Religious Freedom of Prisoners
In an MSNBC episode of Lockup: Raw, the prisons extensive religious programs were profiled. Iowa State Penitentiary allows inmates to participate in a wide range of religious observations, ranging from Buddhism and Wicca to Satanism. In the episode a group of inmates can be seen lighting candles and using a gong during a Satanic service, after which various aspects of the Satanic Bible are discussed on camera. During the filming the prisons chaplain speaks of the importance of religious practice to the inmates daily lives.
Read more about this topic: Iowa State Penitentiary
Famous quotes containing the words religious, freedom and/or prisoners:
“Better risk loss of truth than chance of error—that is your faith-vetoer’s exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“We are prisoners of the world’s demented sink.
The soft enchantments of our years of innocence
Are harvested by accredited experience
Our fondest memories soon turn to poison
And only oblivion remains in season.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)