Evangelical Conversion-for-Parole Program Thwarted

[donsu]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/40324/



A Bush-funded prison initiative that fast-tracked parole for Christian converts has been swatted down in the federal courts.


The day after a federal court struck down a taxpayer-supported evangelical Christian program in an Iowa prison, Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, issued a press statement. He was not pleased.

"The courts took God out of America's schools, now they are on the path to take God out of America's prisons," Earley groused.

Earley's analysis of judicial decisions dealing with religion and public schools was widely off the mark, but he had good reason to be upset about the recent ruling on public funds for inmate indoctrination. His organization, Prison Fellowship Ministries, founded by ex-Watergate felon Charles Colson, has been sponsoring the Iowa program for three years. If the ruling stands up on appeal, not only will Earley's group have to shut down the program, it will be required to repay the state of Iowa more than $1.5 million in public support it has received during that time.
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long article with much info on these neo con criminals stuffing their pockets

hope Iowa gets back that 1.5 mil

[geardaddy]

1. K & R

I find it ridiculous that they think God needs to be everywhere. Isn't God everywhere anyway? :o

[meegbear]

2. Good for them ...

who's gonna take the blame if somebody "fakes" their conversion to get out then commits a crime? Society? Liberals? Certainly not them who insisted he was a man of God when they got him released.

[Tesha]

3. Dontcha hate it when...

Dontcha hate it when you see these news stories, and you
*KNOW* what the ultimate answer will be, if only the
people in the right have the guts and money to litigate
things to the end?

This is just the latest example.

Before that, we've had dozens and dozens of these. Guys
who videotape the police while the police are acting like
assholes, only to see the police turn around and arrest
the guy with the camera... School officials who try to
deny kids their obvious First Amendment rights to speech,
or religious freedom (or freedom from religion)... Petty
dictators who set up illegal detention camps in foreign
countries in obvious attempts to end-run the Constitution...

The saddest ones are the ones where the party in the right
can't pursue things to the end because of money constraints,
or because they end up dead first.

Tesha

[SutaUvaca]

4. With this kind of reasoning

if you're already converted and then commit a crime, you'd be sentenced to parole.
I guess now the courts could have Evangelical Counselors stationed at the defendants table for pre-sentencing hearings.
Give 'em a chance to convert first and save the gas for the prison bus.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. pray out of jail free card?

what a disgusting idea.

[Raffi Ella]

6. Hallelujah.

courts are actually enforcing Seperation of Church & State.

[Harry Monroe]

7. What about Karla Faye Tucker??

She never got her chance at parole or commutation of her sentence, even though she became a "born again Christian" on death row in Texas!!!! That "born again Christian" (:sarcasm: )Governor George W. Bush, refused to commute her sentence and even mocked her:

"From: "Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106:

(Snip)..."While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with , though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.

'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'

I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking."...

http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Photo+Gallery/568.aspx

BUSH: "BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN" MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE'S NOT EVEN A "CHRISTIAN"!!!!!!!!!!!

[Harry Monroe]

8. For those of you who don't remember Karla Faye Tucker...

...here is a link to clarify the case.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/02/tucker.clemency.deny/index.html