My brother posted an item entitled "I found Jesus"
This is my response.

There are so few programs and people that are actually attempting to solve the problems that prisoners face, that people who are more concerned with "is this religious" than "does it work" are, to me, shameful. Too many people think that "Freedom of Religion" equals "Freedom from Religion". If the system was allowing a Christian group to set up a program like this, and at the same time refusing another group the same right, then there would be a problem. However, I don't see anyone else stepping up and facing the fact that most prisoners have no chance on the outside. Their options on release are either go back to the life and people they knew, and that got them in to prison in the first place, or attempt to start over with not money, no support, no experience, and no social structure that can help them make the right choices to keep them from going back.

A fundamental tenant of most Christian denominations is evangelism. Yet many people seem to feel that being told about another view of the world is a personal affront and that aspect of these people's faith should be repressed. They seem to think that a church having access to the prison is more harmful than the access that gangs have. Frequently these are the people who cry bigotry when someone says "I believe this behavior is immoral." and yet have no problem using the words "Christian" and "Republican" as epithets. To them, preventing Muslims or homosexuals access to the public areas is a major breach of the Constitution, but granting that access to Christians is an equal breach.

Yes, the government should keep it's hands off of personal belief. This includes religion, sexuality, and marriage. Unless the exercise of those beliefs causes harm to another person, there is no reason to supress them in any way. However, being exposed to other beliefs, even ones that tell me what I'm doing is wrong, does not harm me. If someone tells me that I am destined for Hell because I work in theatre (there are some who believe this), I am free to tell them I disagree, I am free to tell them they're going to Hell for being a bigot, I am free to attempt to convince them that they are wrong. I am free to ignore them, I am free to walk away. I am not free to tell them that because I disagree with them, they cannot speak to me.

At no point in the article does it indicate that there is a requirement to join a church, take an oath, espouse any particular creed. If people feel that what this group is doing is an unfair promotion of a specific religion, rather than trying to close down the program, and send the prisoners back to a population in which no effort is made to teach them the skills that they need to survive in the outside world, perhaps they should start their own programs to teach those skills without the religious aspect. Offer an alternative. While saying "If you eat your veggies, you can have some cake." may not be the best method, is denying both the veggies and the cake better?

A response to Day of Silence, a Viddler Episode by Chris J Davis.

Obviously, the blog day of silence would have more impact when observed by those who actually post regularly enough that a day of not postiing might be noticed. That said, the whole concept of a "Blog Day of Silence" seems a bit wrong to me. First off, I believe that a "moment of silence" is "non-religious" way of offering a chance for people to pray, as a group for something. Because the vast majority of people seem to think freedom of religion equates to freedom from religion, we've been forced to disguise the fact that for most of us, even if only in times of great loss, we feel there is a time when prayer, meditation, contemplation, or whatever you want to call it, is neccessary. So we have our moment of silence. But, to me, a "Blog Day of Silence" is something else entirely. While a few may spend a few moments in reflection or prayer, most who "participate" will not. They will go a day without posting, they will stick a little graphic on their site, and they'll go about their life as usual, but with a little bit of "Look-what-a-good-person-I-am" feeling. For most of us, we blog about ourselves and our lives. It's an interesting thing to do, but our blogs are about ourselves, and to me, something like this is also, for most people, just about ourselves. I really think the impact of something like this is minimal. It's very preaching-to-the-choir.

If you really want to make a difference, by all means don't post, but rather than bragging about not posting, take the time you'd use to post to write a letter to congress ask for sensible and constitutional gun control laws and better treatment for mental illness. I think that will have much more impact than a lack of posts and a little graphic.

(If you want my opinions on gun control, you'll have to ask, that's a whole other (long) post of its own.)