This story seems pretty innocuous — almost silly — except for one detail.

In Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where a new jail will soon be open for business, the Washington County Sheriff Rick Silver is allowing local residents a chance to have a bit of fun and see the new facilities — while raising money for charity.

Silver says he will open the doors of the new jail for one night, Friday, November 18, 2011. For $50 you can be processed into the jail facility, photographed, and fingerprinted on a charge that will get a laugh out of your family members for years to come. Once jail personnel process you into the facility you will change into brand new orange clothing and tour the facility and be served a jail meal. You will get to go home after out processing which starts at 7 a.m. the next morning. For couples wanting something different for a date, the cost is $90.

You know, that actually sounds kind of entertaining. How many of us have never seen the inside of a jail cell? How many of us would enjoy having those pictures taken inside a cell, in prison garb, just to amuse our friends? And if the money’s going to a good cause, what’s the harm?

There’s the problem.

The money is going to Mary Martha Outreach, a Christian organization:

No one’s arguing that MMO doesn’t help a lot of people. I’m sure they do. In fact, if you read article, you can see the awesome things that the group does. That’s not the point. The only issue here is that a tax-payer funded facility is being used to benefit a Christian organization.

Why them and not a local charity run by non-Christians or Muslims? Why not donate the money to a local public school? Are there no secular outreach programs in the community for individuals who need the food, clothes, or other services?

I know we’re going to be seen as the bad guys for raising this question in the first place, but it doesn’t look like any of the local media outletsare doing their job and inquiring into whether or not this is legal.

So we’ll do it for them. (I’ve passed this along to FFRF.)

(Thanks to Beau for the link!)



