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Co-founder Dr. Bob’s own personal story set the frame and religious challenge:
“If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. . . . Your Heavenly Father will never let you down!” (3rd ed., p. 181)
Co-founder Bill Wilson explained in the following words his own cure by the power of God:
“Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful, curing me of this terrible disease, that I just want to keep talking about it and telling people” (3rd ed., p. 191)
The point is not whether A.A. is a religion. It is. Nor is the point that A.A. is allied with some particular sect or denomination. It isn’t. The point is that its own Bible roots, its own religious practices, its own history of religious conversions, and the words of its own founders show that this “unique” religion was and is in fact a religion—whatever importance that fact may have in helping the still suffering alcoholic to be cured. In fact, early members called themselves a “Christian Fellowship.” Likened to the meetings described in the Book of Acts, the organization could hardly escape the religious label.
The “religion” findings and rulings in six court decisions: The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has now joined four other courts in ruling that Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion, and therefore that government compulsion of A.A. attendance violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Recently, Stanton Peele, Ph.D., J.D., and Charles Bufe with Archie Brodsky published their title Resisting 12-Step Coercion: How to Fight Forced Participation in AA, NA, or 12-Step Treatment (Tucson, AZ: See Sharp Press, 2000). Summarizing the court decisions to that date, the authors wrote:
Griffin v. Coughlin (1996). New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, prohibited (in and 5-2 decision) the Corrections Department from making a prisoner’s participation in the Family Reunion Program conditional on his attendance in the prison’s Alcohol and Substance Abuse (ASAT) Program. The court ruled that such participation violated the Establishment Clause (pp. 110-11)
Kerr v. Farrey (1996). The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana), reversing a district court decision, unanimously held “that the state . . .impermissibly coerced inmates to participate in a religious program, thus violating the Establishment Clause.” An inmate was threatened with being sent to a higher security prison and with rejection of his parole applications for refusing to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings (p. 114)
Warner v. Orange County Department of Probation (1999). The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed 2-1 a district court ruling that recommending an inmate plaintiffs participation in Alcoholics Anonymous as a condition of probation violated the Establishment Clause (p. 118)
Evans v. Tennessee Board of Paroles (1997). The Supreme Court of Tennessee, responding to petitions from two inmates, regarding their failed parole hearings, found unanimously that the trial court erred in dismissing one of the inmates’—Anthony Evans’—claim for injunctive relief as to the Board’s requirement that he participate in Alcoholics Anonymous. The court remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether AA was religious in nature, while citing case evidence that this was indeed the case (p. 124)
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