A prison inmate in Kansas is suing her facility claiming it has violated the First Amendment by promoting Christianity to the prison population.
Shari Webber-Dunn has served 23 years as an inmate at the Topeka Correctional Facility (TCF) in Topeka, Kansas.
She is a member of the American Humanist Association (AHA) which has among its aims 'advancing and preserving separation of church and state'.
She is also registered with TCF as a practising Thelemite – the belief system developed by the controversial English occultist Aleister Crowley.
The lawsuit filed by her and the American Humanist Association says: 'This action arises out of and challenges Defendants' policy, custom, and practice of sponsoring the Christian religion at the Topeka Correctional Facility – a state-run institution – by displaying religious messages, images, and symbols on public bulletin boards and elsewhere on prison grounds; encouraging and facilitating prayer requests; displaying a large wooden cross in a multi-purpose room that is used for various purposes throughout the week including visitation with non-inmates; frequently choosing and broadcasting Christian movies on facility televisions as well as inmates' privately owned televisions; and otherwise imposing Christian beliefs on inmates, all in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as applied to Kansas by the Fourteenth Amendment.'
Under the First Amendment, the US government is prohibited from making any law that establishes a religion.
The suit is filed against Joe Norwood, secretary of the Kansas Department of Corrections prison warden Shannon Meyer and others at the facility.
It follows a period when Webber-Dunn was assigned to a particular dormitory where the large bulletin board was supposed to be used for posting facility notices such as menus, clinic schedules, parole information, programme and class schedules, job changes, etc.
The suit says: 'Throughout Webber-Dunn's assignment to C-Dorm, there were three Christian prayers stapled to the large bulletin bulletin board in the day room. The three prayers are titled: A Morning Prayer; An Evening Prayer; and a Prayer for Those in Authority.'
One of the prayers read: 'My Father in Heaven, as I reach the end of another day, I humbly pray my walk throughout this prison has made a difference to someone, as a beacon of Your ever-glowing love. You are indeed a mighty God, and I praise You.'
Anyone who removes an item from a prison noticeboard without permission risks serious punishment under prison rules.
There was also a request for books for the chaplain's library, and other explicitly Christian messages, prayers, blessings and pictures, as well as an eight-foot tall wooden cross in one area of the facility and further examples of 'proselytising activity', the suit says.
The suit also states that Webber-Dunn, sentenced to 40 years behind bars in 1994 after being found guilty of helping her boyfriend murder her husband, had to hire an attorney at considerable cost to assert successfully her right to a statue of the deity Lakshmi, in line with her own beliefs.
Samir Arif, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections, said the department does not comment on pending litigation.
