No, it is of consequence as I explained earlier. The constitution makes a distinction between what the government should allow and what it can initiate. Which, as I said, is why school prayer is ok if the students do it on their own, but can’t be initiated by the school.
What are you talking about? Prisoners are given Korans. This does not violate the constitution. The fact that the gov’t was proactive in providing them is simply a matter of logistics. THe constuttion doesn’t say anything about HOW this is done.
All I’m saying is that the whole distinction between “establishing religion” (which the gov’t must not do) and allowing “the free exercise thereof” (which it must do) hinges on *who * is initiating what. It’s a distinction with a legal difference. And saying you’re jsut being proactive doesn’t sound like a strong rebuttal to me. Schools can’t initiate a school prayer by arguing that they knew everyone wanted to anyway and they’re just expediting the process.
At what point does being proactive become establishing religion? Probably at the point that you suspect the motives of the people doing it. If it were a fundamentalist warden passing out bibles and crosses in Attica, the ACLU would be making a fuss. At which point the warden would pipe up that he’s doing exactly the same thing as the military in Guantanomo - and he’d be right, IMHO.
You could argue that in Attica there may be a majority Christian component, but they’re not exclusively Christian. But then again prove to me that they’re each and every one practicing Muslims in Guantanamo. How strong a majority do you have to have to nullify the establishment clause? 75%? 99%? 99.5% ?
I see nowhere at all in the case under discussion where the government is establishing or prohibiting a religion.
You’re kidding about your request for proof that the Muslim fundamentalist fanatics are Muslims, aren’t you?
Guard: Here’s your prison jumpsuit. Would you like a prayer mat and Qu’ran with that?
Prisoner: Yes.
My God, there hasn’t been a constitutional crisis this intense since the Civil War!
uglybeech seems to be arguing for the sake of argument. The issues of due process and speedy trials are much more important and interesting than who offered or requested a Qu’ran.
I have to go back and quote myself to respond:
I’m arguing a) mostly for the sake of accuracy, (if you’re satisfied that unimportance=constitutionality more power to you). But also because b) I’m not thrilled about the argument that if the majority is of one religion, prisons should issue all inmates the accoutrements of that religion on arrival- I don’t see how that wouldn’t apply to majority Christian prisons and c) because the blowback of accepting your arguments is going to be Christian Conservatives yammering on about the liberal establishment catering to Islam and discriminating against Christianity. And they’d have a point. A stupid point, but a point.
Unless and until you can demonstrate the prisoners are forced to take and keep the Qu’ran (i.e. a prisoner who refused it but the guard insisted anyway), you haven’t established that the prisoner’s right to freely exercise his own non-Qu’ran-based religion has been infringed. Further, the simple issuing of religious books does not seem like the beginning of a particularly slippery slope to a state religion.
I expect a prisoner is free to give back his issued Qu’ran, tear it up, use it for toilet paper, etc. There’s no indication a prisoner is forced to read from it, or that privileges are being denied to prisoners that refuse to observe Islam in a manner the guards find appropriate.
I also expect that if a prisoner claimed to be of a faith other than Islam (highly unlikely in this circumstance) , similarly reasonable accommodation would be made.
As for your argument being “mostly for the sake of accuracy”, well, you’ve chosen to split a particularly insignificant hair. There are minor moot-court-type issues on which fine points of constitutionality could be seriously debated. I’m at a loss to see how this is one of them.
Mere speculation here, but I suspect if one of the prisoners at Gitmo told the guards he wasn’t Muslim, didn’t want or need a Koran, and would like a Torah or Bible instead, he would most likely receive the book no questions asked.
OK both of you are right, the government is not violating the free exercise of religion clause. But that’s not what I’m arguing. I’m arguing that it seems (to me) to violate the establishment clause. In essence, I’m saying the act of passing out of unsolicited Korans and prayer beads amounts to promoting and endorsing a religion.
