http://www.onpointnews.com/NEWS/Will-Hell-Freeze-Over-if-Satanist-Inmate-Wins-Suit.html

Will Hell Freeze Over if Satanist Inmate Wins Suit?

The heightened protections under a federal law for the religious exercise of prisoners may not extend to the case of a Montana inmate who has sued Yellowstone County jail officials for restricting his practice of Satanism.

Jason Indreland

Jason Indreland’s case is very similar to McCorkle v. Johnson, 881 F.2d 993 (1989), in which the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Alabama state prison system did not violate the free exercise rights of an inmate by denying his requests for items including The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Book of Rituals, and a Satanic medallion.
“The restrictions challenged by the plaintiff are reasonably related to valid penological interests,” the court said, applying the rational basis standard of Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987).
Indreland, 35, is now serving five years in a Montana state prison, with two years suspended, for felony drug possession. In a pro se complaint, he says he “has been a practicing Satanist for the past 10 years” but was unable to freely exercise his rights while he resided at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility between March 2007 and July 2008.
When he was booked into the jail, he alleges, guards stripped him of his medallion — “a protective symbol in his religion and belief system” — and on “numerous occasions” during his confinement denied his requests for “a Satanic Bible or Book of Satanic Rituals to practice his chosen religion.”

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Let me get started with my thoughts on this by saying that I am an atheist who hates religion with an extreme passion. 

The only thing I agree with Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto is that religion is the opiate of the people.  It makes otherwise good people do horrible things, all because they have faith in an imaginary being.

With that being said, though, I still agree that people should have freedom of religion.  Freedom to practice whatever this wish, just as long as they do not try to foist their own personal beliefs on me.  It really aggravates me when those crazy christians go around handing out tracts and hanging stuff on my door trying to get me to come to their church.  If I wanted to go, I would be there already, right?

This, though, is just plain wrong.  It violates the concept of religious freedom in so many ways.  If a practicing satanist is not allowed to practice his religion while incarcerated, then no one should be permitted to practice their religion while incarcerated.  Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Druz, Hindus, Taoists, Shintos, if these people are still allowed to practice and are provided with the appropriate vestments to perform their religious ceremonies, then Jason Indreland should be permitted to have what he requires as well.

The $10 million lawsuit is a might bit outrageous, of course.  While he should receive some sort of recompense for having his rights stolen from him, it should definitely not be anything to that extreme.

Not to get off on a tangent, but I do want to say that I do not feel that this man should even be in prison in the first place.  Felony drug charges?  While not a user at all, I all for the complete decriminalization of all drugs because of what it would do to society, but that is for a different day.

So, just to summarize, if a person chooses Satan as the imaginary being he wants to pay homage to, then he should not be stopped from doing so, otherwise everyone should have to stop worshipping god or allah or krishna or vishnu or whomever they believe in.