So Florida is now under court order to start serving kosher meals to prison inmates. It hasn’t been doing so since 2007, but now has until July to gear up. According to Michael Crews, incoming secretary of the Department of Corrections, it’s becoming a major budget concern: The religious meals are four times more costly than the alternative.
And because there’s no real, readily-agreed-upon litmus test for who’s Jewish and “eligible,” and who’s a gentile and gaming the system, Crews expects the kosher requests to keep ratcheting up. It’s a matter of religious freedom meets finite resources.
Too bad old-school common sense can’t prevail.
It’s called prison. It’s not for everybody. You earn your way in. It’s a form of societal punishment. So, sorry, but no ESPN; this isn’t a sports bar. And no kosher; this isn’t an airliner.
But that wouldn’t be kosher.