At the risk of injecting a thoughtful answer into a stream of vitriol…
My understanding* is that prayers may be deferred if a person is traveling or otherwise occupied at the time when prayers would normally be said. If a person is not able to say prayers at the correct time, he or she is supposed to say the missed prayers at the next appropriate prayer time. For example, if you miss prayers in the afternoon, you say afternoon prayers in the evening along with your evening prayers.
Thus - according to my understanding - the correct religious response in this situation would be to defer prayers in order to accomodate the institution’s scheduled mealtimes. If you’ve been practicing for a while, you should have a good idea how long it takes to pray. If you know when meals are served, and you know how long it takes to pray, you should be able to figure out whether or not you have time to say prayers at the prescribed time.
*Background: Many years ago, I was planning to marry a person who happened to be Muslim. My fiance was not particularly observant, but my future in-laws were, and it was important to them that I be at least nominally Muslim. To this end I undertook to learn the religion. The marriage was a bust, but that’s another story.
So? Converting in prison doesn’t necessarily mean that you did it just for the perks. (And I’d think openly professing Islam might get you some ire from the less-educated inmates who think all Muslims are bad.)
Courts have generally held that kosher food must be provided to Jewish inmates, though not always. Like extra time for prayer during meals, this strikes me as a pretty minimal accommodation. I’m quite sure the prison has some argument based on security (maybe even based on the safety of the prisoner himself). I’d want to evaluate that before evaluating the policy as a whole–which I’m sure the court will do.
Most facilities will make some kind of arrangements for kosher food. If it is really important to someone to have strictly kosher food, the judge should be told before the sentence. The judge can then instruct the appropriate prison that they will be receiving a Jewish inmate who has special dietary needs. These needs will sometimes be accommodated with pre-cooked kosher meals that are sealed, similar to the kosher food served on airlines.
That said, if these guys converted after going to prison then the judge wasn’t told before the sentence.
A third possibility is that changing the prayer time while traveling and deferring sporadically-missed prayers are not the same as not praying at the proper time for the duration of a prison term.
A fourth possibility is that even if they could change their practice in a way consistent with exceptions crafted within their faith, we shouldn’t make them do so unnecessarily.
A fifth possibility is the lawsuit is useful and relevant even if these particular defendants are only minorly wronged because we believe in reasonably free exercise of religion even for prisoners.
The inability to pray at the appropriate time is certainly a violation of freedom of religion.
But much of the whole point of prison is, you know, violating people’s freedom. Not being able to do what you want is the whole point. It’s a punishment. If you don’t want to be treated like a criminal, perhaps, goshdarnit, you shouldn’t commit a crime.
I suppose if the inmates did convert in prison, it’s not so surprising that they are unfamiliar with all the requirements of their new faith. Even less surprising since they probably don’t have access to many knowledgeable people who could explain things to them.
But if prisoners are praying in a State or Federal prison, aren’t they breaking the ‘separation of church and state’ rules? What if their prayers offend other prisoners who don’t believe as they do?
Yeah, I was just pulling your chain. that’s something the aclu would say if this had something to do with christian prayers.
Well sure, yes - it’s fair to say that people shouldn’t commit crimes if they expect to be allowed to freely practice their religion. So why not remove all accommodations for prisoners? No chaplains, that would be a start. No access to Bibles. No facilities for prayer of any sort.
I don’t suppose anyone on the SDMB would think this way, but I do feel that if it was the practice of Christianity that was being impeded, a lot of the ACLU’s detractors would take a different view.
During Ramadan, Muslims are not supposed to eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset. If they are offered food only during the ay, then they really are being forced to either violate one the 5 Pillars of Islam (fasting during Ramadan) or starving. I can’t see anything wrong with offering food at a time when Muslims can eat it without violating their religious beliefs. This is analgous to offering Jewish prisoners a choice between eating pork or starving. The ACLU is right. the prison is wrong.
So fucking what? Why the scare quotes around “Muslims?” Is any convert to any religion frauduekent? Are Born-Again Christians not really Christians?
[quote]
who adopted Islam in hopes of getting more priviledged treatment.[.quote]
What “privileged” treament would that be?"
I was thinking the same thing… I don’t know the statistics, but I do know that there is a trend of prisoner converts to Islam. An acquaintance of mine is one of those converts - he’s out of prison now though so I’m not sure if he’s still a Muslim.
The reason we have the free exercise clause is that we recognize that many people believe that if they cannot practice their religion their eternal soul will be condemned. That’s a pretty harsh fate to be handed out by the state. That’s not like not being able to see your wife, or shoot some b-ball with buddies.
And even if you’re OK with assuming the falsity of their religious beliefs, it’s still inflicting a pretty high degree of mental anguish on people who sincerely believe they will be suffering eternal torment as a consequence of the actions.
I think his point was that as Muslim converts they probably don’t know all the rules and were not aware that they could carry over their prayer time to the next time. That’s how I took it…
Would you care to expand on this? I often hear conservatives decrying the ACLU. I find that very strange since I thought conservatives were civil libertarians (at least they often posture themselves as such). What has the ACLU ever done that’s so terrible? What do they “deserve” and why?
Right, because as we all know, the ACLU hates Christians and often brings suit against them just for the hell of it. :rolleyes:
Check Richard Parker’s GD thread for a long list of cases where the ACLU has defended the practice of religion, many of which were on behalf of Christians.
I’m told that prisoner converts to religion are indeed common (no cite) and yes, I suppose Islam does appeal to some. The guys could well have read that they must pray at specified times, but no-one had explained to them that their god would apparently understand if circumstances prevented this.
But in truth, I can’t see why their request is so unreasonable. Greater accommodations are offered to Christian prisoners as a matter of course.
I didn’t innitially notice… maybe he was insinuating that they’re not true muslims, but “Muslims” only in name since they’re recent converts and possibly converted for better treatment in prison?
