INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
The Indy Star
October 26, 2017
By Fatima Hussein
The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that sex offenders are allowed to attend church services even while children are present to attend Sunday school.
The ruling handed down Tuesday stems from a letter the Boone County sheriff sent to his county’s registered sex offenders in July 2015 informing them of the passage of Indiana’s “serious sex offender” law. The law prohibits “serious sex offenders” from entering “school property.”
School property, under the state’s interpretation of the law, includes a church if the church conducts Sunday school or has child care for children of the ages described in the statute. Sex offenders faced arrest and prosecution if they attended such a church.
Citing Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, three unnamed sex offenders sought a court injunction to attend church. They argued that preventing them from attending services, even when children are present, places “a substantial burden on their exercise of religion.”
“It is a very serious infringement on rights in telling someone they cannot go to religious services,” said Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, who is representing the sex offenders.
“Everyone seeks religious service for different reasons — to exclude someone seems problematic.”
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