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NC Congressman: military vets ‘religiously disenfranchised’ in chapel

Here we go with the “Christian nation” and religious persecution complex again. (OneNewsNow):

North Carolina Congressman Robin Hayes says some officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs are engaging in anti-Christian discrimination.

Last year officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs ordered the VA Hospital in Fayetteville to remove all Christian religious symbols from its chapel – crosses, Bibles, and stained glass windows. According to the VA, the chapel must remain “neutral” in order to make worshippers of all faiths “comfortable.”

And the problem with that is what? I thought we are a country with people of diverse faiths (or none at all)?  Hayes said that these veterans need to be able to “pray for the restoration of America’s Christian heritage.”

“This is the very basic and crux and core of our religious faith and of who we are in this country. And it has certainly offended me, as I know it has a number of other people, to see these articles of faith removed that our veterans have fought, bled, and died in order to preserve.”

Man, I can’t wait until these cultural fossils go the way of the dodo. It’s all the more reason to Larry Kissell to help send Hayes into retirement.

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Posted by Pam Spaulding on 01:00 PM • (18) Comments

As a Wiccan, having seen how long these jerks fought to prevent pagan soldiers from having pentagrams on their tombstones, I am sympathetic not one bit.

Comment #1: Faye  on  07/01  at  01:13 PM

He must be reading one of those newfangled bibles where Jesus says “wherever two or more and a whole bunch of tacky icons and statuary are gathered in my name ...”

Comment #2: Ms Kate  on  07/01  at  01:29 PM

For people who are supposed to have the only true omnipotent god on their side, these types of Christians are some of the whiniest ninnies I’ve ever seen.

Comment #3: Incertus, Nacho Daddy  on  07/01  at  01:51 PM

How much you wanna bet that it turns out that they just removed the stuff for cleaning or chapel repairs or something?

Comment #4: Gozer  on  07/01  at  01:56 PM

They could of course bring in a crucifix during the hour scheduled for xtian worship, then take it out and bring in whatever symbols were appropriate when other faiths had the room.

I personally wouldn’t belong to a religion that required graven images, but that’s just me.

Comment #5: MikeJ  on  07/01  at  02:25 PM

“crosses, Bibles, and stained glass windows”

Talk about living in a material world…

Comment #6: jed  on  07/01  at  02:32 PM

Jed, you forgot that all of that material stuff is paid for by money printed with “In God We Trust...

Comment #7: louise  on  07/01  at  02:51 PM

paid for by money printed with “In God We Trust . . . all others pay cash.

Comment #8: rea  on  07/01  at  02:53 PM

I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure they fought, bled and died to preserve the Constitution, in accordance with their service oaths, and not the trappings of fairy-tale religions.

Comment #9: millsapian87  on  07/01  at  03:14 PM

Yeah, and the soldiers who fought (and may die) for America yet happen to also hold non-Christian faiths can just shit a brick, I suppose.

Comment #10: Faye  on  07/01  at  03:29 PM

what’s wrong with stained glass?

The idea of a chapel without, you know, some kind of overtly religious charachter just sounds kind of lame.

Comment #11: Indy  on  07/01  at  03:30 PM

Stained glass with the stations of the cross?  No.  Stained glass generally?  Not a problem - lends privacy, intimacy, etc. to the space.  I’ve been in many chapels that are not Christian that have stained glass - and even some temples that have it too!

Comment #12: Ms Kate  on  07/01  at  03:46 PM

Indy, the stained glass was probably the “depicting Biblical stories” variety, not just plain ol’ pertty colors.

Which is fine if you believe in the Bible, but not so much if you don’t. Do we show Abraham killing Isaac or Ishmael? It matters, you know. (And, yeah, I was in a church two days ago for a funeral and they had a Abraham-killing-Isaac glass window, so they do exist.)

And if you’re a pagan like me, I guess you’re just not supposed to worship while you’re in the military.

Comment #13: Faye  on  07/01  at  03:47 PM

“what’s wrong with stained glass?”

...depends on what it’s stained with.  Blood of people who don’t believe the same?  Not so good…

Comment #14: MikeEss  on  07/01  at  03:48 PM

They can’t practice their religion without its symbols?  Let them have ‘em.  As George Carlin would say, “I leave symbols to the symbol-minded”.

Comment #15: AlanB  on  07/01  at  04:14 PM

Can we ask them to recite the ten commandments and point out the one about graven images? Or ask why they feel that the Bible from this chapel isn’t portable?

I have a friend who is a minister in northern Alberta. They don’t have a builing, they have “church in a box” which is a folding wooden pulpit-top (to sit on a table) with a few banners and a cross that they set up at their local school on Sunday mornings and pack up at the end of the service. They’ve been doing this for 30+ years now.

How is that hard? Shouldn’t the military be able to put together a few of these, portable and easily stacked for the various faiths that they minister to (synagog in a box, mosque in a box, church in a box, wiccan-space in a box, etc.)?

/e storms off mumbling about fundengelical idiots making main-line Christians look bad…

Comment #16: kodiak  on  07/01  at  05:28 PM

Shorter fundies:
“You let us turn the USAF into one big Pentecostal revival meeting!  WTF is your problem with us expanding our efforts into the VA?”

Comment #17: seeker6079  on  07/01  at  07:56 PM

Shorter fundies:
“You let us turn the USAF into one big Pentecostal revival meeting!  WTF is your problem with us expanding our efforts into the VA?”

It’s comforting* to know that when the Dominionists stage their coup of the American government, they will have dominating air superiority in their attacks.

*not at all comforting.

Comment #18: stogoe  on  07/02  at  04:38 PM
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