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Chaplain prayer issue dies in legislature Date published: 2/16/2010
By Chelyen Davis RICHMOND --Bills to let state police chaplains pray to Jesus Christ appear to be dead for this legislative session.The Senate Courts of Justice committee yesterday killed a Senate version of the bill, and a House version never got a hearing in committee. Today is the deadline for each house of the legislature to handle its own bills, so any bill (except money bills) not done by today is effectively dead. The bills are repeats of efforts from the 2009 session. The issue arose in late 2008 after a federal appeals court upheld a Fredericksburg City Council ban on referring to Jesus Christ in public prayers that open council meetings. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case. As a result of the court's ruling, State Police Col. Steven Flaherty had directed police chaplains--who are troopers who volunteer chaplain services--to avoid denominational prayers at public events, such as trooper graduations. Six chaplains resigned in protest, igniting a controversy that had a group of ministers criticizing then-governor Tim Kaine and Flaherty for the directive, saying it violated the chaplains' right to pray according to their own conscience. Supporters of Flaherty's directive argued that sectarian prayers at public events violated the audience's right to freedom of religion. Sen. Steve Martin, R-Chesterfield, this year reintroduced his bill that said that when a government agency invites someone to give a prayer, that government agency cannot tell the person how to pray. "They should be able to pray according to the dictates of their own heart," Martin told the Senate Courts committee. His bill was backed by the Family Foundation, but opposed by the ACLU and the Virginia Association of Counties and the Virginia Municipal League. A lobbyist for VACO and VML said the bill would open up local governments to lawsuits. Sen. Don McEachin, D-Richmond, said allowing denominational prayer is by default allowing the person praying to push his religion on listeners. "When I pray in Jesus' name, I am unashamedly and unapologetically trying to advocate the cause of my religion," said McEachin, who voted against the bill. The committee voted down Martin's bill 9-6. In the House, Del. Bill Carrico's prayer bill was sent to the House General Laws committee, which has not yet heard the bill and isn't scheduled to meet again before tonight's deadline. Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
do the right thing. Allowing this bill to become law would have been the government endorsing a certain religion. If you want to pray, do it on your own time. I have religion forced upon me enough as it is, I certainly don't want the government endorsing Jesus Christ (a fictional person) more than has already done.
to replace those 6 volunteer chaplains with Muslim clerics or Bhuddist priests. Let them lead us in public prayer to their gods. See how quickly the religious majority begins to object to having to stand at a public event and pray to Allah or Buddah. The only mention of God in the Constitution is above the signers, in the date ('the year of our lord'). Over 200 years ago, they understood that the best way to protect the right to worship as you chose was to NOT make any one religion the state religion.
It is so sad when there is a major uproar over prayer. If you choose not to hear anyone pray either don't go to the ceremony or just don't participate. It gets so tiring for a majority who have no objections to prayer have to lose our freedom of religion to satisfy a small minority.
NO!
Nothing in the law says the folks cant pray all day long to their lord. It just says that cant hijack a public event and turn it into their own religious event. I am ok with your religions call to expand through witnessing. But I am against you doing at publicly (ie my tax dollars) funded events.
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