WASHINGTON (ABP) — The House of Representatives has amended a defense-spending bill to appease activists who believe new military guidelines encroach on the religious freedom of evangelical chaplains.
The bill, as amended, passed the House May 11 on a 396-31 vote.
The House Armed Services Committee attached the prayer amendment to a routine military appropriations bill on a party-line vote May 3. Conservative Republicans, led by Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, pushed the amendment, as did conservative evangelical groups like Focus on the Family. However, top military chaplaincy officials and other groups objected to it.
The measure would override new rules recently issued by the Air Force and Navy for their chaplains. Those rules — written in the wake of charges of religious harassment against non-evangelicals at the Air Force Academy in Colorado — instructed chaplains to offer “non-sectarian” prayers at events where those of multiple faiths would be present.
The language the House passed, however, would leave the call to the individual chaplain, who “shall have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of the chaplain's own conscience, except as must be limited by military necessity, with any such limitation being imposed in the least restrictive manner feasible.”
Military chaplains are allowed already to pray the way they choose in the chapel services they conduct or other settings where soldiers of different faiths are not compelled to be present. But Jones and his allies assert that the new rules violate the consciences of evangelical chaplains who feel compelled to invoke Christ's name when offering public prayers.
“Since the beginning of our nation's military, chaplains have played an integral role, fulfilling the spiritual and emotional needs of the brave men and women who serve and they have always prayed according to their faith tradition,” Jones said. “It is in the best interest of our armed services and this nation to guarantee the constitutional right of military chaplains to pray according to their faith.”
But Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) said he was disappointed that “certain members of Congress have decided to support chaplains who want to push their own religious agenda rather than the military's commitment to religious tolerance. When chaplains join the military, they accept a duty to serve the military's mission in addition to their mission to God. In providing spiritual guidance to our soldiers, chaplains should never carry out their duty in a manner that divides or alienates soldiers of different faiths.”
The Navy's head chaplain opposed the provision, saying the current rules adequately protected chaplains' religious freedom, while the new rules would drive wedges between religious groups within the Navy and take chaplains outside of the service's command structure.
The proposal would “lead to a loss of credibility and religious ministry and chaplains [sic] services to all military members,” said Rear Admiral Louis Iasiello, a Catholic priest who is chief of the naval chaplain corps, in a letter to the Armed Services Committee. “The proposed language offers an opportunity to drive wedges into the chaplain corps due to the emphasis it puts on each chaplain doing that which is right in his or her own eyes.”
He concluded that the legislation would, “in the end, marginalize chaplains and degrade their use and effectiveness to the crew and the commanding officer.”
The National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces — an umbrella group that acts as a liaison between the military and several denominations or faith groups that provide credentials to chaplains — also opposed the provision, as did the Anti-Defamation League and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The bill is H.R. 5122. It still must gain Senate approval.
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