Opinion ID: 1355837
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: issues

Text: CONCLUSION. The Commission and the Superior Court did not err in denying state financial assistance for the applicant to use for religious instruction; the Constitution of the State of Washington, article 1, section 11, prohibits this. As the United States Supreme Court observed in its opinion in this case, [t]he Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has consistently presented this Court with difficult questions of interpretation and application. [7] Then, after concluding that there was no violation of that clause of the federal constitution, and that the case should be remanded, the United States Supreme Court also held that [o]n remand, the state court is of course free to consider the applicability of the `far stricter' dictates of the Washington State Constitution, see Witters v. Commission for the Blind, 102 Wash.2d, at 626, 689 P.2d, at 55. [8] [1] Article 1, section 11 of the Constitution of the State of Washington provides in pertinent part: No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise or instruction, or the support of any religious establishment ... (Italics ours.) Here, the applicant is asking the State to pay for a religious course of study at a religious school, with a religious career as his goal. This falls precisely within the clear language of the state constitutional prohibition against applying public moneys to any religious instruction. Indeed, as counsel for the applicant summarized at oral argument before this court: We would concede that Larry Witters is getting a religious education. (Italics ours.) Our state constitution prohibits the use of public moneys to pay for such religious instruction. This court has twice construed the term religious instruction. In State ex rel. Dearle v. Frazier, 102 Wash. 369, 173 P. 35 (1918), the court struck down a school board resolution giving high school credits for Bible study done outside of school, even though the course of study covered only the historical, biographical, narrative and literary features of the Bible. [9] On the other hand, the court upheld the teaching of English 390: The Bible as Literature at the University of Washington in Calvary Bible Presbyterian Church v. Board of Regents, 72 Wn.2d 912, 436 P.2d 189 (1967), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 960 (1968). In Calvary, the court interpreted religious instruction as used in article 1, section 11 to mean instruction that is devotional in nature and designed to induce faith and belief in the student. [10] The court went on to say: There can be no doubt that our constitutional bars are absolute against religious instruction and indoctrination in specific religious beliefs or dogma; but they do not proscribe open, free, critical, and scholarly examination of the literature, experiences, and knowledge of mankind. Calvary, at 919. In this case, Inland Empire School of the Bible is a Christian college. The applicant's course of study is designed to prepare him for a career promoting Christianity. His Bible study and church courses necessarily provide indoctrination in the specific beliefs of Christianity. Thus, for the Commission to provide vocational assistance funds to the applicant as he requests would violate article 1, section 11 of the Constitution of the State of Washington because public money would be applied to religious instruction. The applicant urges that we examine the vocational rehabilitation program as a whole and not focus on his individual participation in the program. His argument ignores the sweeping and comprehensive [11] language of Const. art. 1, § 11, which prohibits not only the appropriation of public money for religious instruction, but also the application of public funds to religious instruction. Herein lies a major difference between our state constitution and the establishment clause of the first amendment to the United States Constitution. It follows that to apply federal establishment clause analysis to article 1, section 11 of the state constitution as the applicant urges would be inappropriate. Having concluded, as we do, that article 1, section 11 of our state constitution is dispositive of the issue of whether the Constitution of the State of Washington prohibits the funding of the applicant's vocational rehabilitation plan, we need not consider the parameters of article 9, section 4 of the state constitution. [12]