posted by: Graculus | December 6, 2007 6:35 AM
Before I figured out the whole religion=bullshit thing as a teenager, I was of the belief that a whole slew of "Christian" religions were going to get you sent straight to hell:
Catholics
Jehovah's Witnesses
All the Pentecostal/Charismatic variants
Baptists
Lutherans
Anglicans (and variants)
Mormons
Well, everything but mine and a few close cousins... And we're not to sure about them...
Which always makes me wonder why the wing-nuts want to make a "Christian State?" Don't they realize that the next day, the blood will flow red upon the streets?
Posted by: Moses | December 6, 2007 7:29 AM
"Don't they realize that the next day, the blood will flow red upon the streets?"
Sure, but it wont be *theirs*, cuz they are the real xians!
Seriously though, when Bush got elected a friend of mines mother was so excited that "religion and morals are back in the government". She simply couldn't understand that the people she was praising didn't think she was christian because she was LDS and if they had their way she would be up against the wall (so to speak) with the atheists, muslims and other heathens. No denomination thinks they aren't christian (er, except non-christian ones) and most of them assume everyone agrees with them. At least that's how it's been in my experience.
Posted by: jba | December 6, 2007 8:12 AM
When I have the full ruling, I'll write in more detail.
Cool. Pentecostals are freakin looney man. Thanks for keeping us posted, Bob. Cheers.
Posted by: 386sx | December 6, 2007 8:21 AM
Since these people don't even believe there are such things as facts but believe instead that everything is a point of view or a belief, ...
That, and the belief that other religions from which their religion copied mythology were religions that were created by the devil prior to their own religion in order to make it appear as though their religion copied other religions. That's a good one! Cuckoo!
Posted by: 386sx | December 6, 2007 8:37 AM
"Also, the main difference now is that the Catholic conservatives still have to play friendly to the unions."
They also seem less prone to being caught soliciting for gay sex in airport toilets.
Posted by: Ian Gould | December 6, 2007 8:43 AM
Partly off-topic, partly on-topic, but full of irony:
"What he's trying to do is have the government operate on his behalf to dictate his beliefs, which is completely wrong," said Judge Roy Moore, chairman of the Foundation for Moral Law.
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000006063.cfm
You should blog about this Ed.
Posted by: daenku32 | December 6, 2007 9:24 AM
Many commentators have written about the suprising change in the relationship between Catholics & Protestants. James Davidson Hunter wrote a whole book about it when he first coined the term "Culture Wars". It is true that pockets of Christians resist this ecumenical shift. But when you look at the big picture the change is undeniable. In fact without that change you would not have the religious right as we know it today. A very dramatic example of what I am talking about occured when the "Passion of the Christ" came out. It is a VERY Catholic film. It is essentially just a filmed version of the Stations of the Cross. Yet there was a very long line of very conservative Protestant leaders who endorsed the film. That whole scenario would have been unthinkable 40 years ago.
Posted by: Cheddar | December 6, 2007 10:22 PM