But the minute some religious expert, who achieved his position by getting a degree at a seminary school, starts telling me that I’m going to hell until I join his club, I’m going to exercise my freedom of speach, and disrupt that offical function very loudly, with a lot of profanity.

Which is why, everyone’s free to attend the Church of their choice, just don’t subject it on people who aren’t interested or believe otherwise while the are working.

I think government shouldn’t be telling anyone how they can pray.

Separation of church and state, right? That means the Governor is trampling on ground he shouldn’t be.

It just doesn’t say what God.

I guess it depends on what those Chaplains are employed to do. If they were hired in the same function as in the military, then no, they don’t have the freedom of speech.

Military members sure don’t when wearing our uniforms.

Military Chaplains come in all denominations, Christian, Chatholic, Jewish, Muslim, etc… And they provide services for each of those denomintions and are free to speak the word of god as they believe it.

But while conducting official functions of a non-religious nature, they limit their remarks to a general blessing for all, not promoting one religion over another.

Do you find that such an unreasonable compromise?

“To ask believers to keep their faith to themselves while secularists are free to advertise their lack of belief in the marketplace is to deny believers fundamental human rights to speak, to follow their conscience, to worship.”

No one is asking them to keep their beliefs to themselves (I love the opportunity to have heated debates on the reality of God and judging from the numerous religious programming I see on television and the number of churches I see accross the country I think that a number of religions have their fair share of the market place (Organized religion is a mulit-billion dollar industry).

Once again, I really don’t know in what capacity they were hired. Until that’s answered we could go at this all night (I’m sitting in a hotel room and I’ve got nothing else to do, so…. sweet).

The country where “Give me liberty or give me death” was spoken in a church? The country where the founders held church services in government buildings?

What’s next? Change the Declaration of Independence to “Endowed by some non-denominational concept” ?

You’d have a hard time supporting that last assertion based on anything spoken by the Jesus of history.

I’m not personally offended by prayers from an Imam, rabbi, or person of another faith that don’t invoke Jesus Christ but if I were a chaplain who was a Christian, I could not abide being told that I could not express my faith in my role as chaplain.

Faith is not a generic. It is faith in a God, a particular God, to whom the chaplain (or other believer) is praying. Strip it of it’s object and faith becomes sophistry, a mockery, a pretense. That is what the Kaine administration is asking of police chaplains.

So, while some want a public square devoid of faith, many of us prefer a public square in which people of all faiths are free to live their beliefs in public and private. That was the vision of most of our nation’s founders (who were not all orthodox Christians). It worked then and it could work even better now. I can (and have) been respectful during the prayer of an imam and I’m not Muslim. If a chaplain prays in Jesus name, is it too much to ask others to be respectful?

Every country that has deprived people of faith of their liberty has begun by asking them to relegate their worship to their private life. Jews in Germany could continue to celebrate their holy days – at first – as long as no one knew they were doing so. Ancient Christians were not persecuted, at first, so long as they kept a low public profile and did not speak of their faith. In China today, the primary demand of the government is that worshippers attend state sanctioned churches or none at all — to make it public that you worship according to your conscience is to risk job loss, imprisonment, or worse (whether you are Christian, Buddhist, or Falun Gong).

To ask believers to keep their faith to themselves while secularists are free to advertise their lack of belief in the marketplace is to deny believers fundamental human rights to speak, to follow their conscience, to worship. And it does no good to say that the chaplains should be silenced because they are paid by taxpayers. Receiving a government salary should never abridge your constitutional – and fundamental – human rights. The state should not refuse to hire someone as a chaplain based on their religious beliefs (be they of any or no faith) but neither should the state deny to their chaplains the free exercise of those beliefs.

Am I wrong?

I have to look at these Police Chaplains the same way I do Military Chaplains.

At military fuctions, during the benidictions, I politely bow my head with the rest, because 99% of the times our military Chaplains keep their invocations non-donominational. And I respect that.

As a non Christian, I would be very offended if I were required to stand at attention during an offical ceremony and listen to Chaplain invoke the name of Christ as our Savior.

Because that would mean that the followers of Christ are more important to the military than those of us who follow another path to God.

Sorry JR, but if today’s Christians feel that not being able to invoke Christ’s name during an offical police function, or even at the work place, is an assault on Christianity then life must be pretty good for you.

I’m sure Jesus would have been thrilled with right to worship in private, or to establish and build Churches and assemble with like minded Christians.

I don’t think he would have had a problem seperating worship from work.

Am I wrong?