Bible display at Veterans Affairs facility in New Hampshire triggers lawsuit
Donovan SlackWASHINGTON – A nonprofit group has tapped a veteran to sue the Department of Veterans Affairs over a Bible displayed at a VA facility in New Hampshire, arguing it violates the Constitution’s prohibition of government establishment of religion.
The Bible, carried by a prisoner of war in World War II, is part of a display in the lobby of the VA medical center in Manchester, New Hampshire, commemorating missing and imprisoned service members.
Mikey Weinstein, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said the group is filing the suit on behalf of New Hampshire veteran James Chamberlain.
Weinstein, who declined to make Chamberlain available for an interview, said the VA is a federal agency and its display of the Bible is an “outrage.”
“That is stamping it with the approval of raising one faith over all the others,” he said. “From our perspective, it’s a repugnant example of fundamentalist Christian triumphalism, exceptionalism, superiority, and domination, and it cannot stand.”
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His group has been successful in pushing for the removal of Bibles from similar displays at other VA and military facilities in recent years, including in Buffalo, New York; Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Denver, Colorado, according to correspondence on the foundation’s web site.
The foundation was initially successful at the Manchester VA Medical Center. The facility removed the Bible after receiving a complaint about it in January but then replaced it. The Bible is now in a plastic case on the display table.
VA: The Bible stays
“Manchester VAMC officials temporarily removed the Bible from the display out of an abundance of caution,” VA spokeswoman Kristin Pressly said in a statement provided to USA TODAY. “Following that removal, Manchester VAMC received an outpouring of complaints from Veterans and other stakeholders – many of whom dropped off Bibles at the facility – in protest of this action.”
Pressly said that after consulting with lawyers, the facility determined the Bible will stay and “remain indefinitely as part of the missing man display, a secular tribute to America’s POW/MIA community.”
“We apologize to the Veterans, families and other stakeholders who were offended by our incorrect removal of this Bible,” she said.
National VA spokesman Curt Cashour criticized the lawsuit as "nothing more than an attempt to force VA into censoring a show of respect for America’s POW/MIA community."
"Make no mistake: VA will not be bullied on this issue," he said.
Weinstein is not only pressing the matter in court. He said his group has hired a plane to fly a banner over the medical center Tuesday urging the facility to “Honor all POW/MIA – Remove Bible.”
The lawsuit says plaintiff Chamberlain is a former Air Force pilot and a “devout Christian” who believes the Bible should be removed.
“As a Christian, he respects and loves all his military brothers and sisters and does not want to be exclusionary by placement of the Christian Bible,” the complaint says.
Weinstein said 14 veterans contacted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about the Bible, but they declined to be identified by name because they feared retaliation from the VA where veterans receive medical care.
The suit seeks a permanent injunction requiring the VA to remove the Bible and the payment of attorney fees for the plaintiff.
The display is part of a “missing man table,” a tradition of setting up an unoccupied table with several symbolic items to remember troops missing in action or prisoners of war, according to the National League of POW/MIA Families.
They include a lighted candle signifying continued concern for their return, and a Bible, which the National League says signifies “the strength gained through faith to sustain us and those lost from our country, founded as one nation under God.”
Ann Mills-Griffiths, chief executive and chairman of the league, called the foundation’s efforts to have Bibles removed from displays “absurd and stupid.” She said those who have removed them under pressure from the group are “politically correct cowards.”
“It’s not our freedom that would be taken away by them deciding what should be on a missing man table?” Mills-Griffiths said. “That is the way we do it regularly, and this group continues to try to undercut any mention of God or In God We Trust, or you know, rewrite American history. Revisionist history is not high in my estimation no matter where applied.”
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