WASHINGTON – With Chief Justice Rehnquist back on the bench for the first time since undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer, the Supreme Court yesterday gave a mostly friendly reception to lawyers arguing that prison inmates are entitled to as much freedom as reasonably possible to practice their religions – including unconventional ones like Satanism, Wicca, and racial separatism – while in state custody.

While a dispute over the display of the Ten Commandments has drawn the most attention of the court’s religious liberty cases this term, the legal battle of several Ohio inmates who want to hold group worship, wear special costumes, and possess special items in their cells, has greater implications for day-to-day religious observance across the country, according to the numerous national religious groups that submitted written briefs in the case.

The prisoners – joined by the federal government – are asking the top court to preserve a federal law that was struck down last year as an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause by the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

The federal law, known as the 2000 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, required state prisons and other institutions to make greater efforts to accommodate the religious practices of people in custody – from providing kosher meals to permitting certain books and items with religious significance in cells. Several states, including New York, have filed briefs asking the court to uphold the law, while the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, and several other states and groups, including the National Major Gang Task Force, asked that it be struck down.

The law requires states that receive federal funding for their prisons to accommodate religious practices unless they can show a “compelling” reason not to do so – and only if they had no other less restrictive way of proceeding. Prior to the law’s passage, states needed only to show “rational” reason for denying a prisoner’s religious request.

The solicitor general of Ohio, Douglas Cole, argued yesterday that the law endangers prison security by enabling prisoners to carry out gang-related activities under the guise of religious worship. The law also requires prison wardens to give better treatment to people of faith, he said.

“To say the way to get out from under the thumb of prison regulation is to claim religion,” he said, gives “powerful” incentive to inmates to become, or to pose as, believers.

But several judges yesterday said that prison wardens and courts would be capable of distinguishing “reasonable” requests of sincerely religious people from those who merely sought special privileges to circumvent the rules.

Federal judges “will give great deference to prison officials,” Justice Scalia assured Mr. Cole, who chafed at what he called federal judges sitting “as overseers of religious life” in state prisons.

When Mr. Cole complained that prisoners could claim religious reasons to grow beards in which to hide betting slips or other contraband items, or to grow their hair into styles associated with gangs, Justice Stevens said the state would be justified in stepping in.

Justice Breyer told Mr. Cole that security in prisons and their administration are “compelling interests,” and that courts could evaluate whether a prisoner’s request was “reasonable.”

Justice Ginsburg expressed doubt that in the federal prison system, where the same law has been in effect for six years, there had been “this terrible disruption.”

Mr. Cole attacked Congress’s power to impose regulations on states as conditions of accepting federal funds – an important tool for Congress to regulate state activities that do not otherwise fall under federal authority.

But Justice Scalia told Mr. Cole, “If you don’t want the burden, don’t take the money.”

Nonetheless, several judged express concern that Congress not single out religious people for favored treatment. Chief Justice Rehnquist, who asked several questions during the hearing in a strained voice, noted that the court has said the government “cannot favor religion over irreligion.”

Justice O’Connor asked the acting federal solicitor general, Paul Clement, whether the law provides an “unusual incentive” for inmates to declare themselves members of a religious group “that espouses drinking beer every day.”

Mr. Clement protested, “This is not an entitlement to getting beer every day.”

A lawyer for the prisoners, David Goldberger, a professor of law at the Ohio State University College of Law, said he understood that there is “some uncomfortable feeling” toward the “non-mainstream views” of his clients – Jon Cutter, J. Lee Hampton, John Gerhardt, John Miller, and Daryl Blankenship.

But, he said, states must be forced to treat all religious people equally. For non-mainstream religions, he said after the oral argument, “requests are often dismissed out of hand.”

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.