Can I just ask you - would it be ok for the government to issue all inmates Bibles and crosses in a regular prison? I actually don’t know if that would be legal or not. I think not because it would be considered endorsing Christianity. But if you think it’s not ok what is the legal distinction you are making between the two scanarios?
Yes, but this thread isn’t about those issues is it? The OP asked only if this was a constitutional practice. I’m trying to discuss that point.
IF it’s ok for bibles to be issued to all prisoners in majority Christian prisons THEN I will stipulate that the law sees this as an insignificant hair. Buf IF NOT, then the the hair must matter. And it’s relevant to the OP’s question.
It’s not simply a majority of the detainees. Why are you having such a hard time grasping the simple concept of 100%? 100% is every single one of them is Muslim. Bibles are not, AFAIK, issued to every single prisoner in a majority Christian prisoner population.
I think it would be perfectly legal and not at all inappropriate if inmates upon entering an institution were offered a choice of basic religious paraphernalia (Old Testament/yarmulke, New Testament/crucifix, Qu’ran/prayer mat) and I’m a hardcore atheist. Deliberate denial of these items (or denial of certain items) would be more legally problematic, as has been pointed out in this thread.
There’s no legal distinction to be made; simply the policy decisions of the particular institution. In a regular prison with a more varied population, the policy may be to issue these items upon request, rather than at the time of prisoner arrival. Guantanamo is notable only (well, on this particular issue - it’s notable for other reasons as well) because there’s a strongly-supported assumption that all prisoners will happen to be Muslim, and devoutly Muslim at that.
I don’t get the point. Since the constitutionnal and legal rules apparently don’t apply in Guantanamo, how could they be violated. They could force every detainee to read the bible aloud 10 times a day, put a huge 3 meters high cross in front of each cell and it still would be the same?
Given the situation in Guantanamo, debattting whether some constitutionnal clause is violated by distributing korans to the inmates is not only ludicrous but bordering offensive.
The point of the argument is a subtext which concerns domestic American politics. It goes something like this: “Those secular liberals bitch and moan about prayer in school and nativity scenes in front of city hall at Christmas, but they don’t say anything about the government promoting Islam at Guantanamo. They bitch and moan about due process and speedy trials, but not one word about the Establishment Clause. This proves that liberals hate Christianity, and that we conservative Christians are a persecuted minority in our own country.”
I exaggerate only very slightly.
I am a very strong believer in the separation of church of state. IMHO, I find issuing a prisoner a religious text automatically slightly problematic, just a tiny bit. Simply changing from automatically issuing it to asking “Hey, want this Koran? Or Bible? Or Necromicon? Or what?” erases that tiny bit of a problem.
Shrug. I’ve looked around and nobody really knows who they are exactly. They’re from 38 countries is about the best breakdown I’ve found. Here’s the Pentagon’s explanation of who they are. It does not exlude the possibility that there are non-Muslims there. And you and the pentagon are assuming that they’re all guilty - which we know isn’t so, since some have already been cleared and released. It’s safe to assume that the vast majority are Muslim. Maybe all are of Muslim origin. But that they’re all - as was insisted on earlier - Muslim fundamentalists or fanatics?
I have made no assumptions about anyone’s guilt or innocence. And I certainly do not equate Muslim with Guilt. I will thank you not to mischaracterize my posts in such a manner again.
It does have a certain Titanic deck-chair tone, doesn’t it?
In response to this:
You responded with
Which asserts that everyone at Guantanamo is a Muslim Fundamentalist Fanatic. That, to me, presumes that the Pentagon has it right, and that these people are all al Qaeda Jihadis and it’s not a case of mistaken identity, wrong place at the wrong time, etc. It presumes their guilt. Or are you saying that you only assumed that they’re definitely all Muslim Fundamentalist Fanatics but not necessarily guilty of anything? I apologize if I didn’t see the distinction.
At what point did you read me as saying you equated Muslim with guilt?
That’s true.
At the point where you asserted that I assumed they’re all guilty.