COLUMBUS, OH - The state won't allow prayers, religious music and proselytizing at secular events inside prisons to settle a federal lawsuit that claimed the system's former director was promoting Christianity to inmates and prison employees.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction also will not order inmates to attend religious programs and will not sponsor or endorse the message of any religious program allowed to enter the prison.

In addition, the department will stop holding employee training sessions and other programs in churches, under the tentative agreement between a deputy warden and the department as spelled out in an order by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster in Cleveland.

"There's no reason why when I go to a Department of Corrections event I should have to hear about my boss' religious views or be led in prayer as part of the agenda," said Norman Rose, deputy warden at Grafton Correctional Institution in northeast Ohio who sued the state in 2005.

Rose, 55, an atheist, said the system was incorrectly linking morality with religion, which has no place in a public institution.

Andrea Dean, a prisons department spokeswoman, confirmed the tentative agreement but said the agency would not discuss details until the deal was official.

The former prisons director denied that favoritism was shown toward Christianity. Reggie Wilkinson, now a higher education consultant, said the agreement's main points were already in place in the prison system.

"I don't think there was any intention to leave anybody out," Wilkinson said. "There were programs for as many diverse type religions as we have documented."

Rose's 2005 lawsuit accused Wilkinson of imposing numerous practices designed "to advance religion and specifically to encourage Christianity within Ohio's prison system."

The lawsuit includes written statements from employees and former inmates alleging Christianity was promoted at official prison events.

At prison training events, for example, top staff "attend and are featured in their official capacities," Judith Lalli, a former prison doctor, said in an affidavit. "Christian prayers and the promotion of religious faith are evident throughout these training sessions."

The department also held employee training sessions at a Presbyterian church in the Cleveland area in 2003 and 2004, Rose said.

The lawsuit was sparked by a 2003 rally at Marion Correctional Institution by Promise Keepers, a Christian men's group. The prison raised about $40,000 through churches and private donations to help sponsor the event.

The prison's warden at the time, Christine Money, introduced or enhanced eight religious programs at Marion to help inmates, and also helped create or improve secular programs, including a literacy initiative, Dean said.

The prison's Horizon interfaith dormitory, where 48 Christians, Jews and Muslims live in family units of six, has received several honors, including an award from the American Correctional Association. Money declined to comment.

Rose was demoted following the Promise Keepers event in August 2003 after then-deputy prisons director Terry Collins said Rose, then warden at the Richland Correctional Institution, forced about a dozen inmates to watch an Internet broadcast of the rally. Rose said he had no idea the program was religious and withdrew his order after he learned what it was about.

There were other issues with Rose, including his handling of efforts to reduce homemade alcohol brewed by inmates and a "lack of trust and confidence in his decisions and judgment," according to a Sept. 9, 2003 letter from Collins to Wilkinson.

A prison employee since 1984, Rose also had been warden at Northeast Pre-Release Center and at the Lorain Correctional Institution.

In his lawsuit, he said Wilkinson demoted him "to cover for Wilkinson's misbehavior of illegal sponsorship of religion."

Wilkinson, replaced by Collins, said there was no such illegal sponsorship and nothing illegal about the Promise Keepers event.