{"id":1235,"date":"2009-02-13T16:15:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-13T16:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in.php"},"modified":"2009-02-13T16:15:47","modified_gmt":"2009-02-13T16:15:47","slug":"ministry-sues-for-access-to-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in","title":{"rendered":"Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) The Oklahoma Department of Corrections&#8217; refusal to allow a Christian ministry access to send Bibles, books about Jesus Christ and other religious materials to inmates has sparked a federal lawsuit.<br \/>\nWingspread Christian Ministries, headquartered in Prairie Grove, Ark., and operated by Illinois-based Evangelists for Christ Inc., filed the lawsuit Wednesday (Feb. 11) in U.S. District Court in Muskogee.<br \/>\nPrison restrictions on prisoners&#8217; correspondence violate the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and Oklahoma&#8217;s Religious Freedom Act, the 12-page lawsuit petition claims.<br \/>\n&#8220;Restricting Wingspread&#8217;s freedom of speech and religion is not only harmful to our constitutional rights, it is also very harmful to those within prison walls in need of spiritual sustenance,&#8221; said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville, Va.-based civil liberties organization, which represents the plaintiffs.<br \/>\nNeville Massie, executive assistant to Oklahoma Corrections Director Justin Jones, said the department would not comment on pending litigation.<br \/>\nWingspread sends similar religious materials to prisoners in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, New York and Texas but &#8220;has not encountered restrictions upon and impediments to its ministry similar to those encountered in Oklahoma,&#8221; the lawsuit states.<br \/>\nAccording to the suit, Oklahoma prison regulations mandate that &#8220;all orders for publications will be made directly to the publisher of the material or to a legitimate bookstore.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe regulation does not allow a ministry to send Bibles or other religious materials; only a publisher, bookstore or book dealer may do so, according to the plaintiffs. Wingspread said it also has tried to send money orders worth $15 to $20 to indigent or mentally ill prisoners during the Christmas season, only to have them returned by prison officials. The ministry said it also was informed that while individuals could write letters to inmates, ministries could not.<br \/>\n&#8220;Because Wingspread&#8217;s ministry involves personal communication with prisoners and building a personal relationship with the prisoner, correspondence through the mail is crucial to the pursuit and success of this ministry,&#8221; plaintiffs&#8217; attorney Joseph Clark wrote in the petition.<br \/>\n<em>By Bobby Ross Jr.<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service.All rights reserved.No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) The Oklahoma Department of Corrections&#8217; refusal to allow a Christian ministry access to send Bibles, books about Jesus Christ and other religious materials to inmates has sparked a federal lawsuit. Wingspread Christian Ministries, headquartered in Prairie Grove, Ark., and operated by Illinois-based Evangelists for Christ Inc., filed the lawsuit Wednesday (Feb. 11)&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) The Oklahoma Department of Corrections&#8217; refusal to allow a Christian ministry access to send Bibles, books about Jesus Christ and other religious materials to inmates has sparked a federal lawsuit. Wingspread Christian Ministries, headquartered in Prairie Grove, Ark., and operated by Illinois-based Evangelists for Christ Inc., filed the lawsuit Wednesday (Feb. 11)&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-13T16:15:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates","og_description":"OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) The Oklahoma Department of Corrections&#8217; refusal to allow a Christian ministry access to send Bibles, books about Jesus Christ and other religious materials to inmates has sparked a federal lawsuit. Wingspread Christian Ministries, headquartered in Prairie Grove, Ark., and operated by Illinois-based Evangelists for Christ Inc., filed the lawsuit Wednesday (Feb. 11)&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-02-13T16:15:47+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in","name":"Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-13T16:15:47+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-13T16:15:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/ministry-sues-for-access-to-in#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Ministry Sues for Access to Inmates"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}