RICHMOND, Va. — The Rutherford Institute has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against government officials for discriminating against Protestant Christian inmates at a state-run sex offender rehabilitation facility and restricting their access to Bible studies and Protestant communion. In a complaint filed in federal court against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the director of the Virginia Center for Behavioral and Rehabilitation (VCBR), Rutherford Institute attorneys allege that VCBR violated First Amendment and federal and state statutes protecting the religious exercise of institutionalized persons when facility administrators restricted Protestant residents’ ability to celebrate communion and hold a weekly Protestant Bible study while at the same time accommodating the religious beliefs of Catholic and Muslim inmates to participate in their respective religious services. Affiliate attorney Tim Coffield is assisting The Rutherford Institute with the lawsuit. “The most fundamental guarantee of the First Amendment is that the government must remain neutral when it comes to religion, neither favoring nor penalizing one religion over another,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People . “Certainly, the government can make no compelling case for depriving Christian prisoners of access to […]
