There will now be only government approved religion

... at least in our prisons.

Thanks to Mark Kleiman (hat tip to PZ's old nemesis), I have now learned that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has ordered prison chaplains to get rid of any item not on the secret list of "approved" religious books.

The New York Times has the article: "Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries."

Don't worry, it's only Islamic terrorism books (yea, right -- all those al-Qa'ida bomb making books they've had lying around in their libraries. Until they're sure Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Barth don't have any bombing making chapters they're not on the secret, but leaked, list):

Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Ms. Billingsley said, “We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts.”

So, we will have only socially approved religion in our prisons and it will be decided by our fundy administration.