BREAKING NEWS: Judge rules that Kentucky General Assembly violated constitution with largess for Cumberland University's pharmacy building.

Read the order in Word or Adobe PDF.

Judge Roger Crittenden, in essence, found that that the appropriation of more than $20 million made by the 2006 General Assembly (and signed into law by Governor Ernie Fletcher) to fund the construction of the pharmacy building and program at the PRIVATE University of the Cumberlands (formerly Cumberland college) in Whitley County, violated the the following sections of our Kentucky Constitution:

the 5th:

(which provides that "No preference shall ever be given by law to any religious sect, society or denomination; nor to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity; nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, to contribute to the erection or maintenance of any such place, or to the salary or support of any minister of religion; nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed; and the civil rights, privileges or capacities of no person shall be taken away, or in anywise diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching. No human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience");

the 51st:

(which provides that "NO law enacted by the General Assembly shall relate to more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title, and no law shall be revised, amended, or the provisions thereof extended or conferred by reference to its title only, but so much thereof as is revised, amended, extended or conferred, shall be reenacted and published at length");

and, the 189th:

(which provides that "NO portion of any fund or tax now existing, or that may hereafter be raised or levied for educational purposes, shall be appropriated to, or used by, or in aid of, any church, sectarian or denominational school").

One would have thought our elected General Assemblers would have known BETTER than to pull this "fast one" on us!