Finally shocked out of my posting lethargy by this post from Julia. The title is her final observaton; I couldn’t resist.
The Detroit News has the details:
Joseph Hanas was 19 when he pleaded guilty to a marijuana possession charge in February 2001 in Genesee Circuit Court and was placed in a diversion program for young, non-violent offenders.
Upon the recommendation of a probation officer, Judge Robert Ransom sentenced Hanas to the state-sponsored rehabilitation program – the Inner City Christian Outreach Residential Program, run by a Pentecostal church.
Hanas said the program did not offer drug treatment or counseling, nor did it have any organized program other than reading the Bible and attending Pentecostal services.
He said his rosary and prayer book was taken from him and his religion was denounced as “witchcraft.†Hanas said he was told his only chance of avoiding prison and a felony record was to convert to the Pentecostal faith.
After seven weeks, his mother and lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union in Flint succeeded in getting Hanas back to court.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, claims Ransom acknowledged the failings of the center but ruled that Hanas did not satisfactorily complete the program and sentenced him to three months in jail, three months in a boot camp, and placed him on a tether for three months. Ransom also placed Hanas on four years probation, which he continues to serve.
“This man was punished for insisting on the right to practice Catholicism and refusing conversion to the Pentecostal faith,†said Kary Moss, director of the Michigan ACLU.
I wish I had something witty or even mildly interesting to say about this, but the foam boiling out of my mouth keeps dribbling on the keyboard. On the one hand, you’d think people who speak in tongues might know witchcraft when they see it, but fortunately for Hanas, we stopped prosecuting that partiular offense the last time religion and the law got too cozy.
One would think that the conservative wackjobs, when they start barking about the Second Amendment, might stop and ask themselves why it’s the second, and if there might, in fact, be a First Amendment they should look up at some point.
