A broad swath of religious organizations and civil liberties groups  often on opposite sides of contentious issues  have joined together to condemn a proposed rule that they say would prohibit some religious texts in federal penitentiary libraries.

The Bureau of Prisons in January proposed that “materials that could incite, promote, or otherwise suggest the commission of violence or criminal activity” may be excluded from chapel libraries. An alliance of groups  Christian, Muslim and Jewish, conservative and liberal  opposed the rule during the open comments period, which ended Tuesday.

The word “could” is at the center of a two-year dispute between the agency and these groups over which religious texts should be banned from prison libraries.

The American Civil Liberties Union and several other civil rights and religious groups argue that the agency is going beyond the provision of the Second Chance Act of 2007, which included a restriction on materials that “seek” to incite violence.