The Christian Post reports that the American Civil Liberties Union is demanding that a prison end their illegal censoring of religious materials sent to detainees.
In a letter sent Thursday to the superintendent of the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, the ACLU asked for jail officials to guarantee in writing that the jail will no longer censor biblical passages from letters written to detainees and to revise the jail’s written inmate mail policy to state that letters will not be censored simply because they contain religious material.
“It is nothing short of stunning that a jail would think it okay to censor the Bible and other religious material for no reason other than its religious nature,” says David Shapiro, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project. “Such censorship violates both the rights of detainees to practice religion freely and the free speech rights of those wanting to communicate with detainees.”
According to the ACLU, the letter was prompted by a complaint brought to the ACLU by Anna Williams, a devout Christian whose son was detained at Rappahannock beginning in June of 2008 until his transfer earlier this year.
Williams wanted to send her son religious material, including passages from the Bible, to support him spiritually during his confinement. But rather than deliver Williams’ letters to her son in full, jail officials reportedly removed any and all religious material, destroying the religious messages Williams sought to convey to her son.
CMR huzzahs for the ACLU on this one. But I’ve got to wonder why the same organization that’s fighting for religion to be allowed in prisons is fighting to keep religion out of schools.
Recently, the ACLU fought against granting Christian “missionaries” access to students in after-school programs. They fought against a coach leading a team prayer. They fought against a young girl mentioning religion at her graduation.
The ACLU threatened to sue to force one school district to remove “Christmas” from school calendars. The school board complied, changing “Christmas Break” to “Winter Break.”
The ACLU even fought against an elementary school allowing a man dressed as Santa Claus to visit the school and discuss the real meaning of Christmas.
So prisoners can get God but children can’t?
I wonder if the ACLU would let Santa come to the prison? Oh wait, since they’re all in prison they’re all probably on the naughty list so never mind.
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