The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 eclipse is an event significant to many religions and that the lockdown violates their constitutional rights to practice their faiths.

NEW YORK (AP) — Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday’s total solar eclipse.

The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.

The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist.

“A solar eclipse is a rare, natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many,” the complaint reads, noting that Bible passages describe an eclipse-like phenomenon during Jesus’ crucifixion while sacred Islamic works describes a similar event when the Prophet Muhammad’s son died.

read more: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-york-inmates-are-suing-to-watch-the-solar-eclipse-after-state-orders-prisons-locked-down

    • proleEnglish
      3•8 months ago

      Christian’s are actually respecting that there’s legal protections to nature worship, much less non indigenous nature worship

      Yeah highly doubt that…

      Keep in mind, that article is about events that occurred in 2005. To say a lot has changed since then would be a colossal understatement. Especially when we’re talking about the attitudes of the average Republican then vs. now.