It used to be that if you committed a crime and ended up doing some jail time that you just had to live with the Rather dull prison diet. But up here in Queensland, under the Beattie Government, instead of the prison diet being determined by the government (under sound nutritional guidelines) we now have the menu being decided upon the instructions in the Koran.
ALL prisoners at Brisbane’s Wolston Correctional Centre are being served halal meat – whether or not they are Muslim.
Halal meat is blessed and slaughtered by a Muslim slaughterman and cooked and stored in accordance with religious laws. “Wolston prison provides all prisoners halal meat as it can be sourced at the same price as non-halal meat,” a Corrective Services spokesman said.
However, only about 10 of the prison’s 570 inmates currently request a halal diet.
Strangely enough I think that this is just ridiculous. Why should prisoner’s diet be determined by the religious beliefs of such a small minority of the inmates? Sadly instead of standing up for the rights of the majority, and secularism, we have them all forced to meat* the desires of a very small but noisy minority.
Finally, does this mean that bacon is of the menu?
Cheers Comrades
😉
*deliberate spelling:)
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
Agree entirely Iain, if true then I think this is ludicruous. It’s like a whole family having to eat vegetarian meals just become one of them is vegetarian. And I myself do love a bit of dead animal, in fact I had a big bacon fry-up this morning.
Muslims and Jews take note, if there is a heaven on earth it may well be crispy bacon… 😉
Or roast pork with crackling and apple sauce… 🙂
I have to disagree.
If they can get halal meat for the same price, and considering they’d have to feed the 10 Muslim inmates with halal meat, while for the rest, it doesn’t matter whether it’s halal or not (i.e., the actual meat isn’t altered in any way, unless your superstitious or something), then why not do they easy thing and get all halal meat.
As for bacon, they can serve bacon, and the muslim inmates can leave it alone. It’s easy to tell if something is bacon or not, it’s impossible to tell whether or not it’s halal meat – and yes, I’m aware that therefore, you may as well give them any old meat and say it’s halal, but that’s unethical and disrespectful.
The problem is that you make an assumption that has no basis in fact, namely that all of the other prisoners do not care if the meat they eat has been ritually slaughtered as required by the Koran
But the current regime is disrespecting the majority who are nominally Christian or at least secular people. And my understanding of Halal suggests that if bacon is cooked in the same kitchen then that kitchen becomes “unclean”. What are the odds that the requirement for halal food has more to do with “working the system” than actual religious piety?
Kudos for trying to defend the indefensible Jangari but you need a better argument than the diet of other prisoners does not matter.
If bacon is being cooked in the kitchen then they are obviously using two suppliers (since you can’t buy ‘halal bacon’) so why not just buy the non-halal meat from wherever you are purchasing the bacon?
And this raises another issue, why are #$@& prisoners being fed bacon in the first place? It’s too expensive and nice to be fed to crims. Let them eat Spam, I say!
Let them eat Spam, I say!
What is wrong with feeding them gruel? or bread and water? meat only makes them stroppy!
😉
Quite apart from this business with prison food, we recently had the much more dangerous spectace of the recent appearance by the leaders of the major parties at a debate staged for the Christian population. The fact that this debate took place is not the problem. The problem is that it was subject to non-disclosure agreements and was designed to exclude the general public.
At about the same time, several would-be candidates for US President appeared at a debate staged for the gay and lesbian community. The big difference between that and the shameful spectacle in this country is that anyone who cared to watch the Logo Channel at that time could have seen that debate.
This prison food business is something that needs to be watched, but there are much larger threats to the ideal of separating religion and state.
It’s not surprising that lefties like Beattie allow this, after all, they are only looking after their supporters.
Forget the bacon and meat, what we need is a Sherrif Joe style arrangement.
Prison is not supposed to be easy.
“Prison is not supposed to be easy.”
You should take that up Iain…he seems all about coddling prisoners and being concerned about their diet. Rather strange for a Conservative I would have thought, unless of course its another way to have a dig at Muslims…
…that should be “…take that up WITH Iain…”
“But the current regime is disrespecting the majority who are nominally Christian or at least secular people.”
I wonder if they even care…has anyone asked them? Btw, I’m secular, and I’ve eaten Kosher meat and didn’t have a problem with it…AND I’m still seuclar!
I nominate big bad MK to go into our prisons and teach those damn crims/Muslims/lefties a lesson! Hell, I’ll even pay for the rectal patch-up job when he comes out.
I wonder if they even care…has anyone asked them?
Duh… that is sort of my point here SM it has just been assumed that they would not care. some how I think that a significant number actually would care. They are unlikely to be consulted or to have lawyers waste taxpayer’s money on such frivolous complaints. The person who ultimately caused this situation is a scumbag rapist who does not deserve bread and water let alone Halal meals…
Perhaps it’s a fitting punishment to feed them halal rissoles then, after dinner, tell them they are now de facto Muslims. There’ll be 72 virgins waiting for them in Paradise, just don’t mention that they are actually virgin camels.
what? you have something against minority rights?
No Salahudin,
I don’t, but I do have a problem with a very small minority being priviliged over the majority.
Equal rights mean just that . Rights that are equal.
Cheers
one of the basics of the foundation of our country: protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority.
🙂
All jokes aside. This is an example of expediency over principle, and in the end that is nearly always a bad idea that ends up making things worse.
What principle? That the towel-heads should be forced to do eat meat that they believe could jeopardise their soul just because to accommodate them would be seen to be pandering to them, even if it is to no detriment to the majority?
Your principle is on shaky ground here.
Jangari
You are in grave danger of offending some people by referring to Muslims as “towel-heads”. 😉
In any case the principle is that the religious practices of a minority should not be imposed upon the majority. Would you not object to requiring Christian prayer in the classrooms of our public schools? (Assuming a yes Here Ok?)Then this is very much the same principle here. Our prisons are secular in nature and although I have no objection to inmates worshiping as they please making all inmates recipients of food blessed by any one faith is just like putting religion into public schools.
If the Pope blessed the water in whichever dam services you, or well, or whatever you drink from out there, would you refuse to drink it?
Jangari
It does not matter to me personally however I actually still have a choice about what I eat and drink so I can make my own decisions. Some one doing their porridge does not have such a choice. Which is my point here. The Government has made a decision on the assumption that they can get away with it not because it is the right decision. That is bad government by any measure.
So you’re happy to restrict the imperative of incarcerated Muslims to eat halal meat, to preserve the choice of the non-Muslim majority for whom it really doesn’t matter except for symbolically?
What happened to all this prisoners don’t deserve nuttin’ rhetoric you used above? Does that only apply to the Muslims?
Jangari
I have no problems with individual prisoners dietary requirements being meet and that includes the dietary requirements to eat Halal or Kosher.
As anyone can tell from my saying “all jokes aside” I am making it clear that my calls for prisoners to be fed Gruel or bread and water are essentially satire/humour and not to be taken seriously. Much the same as your reference to Muslims as “towel Heads” was actually.
Most religious practice as it relates to the treatment, blessing or processing of food is all about symbolism and I’ll ask you again how do you know that they don’t care? Because I’m willing to wager that a large percentage would care but they just don’t have lawyers to shit stir on their behalf.
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