Posted on 10/19/2011 8:58:30 PM PDT by smokingfrog
A federal judge Wednesday authorized the settlement of a lawsuit over allegations of religious censorship at Houston National Cemetery.
Local veterans and volunteer groups had accused VA and cemetery officials of banning them from using religious speech - including the words Jesus and God - during services at the cemetery.
The parties reached agreement in the case through mediation last month, and Judge Lynn Hughes signed his consent Wednesday.
"This agreement preserves VA policy that families' wishes are paramount when their loved ones - our nation's heroes - are laid to rest," Steve Muro, VA's undersecretary for memorial affairs, said in a statement. "This agreement respects the important principle that the family's wishes for religious observances at the committal services must be honored, which VA has fought to protect from day one."
Under the settlement, VA agrees "not to ban, regulate or otherwise interfere with prayers, recitations, or words of religious expression absent family objection" and to let veterans' families hold services with any religious or secular content they desire.
VA also agrees not to edit or control private religious speech by speakers at VA-sponsored ceremonies or events and pledges to return a Bible, cross and Star of David to the cemetery's chapel, which must remain open and not be used for storage or referred to as a "meeting facility."
The Bible, cross and star will be placed "on an open shelf within, but to the side of, the chapel, where they would be accessible and available for use by families," the documents state.
Local members of Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4 and Houston National Memorial Ladies will resign their positions as official VA volunteers.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
“Local members of Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4 and Houston National Memorial Ladies will resign their positions as official VA volunteers.”
Why must they resign? Anyone know?
I’m not from Texas but this is good news no matter where it’s coming from. Must be very painful for the politically correct groups around the area. :)
The leftist Obama bitch Ocasio must go. She has no place being the guardian of our fallen heroes.
As George Washington once said, “Put only Americans on guard tonight”.
Thank God the court got something right for a change.
Yes, I read that, but it doesn’t make any sense to me.
I took that to mean that as agents of the VA they can’t perform that service.
Unbelievable. This woman is a box of rocks and doesn't deserve to be a grave digger let alone run a national cemetery. For her to do what she did and not get fired is proof the government hiring and retention system needs to be overhauled.
Why do we have to reach an agreement for the government to abide by our Constitution? We have a first amendment right to freely exercise our religion.
Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals- that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government- that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.
— Ayn Rand
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
— Ayn Rand
Yes and I was soooo happy to see this plastered all over the news....oh wait..
Yes and I was soooo happy to see this plastered all over the news....oh wait..
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