Meth and moral values

What is the religious community's stance on the morality of punitive drug laws? Apparently not what you'd think.

Via Doc Berman, the latest FAMM-Gram (pdf) from Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which is focused on opposing increased federal meth sentences, includes this fascinating passage from a June epistle to the Washington Post by Charles Thomas of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative:

Considering how often the Bush administration refers to moral values, it should consider that most major religious groups oppose mandatory sentencing, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church, Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, all four major black Baptist denominations, the United Church of Christ, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

No denominations are known to favor mandatory sentencing. The moral position on this issue is clear.

If only the moral positions of our nation's leaders could be determined such great clarity.