Military Funeral
November 11, 2010 in Elwood, Illinois
Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
In Texas, three Christian military organizations -- Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4, the American Legion Post 586, and the National Memorial Ladies -- have filed suit against the VA because the Veterans' Administration doesn't include Christian prayers in vets' funerals unless the deceased and/or the family request it. They are claiming that Christianity and Christians are being discriminated against when Christianity isn't inserted into every funeral, whether the family wants it or not.
So it's official: there's no extreme to which some Christians won't go in order to claim to be victimized by others choosing to not submit to Christianity. Yes, that's right, non-Christians choose to not follow Christianity means that Christians are being victimized and persecuted. Crazy? Of course, but that's reality in America today.
"It makes my skin crawl that liberals are attempting to drive prayer out of a funeral ceremony for our heroes," Texas Rep. John Culbersontold Fox News, which has given significant airtime to the controversy. "We're going to fix this so that no Obama liberal bureaucrat will interfere with the funeral of a hero." In addition to supporting the lawsuit, Culberson has threatened to stop the salary of the cemetery director who enforced the no-consent-no-God rule and to hold hearings in the fall investigating the VA's anti-Christian stance. ...
Marilyn Koepp, secretary of National Memorial Ladies, a volunteer group that attends veterans' funerals, shares her woes with Fox News: "It's very hard for me to be at the funeral of one of our veterans ... and we just make that decision that we will say God bless you, and how can someone tell us, no you can't."
Source: Alternet [emphasis added]
The VA's position is both clear and correct:
"The idea that invoking the name of God or Jesus is banned at VA national cemeteries is blatantly false. The truth is VA's policy protects veterans' families' rights to pray however they choose at our national cemeteries. Put simply, VA policy puts the wishes of the veteran's family above all else on the day it matters most -- the day they pay their final respects to their loved one."
It's great that the VA has adopted the correct, moral, legal, and constitutional position. Sadly, other military institutions are far less tolerant of non-Christians. Arlington Cemetery, the only Army-run cemetery in America, is including Christianity in military funeral ceremonies even when families make it clear that they don't want it:
MAAF president Jason Torpy recently presided over a ceremony at Arlington for decorated WWII pilot John Hormuth and his wife Mattie. With children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in attendance, the Hormuths wanted to be remembered in accordance with their beliefs.
But even though the family was explicit about not wanting any religious components to their service, these wishes were not met. In particular, a volunteer from the Arlington Ladies blessed the mourning family and presented a religious card "on behalf of the chief of staff of the Army."
The Army and the Arlington administration have yet to respond to the family's demand for action to end unwanted religious intrusions or to MAAF's request for comment. "The Chief of Staff of the Army should ensure that the Arlington Ladies are not praying on his behalf,"MAAF stated in response to this incident.
"The Army should ensure that Arlington National Cemetery includes religious content only at the request of the family and only under the supervision of the chaplains. MAAF applauds the care and dedication of the Arlington Ladies and other similar groups, but their care must not come at the cost of government-sponsored religious speech that is against a family's wishes."
So non-Christians want to have funeral ceremonies which reflect their beliefs, even if that means not including any references to any gods. Christians, in contrast, want the funeral ceremonies to include references to God and to Christian beliefs no matter what the families want or believe. It's discriminatory against Christians when their beliefs are not included in all military funeral ceremonies, even the ceremonies for non-Christians.
Make sense? Of course not. That's why the case can only be made by people who lie and/or offer irrational, nonsensical arguments.
This is pretty emblematic of the Christian position that I keep reading:
[Nobleton] Jones said he has presented shell casings from the gun salute to veterans' grieving family members at funerals in Houston National Cemetery for the past three years.
But after a burial ceremony May 16, Jones said a government official told him he could no longer recite the words he always says when he hands over the shells: "We ask that God grant you and your family grace, mercy and peace."
The 66-year-old Houstonian said he felt belittled. "That makes me feel smaller, even after I spent my time in the military, fighting so that people should be able to say that," he said.
"I did all this for my country and you are going to tell me what I can and can't say?"
Source: Houston Chronicle
So Nobleton Jones feels "belittled" when he's not allowed to express his religious beliefs during an official government ceremony unless the family requests it? How is that "belittling" -- does he really need to engage in unwanted evangelizing in order to feel "big"? Does it make him more of a man to impose his religion where it's not wanted? I don't know, but I don't see many other ways to interpret those words -- and it wouldn't surprise me because that's exactly the sort of attitude that I've been seeing more and more in recent years.
Yes, Nobleton Jones, the government can indeed tell you what you can and cannot say when you're participating in an official government ceremony for someone else. When you participate in such a ceremony, it's not your ceremony. It doesn't belong to you. You, Nobleton Jones, don't get to decide what will and will not be included. It's not for you to say, it's for the family. Only the family can decide whether religion will be included and, if so, what sort of religion and what form it will take. Not you.
It's great that you want to volunteer at military funerals, but if you're going to do it then you have to be willing to accede to the wishes of the families -- you're supposed to volunteer for their sake, not for your own. Volunteering is supposed to be an act of generosity, not religious selfishness. When you conform your words to the wishes of the families, you're acting out of generosity; when you insist on pushing your religion on others regardless of what they want, you're acting like a selfish SOB.
It's really not that hard to figure out. I'll bet Christians would be outraged if Muslims volunteered and expressed Muslim beliefs with Arabic terminology at Christian funeral ceremonies. Christians like Nobleton Jones who can't see or understand this are demonstrating a complete failure of basic moral imagination and human decency. Because of that, they probably shouldn't be allowed to be at the funerals at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment