Does the Constitution enumerate the right to group prayer with taxpayer-funded prayer leaders? via Federal ruling: Texas prisons violating rights of Muslims – Houston Chronicle. h/t Bare Naked Islam

The Texas prison system is violating the rights of Muslim inmates with rules that make it all but impossible for them to freely practice their religion, a federal judge has ruled.

In the ruling made public Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt, said there are not enough Muslims in Texas, especially in rural areas, to meet the prison system’s criteria for Muslim inmates to hold services and conduct related activities.

By contrast, he said, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice illegally favors Christian inmates because there are ample civilians and chaplains of that faith in the state to conduct services in prisons. “The TDCJ knowingly adopted a policy it knew would impose requirements on Muslim inmates’ religious services that could not be satisfied by volunteers or overcome by Muslim inmates,” Hoyt said.

The ruling is the latest volley in a clash that goes back to a 1969 lawsuit that resulted in the state having to accommodate an array of Muslim religious needs, including serving pork-free meals and permitting inmates to have Islamic literature and memorabilia.

Sharia has been creeping in Texas since 1969 and the litigation jihad continues.

That lawsuit was settled in 1977, but was brought back to life in 2012, when the Texas Attorney General contended that it should be released from the aging settlement, and immediately enacted new regulations regarding how religion is practiced among the approximately 151,000 inmates in the state’s prison system.

Read More: http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/texas-judge-rules-prisons-violating-rights-of-muslim-convicts/