If you let people locked up for terrorist activities get together in unsupervised meetings five times a day, what could possibly go wrong?
INDIANAPOLIS, Jan 12 (Reuters) - John Walker Lindh, known as the "American Taliban," and other Muslims housed in an Indiana prison have the right to congregate for daily group prayer sessions, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
The decision by officials at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, to ban daily group prayers for Muslim inmates violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson said.
The ruling came in a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of Lindh, who was captured in Afghanistan and imprisoned in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and two other Muslim inmates.
Sorry, judge, your ruling is just nuts. Religious freedom is important, but so are safety and security. When the encroachment of freedom is slight and the risk for mischief high, shouldn't religious concerns have a lower priority? Anybody can pray anytime anywhere. Forbidding people who have used their religion as a reason to unleash mayhem the privilege of praying together does not seem unreasonable. People who prey together don't get to pray together.
