MacRaven - Dave Haxton's Weblog

Sat, 22 Dec 2007

Inmate says he needs Thor's hammer, drum

These things are really starting to annoy me. You need nothing but your heart and mind to be Tru to the gods. You don't need hammers, horns, drums, staves or swords(!). These material trappings may be pretty, interesting and useful, to be sure, but they are not necessary.

If this fellow was really interested in following the path, he'd have asked for a copy of the Eddas and sagas, and forgone the rest of the paraphernalia.

AP - An inmate is suing the Utah Department of Corrections for denying him his right to practice an ancient Nordic religion while behind bars.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

/Asatru | 1 writeback | permanent link

On 12/22/2007 15:58:42
Lorrie wrote

Prison Ministry Blues

I spent a lot of time with Patrick McCollum this past summer--the guy who's doing more than anyone that I can think of with regards to prison ministry. It's his calling, and while he's not predominantly heathen, he's certainly a chaplain in the old sense of dealing with anyone, of any faith, given to him on as close to their own terms as he can muster. Anyway, I don't know if Patrick is working with this particular plaintiff, but I do know that he counsels his students and clients to shoot for the moon when asking for accomodations--then negotiate down to something more obviously reasonable. The prison administration will get bent out of shape about the sword, the prisoner's representative (clergy, lawyer, etc) will say, "well, okay, how about if..." and the obviously silly request is removed. After a few rounds, we'll be left with, say, a wooden hammer, the horn is still horn but it's blunt, the drum may be reduced to a paddle drum...and so on. These items will all be locked up when not in use in scheduled ceremonies. Reasonable accomodations can and do happen: a group of Sikhs asked to be able to carry knives at all times. Now, that's <cite>prima facie</cite> stupid--the accommodation that was reached was very fine steel thread, cut up into 1/2" pieces, glued to a cardboard "knife". There's no way to turn that into a weapon, but it's still blade-shaped and bears steel, and this was deemed acceptable by all parties. You don't want to say "no objects at all"--after all, a Protestant, technically, needs no paraphernalia save a Bible. Why, they shouldn't even need clergy...but of course they do get these things. They get paid, full-time clergy in many prisons, as do Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics. So, I suspect that's at least some of what's going on here: shoot for the moon, then negotiate for reasonable accommodation, based on relevant precedents--and the case law in this particular corner of the field is interesting stuff indeed. -- Lorrie

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