What Part Of, "No Religious Test," Don’t You Get?

West Virginia has been requiring that inmates participate in a religion based substance abuse treatment program to qualify for parole for years.

Not any more.

The West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (WVDCR) has changed its parole requirements after a judge ruled in favor of an atheist inmate who claimed that he was denied parole because he did not want to participate in a religious program.

Andrew Miller, who was incarcerated at Saint Marys Correctional Center for breaking and entering, filed a lawsuit against the WVDCR in April in the U.S. District Court of Southern West Virginia saying that the state would not accommodate his request for a non-religious substance abuse program. Although Miller was not in prison on a substance-related charge, Miller was enrolled in the program because he is in recovery from addiction and the program was a condition of his parole; the lawsuit said that Miller was denied parole multiple times because of his refusal to do the program.

In a release on Wednesday, the American Atheists, which represented Miller in the case alongside Mountain State Justice, said that it won the lawsuit and that the WVDCR removed its “requirement that participants attend religious 12-step meetings,” and the “religious components from its federally funded Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program (RSAT) handbook.” The release also said the WVDCR agreed to pay $80,000 in legal fees.

I'd like to see some criminal prosecutions of the folks who refused to do the right thing, but I'm not holding my breath.