Christianson v. Leavitt

The lawsuit, Christianson v. Leavitt, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, in Tacoma, Washington. The plaintiffs, members of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), contend that marriage education programs conducted by the Northwest Marriage Institute (NMI) integrate a fundamentalist Christian view of marriage that cannot be removed from the program content.

The lawsuit alleges that the result is that federal grant funds of $97,000 that were awarded to enable NMI to develop fundraising capacity and infrastructure for the program are in essence being used to further NMI's particular religious perspective. The lawsuit charges that capacity development for NMI's program violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that forbids the federal establishment or support of a religious orientation.

AU claims that federal funding of faith-based marriage counseling violates the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state. The suit filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute for Youth Development and NMI, seeks to block federal grant funding of programs conducted by NMI.