Opinion ID: 881910
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: ISSUE IV: Placement of the Children with Christian Foster Parents

Text: Lastly, B.N. contends by placing the children with the Ks, who maintain their own ministry, the State violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibiting government support of religion. As with her other arguments, B.N.'s position is untenable. The United States Supreme Court set forth the standard to determine whether state aid constitutes the establishment of religion in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745. According to the three-prong test delineated in Lemon, state aid is constitutional if: (1) it has a secular purpose, (2) its primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion, and (3) it does not foster excessive government entanglement in religion. Lemon, at 612-13, 91 S.Ct. at 2111, 29 L.Ed.2d at 755. Here, the aid provided to the Ks for foster care meets all three requirements of the Lemon test. First, its purpose, to provide parental care for the M children is clearly secular. Second, the primary effect of the foster care placement and attendant payments is that the children now have a safe, loving and secure home and parents, which does not advance nor inhibit religion. Third, the placement and payments do not excessively entangle the State in religion. As the Department's social worker testified, the State makes foster care payments to foster parents to reimburse their expenses. Foster parents, whether ministers or not, may then do as they wish with that money and do not have to account for the money. Placement with and payment to the Ks for foster care of the four M children in no way violates the First Amendment. We affirm the decision of the District Court. HUNT, SHEEHY, McDONOUGH and WEBER, JJ., concur.