but I know clearly from the person you come across on here that it certainly is not your intent.

But Jody, in a nutshell, what I just read from you is why non-believers often feel disrespected in our society.

You wrote:

They have been taught that love is conditional...at least allowing religion in [and it would be a very basic premise I would think,] is to teach an unconditional love...something foreign to them.

The first thing I got from that statement was that only people of faith were capable of understanding and imparting "unconditional love", that somehow the concept of being able to throw your entire being into devotion of another individual is somehow the sole property of religions. I can attest firmly that is far from the case and, in many cases religion has found a way to limit love in our world.

Although the message of many ministers and sects is certainly that God or Jesus love unconditionally and any followers should emulate their act, just as many purveyors of the "message" have found ways to interpret their faith into extremely exclusionary instructions. God only loves those that accept Jesus. The rest be damned to Hell. Gay people are sinners. Heathens must be smitten. History shows that there are no guarantees which of those messages will find their way into the prison curriculum. Which of those themes will the prisoners receive Jody? How can the state guarantee the program stays on the "love all" theme?

Just as ER replied, I am not against religious teaching being available to criminals within our prison systems but why in the world would the state be involved in that activity? Why would the religious individuals and organizations want the state involved anyway. Remember that the concept of a separation of church and state is not just to protect non-believers but primarily to prevent those religious organizations from having the government dictate their message.

The truth is Jody, in all likelihood, the religions sponsoring this program want the state involved because it brings them power, money, and a captive audience. As much as you wish to believe that there's only good intentions going on here, the primary desire for the instructors here is not to help the prisoners become better citizens but instead to fill their own ranks and preach only their philosophy. Even if heavily regulated and the program is designed to give a broad menu of faiths to choose from, once the "counselors" get behind closed doors with individuals, you know as well as I do that the message will be narrowed down to that of whatever fundamentalist Christian church designed and promoted this.

You asked "Where is the beginning?" referring to where to start when trying to bend the poor ethics of humans that clearly got it wrong. The beginning Jody is to show respect, to lead by example. Their examples in life were piss-poor for the most part. The people they interact with most in their environment (other than fellow prisoners) are their guards. Perhaps the energy and resources you wish the state to impart to the religious community might go into better training for those assets in dealing with human behavior and emotions. Too often the tales are of prison staff being authoritarian and brutal. Obviously these folks have to be tough to ensure they aren't taken advantage of but it's my guess that the truly great guards that clearly understand human behavior have done more to reform inmates than any jailside preacher ever did.

Art