Government Tramples on Prisoners' Religious Freedom
By Lee Duigon
You would think that of all people, prison inmates are most in need of religious education.
But in aid of "protecting the country from terrorism," the U.S. Bureau of Prisons has ordered the removal of thousands of religious books, tapes, CDs, and videos from federal prison libraries (see The New York Times, Sept. 10, "Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries").
A spokesman for the government said the reason for this action was to keep the prisons from being used as recruiting grounds "for militant Islamic and other religious groups."
"Other" religious groups? When was the last time anyone saw a Methodist strapping on a suicide belt?
But the Bureau of Prisons is a prisoner of its own ideology of political correctness. To avoid offending Muslims, the Bureau has decided to treat all religions the same. Baptists, Buddhists, and Baha'is are all to be viewed as just as apt as Muslims to slaughter unsuspecting patrons at a pizzeria.
And we all know that that simply isn't true.
But the intention is not to empty the prison libraries of all religious materials. The Bureau spokesman said, "We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to ensure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts." It would be nice to know who these "experts" are, but the government has not identified them.
The Bureau has dubbed this caper "the Standardized Chapel Library Project" (your tax dollars at work!). Said the spokesman, the idea is to bar access to materials that could "discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize."
If the aim is to get rid of materials that "discriminate" in favor of a particular religious viewpoint, that disqualifies everyone but the most insipid universalists. As for advocating violence against infidels, who regularly does that... but Muslims?
