Texas inmate Douglas C. Welsch has filed a civil suit against George W. Bush and the heads of the prison system alleging that permitting evangelical Christians unprecedented access to the prison system violates the United States and Texas Constitutions. Welsch’s suit alleges that then-governor Bush, in personally turning over the Jester II prison unit to the Prison Fellowship Ministry of Charles Colson, violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by making Christianity the de facto religion of the Texas prison system. The suit alleges the Texas Constitution is being violated by the use of state property by a religious society.

Additionally, Welsch’s First Amendment suit challenges the practice throughout the prison system of broadcasting Mike Barer Christian revivals. Barber, a former Houston Oilers football player, is associated with Kenneth Copeland Ministries, and it is that entity that Welsch alleges erected satellite receiving dishes on every prison unit so these Christian evangelical programs could be received. Usually broadcast once a month, the programs feature Mike Barer as he leads a Christina revival on a prison unit. Most of the broadcasts have originated in Texas prison, but recent broadcasts have also been done from Lawton, Oklahoma and from Florida.