March 20, 2012
The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced this month a new plan to begin recruiting employees who will serve as lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) representatives for each prison facility, CBN News reports. The LGBT representatives will serve as members of each prison's affirmative action committee, and will devote 20 percent of their workday to "coordinat[ing] activities and programs designed to cultivate LGBT cultural awareness both within and outside the institution." Pat Nolan of Prison Fellowship Ministries said: "No sex is allowed in prison, so why on earth would the central office require that there be a person in every prison to promote the sexuality of one part of the population? It's truly bizarre and it makes no sense at all from a management-of-the-prison perspective. It seems to us this is just a political move; it has nothing to do with running better prisons."
