A Christian Ministry that housed inmates in improved conditions if they were Christians was told to stop immediately. A judge deemed that the action ignored the constitutional rights of inmates subscribing to other faiths, The Christian Post reports.
The ruling comes after a lawsuit from Muslim prisoners who felt they were being treated unfairly by not having access to the same improved conditions the “Christian pod” or “God’s Pod”, as it was dubbed, was given.
The lawsuit alleged that the jail sponsored the Christian pod and that it was exclusivist in nature, thereby depriving non-Christian prisoners of their rights under the Constitution.
Some of the features of the ‘God Pod’ include a microwave, better-bunking conditions, and the chance to stay in that pod where other prisoners could not enter.
The U.S. District Judge, Anthony Trenga, ruled “based on the undisputed facts, as a matter of law, Christianity was preferred at Riverside Regional Jail while the LLP was in effect in violation of Plaintiff’s constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the Virginia constitution.”
The ruling was shared online by controversial Muslim rights advocacy and legal defense group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
In a statement from CAIR, the group’s national litigation director Lena Masri wrote, “We welcome the…
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