Virginia Jail Agrees to Stop Censoring Religious Mail | Politics | Christianity Today

Nicole Neroulias, Religion News Service

A Virginia jail will stop censoring religious mail after protests from civil rights organizations that clerks had turned Bible-quoting missives from an inmate's mother into tattered strips of paper signed "Love, Mom."

Rappahannock Regional Jail authorities agreed to change the policy after receiving a letter signed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Rutherford Institute, Prison Fellowship, the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Prisons may block writings that pose security threats, including hate speech and X-rated images, but must allow access to otherwise religious materials, according to several court rulings and federal law.

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It is always good to see folks in government acquire a clue when they haven't previously had one.

I suspect that by now someone has supplied these officials with their own copy of the U.S. Constitution and a book of Virginia history. That would be very valuable in helping them understand why religious censorship is not a very good idea - even in a prison.

Then there is the pragmatic issue. The parent who threatens to keep the child home from Sunday School where she will learn honesty because she has been lying is possibly not wearing his or her thinking cap.

The jailer who wants to hold back material from a prisoner which has some possibility of making him a more cooperative human might also want to be fitted for some new headgear.

Then, it should be noted that the Rutherford Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union were on the same side with this issue. Recently, the ACLU has gone to bat for people of faith on a number of religious liberty issues.

I am glad they got this one worked out.