Newsbusters managing editor Ken Shepherd thinks he caught the Washington Post in some sort of contradiction:

WaPo, Editorially a Proponent of Church/State Separation, Worries About Too Few Muslim Chaplains in Va. Prisons

Those familiar with the Washington Post know that the paper is a staunch defender of a very liberal vision of the separation of church and state. For example, the paper's editorial board was heavily critical of the Supreme Court's Mojave cross ruling.

But when it comes to the supposed dearth of Muslim chaplains at Virginia prisons, Sunday's Metro section went into full hand-wringing mode. “Inadequate Funds for Chaplains,” complained a subheader for the page B1 story by staffer Kevin Sieff.

Lame.

First, Shepherd doesn't seem to understand the difference between the Post's editorial page and its news division. (I have previously argued that the Post overstates the separation between the two when it wants to excuse factual claims by the editorial pages that are contradicted by the reporting that appears in the news pages, and in order to justify its news division's reluctance to criticize claims that appear in the editorial section. Nothing like that is at issue here; this situation is more akin to a newspaper's editorial board opposing health care reform and its news pages reporting that millions of people lack health insurance -- that is to say, it is not particularly noteworthy.)

Now, let's take a look at the Post article in question:

As the number of Muslims in the Virginia prison system has grown to an estimated 2,200, the state has come to lean increasingly on volunteer Muslim chaplains like Mohsen, a 35-year-old lab technician who was born in Egypt.

...

[U]ntil last year, the department maintained contracts only with Protestant chaplains. Catholic, Jewish and Muslim chaplains could visit correctional facilities to minister to Virginia's 32,000 inmates, but they received no funds from the state.

…

Then, last July, the Department of Corrections issued its first subcontract to a non-Protestant group: a $25,000 award to Muslim Chaplain Services of Virginia.

…

Although the $25,000 from the corrections department is a start, it is small compared with the $780,000 in state money that helps fund 14 full-time and 19 part-time Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal chaplains through the Chaplain Service Prison Ministry of Virginia.

So, according to the Post, Muslims make up about 7 percent of Virginia's prison population. But until last year, Virginia “maintained contracts only with Protestant chaplains” -- and the $25,000 the department of corrections has now awarded a Muslim chaplain service is only 3 percent of the funds the state distributes to chaplain services.

How, exactly, is it supposed to be inconsistent with a belief in the separation of church and state to point out that the Virginia department of corrections appears to financially favor some religions at the expense of others, and disproportionate to the prison population's faith makeup? Those two things appear to be quite consistent -- and Shepherd didn't even try to explain why he thinks they aren't.