In a ruling that has left celestial beings and constitutional scholars reaching for a stiff gin and tonic, the United States Supreme Court has decreed that a Rastafarian inmate cannot sue the prison guards who, with all the spiritual sensitivity of a lawnmower at a monastery, sheared his dreadlocks clean off. The justices, no doubt emboldened by a breakfast of pure, unadulterated absurdity, declared that the state of Arkansas did not violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act when its employees performed this unsolicited tonsorial conversion. One must assume the guards were acting under divine direction from the deity of State Regulations, whose commandments include 'Thou shalt not permit thy dreads to exceed 1.
5 inches, lest the prison cosmetology budget be strained.' The plaintiff, a man whose faith clearly did not extend to suing with a side of miracle, argued that his locks were a covenant with Jah. The Court, in its infinite wisdom, decided that a covenant with the Almighty is no match for a state policy manual, especially when the manual has a shiny cover and a laminated spine.
The majority opinion, penned by some black-robed philosopher-king, reasoned that the prison's grooming policy was neutral and generally applicable, which is legal-speak for 'We don't care if God tells you to wear a yarmulke, as long as it matches the inmate ensemble.' The dissent, a lone voice crying in the wilderness of judicial reality, pointed out that this ruling effectively tells prisoners that their sincerely held beliefs are valid only if they don't interfere with the state's desire for uniformly cropped heads. This is the same logic that would allow the government to ban crucifixes because they might be used as improvised shivs.
The Rastafarian community, and indeed anyone who values the concept of personal integrity over bureaucratic convenience, is now faced with the grim reality that in America, you are free to worship as you see fit, provided your worship doesn't require hair longer than regulation length. The Supreme Court has essentially ruled that the state can make you a secular eunuch of the soul. In a nation that prides itself on religious liberty, this decision is a bludgeoning, a clipper-wielding assault on the first amendment.
I suspect the ghost of Thomas Jefferson is currently drafting a strongly worded letter from the great beyond, perhaps in invisible ink, given the futility. As for the guards, they will no doubt be commended for their adherence to policy, their clean lines, and their utter disregard for the spiritual life of a man whose God had more hair than them.
