Haha burn baby burn! Ain’t religion great! Christian: Yo, Muslim! My god is better than yours! Muslim: No it ain’t fool! Boom Both dead, everyone loses, non-one wins… Or Catholic Priest: Come here little boy and sit on my lap! God will punish you if you don’t! Little Boy: Jeez my mom says It’s wrong but she TRUSTS this guy and besides I don’t wanna burn in hell so OK then…
Yep religion is a wonderful thing…:smack:
To Korean USAF Veteran:
Oh right so if someone came up to you and said I am firing you for being religious would that be different? And what about the crazies who demonstrate outside military funerals who claim to be religious and hold banners saying stuff like Burn in hell, sinner? Is that OK too?
:smack:
[Moderator Warning]
No it is not, as I explained previously. This is an official warning. If you continue to violate forum rules and moderator instructions, you will find your posting privileges in jeopardy.
If you wish to express your opinions, you may do so in IMHO or the Pit.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Those aren’t staff. They are volunteers with service organizations - coming from the same community that the deceased veterans are coming from.
Since veterans are entitled by law and custom to a military funeral, but the funds to provide this have been dwindling over the years, various aspects of the ceremony have been outsourced at most of the national cemeteries to these organizations.
So Taps, the color guard, the rifle salute, the flag folding and presentation - these will generally be conducted by VFW or American Legion members. The aforementioned Memorial Ladies will handle other aspects of the funeral - acting as everything from ushers to impromptu babysitters.
Their services are pretty valuable, especially considering the fact that they aren’t compensated much for this - the most they get is surplus rifles from the government for the salutes, generally. And while nobody would place their feelings over those of the bereaved, any good organization would want to keep a group of dedicated volunteers like this happy.
[Moderator Warning]
Fries with that?, religious jabs are also out of place in GQ. This is an official warning. Do not do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Moving to GD from GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
As for me, I only have a couple of questions:
Why is this a problem at only one of our numerous national cemeteries, not to mention the various state veterans cemeteries? Why has this lone cemetery made the news? Is the most likely culprit a poor cemetery director or a Legion and Memorial Ladies organization that is wildly different from others across the country?
I think the simplest explanation is an overly risk-averse bureaucrat, but this might not be the case, so I will be watching.
I agree. If my family is atheist, non-Christian, just secular or whatever, I may not appreciate having references to God thrust at me during the funeral of a loved one who died, supposedly to protect the Constitutional rights of Americans.
I agree that the explanation is probably only one bureaucrat. However, the court cases that have addressed issues like this give risk-averse bureaucrats a strong motivation to lean in favor of censorship and against freedom of speech and freedom of religion whenever government property or money or anything else is involved, no matter how remotely. Hence this one bureaucrat would be more a symptom of the problem, rather than a single person going rogue.
What court cases do you have in mind?
But if your family is Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or any of several other faiths, preventing prayer at a funeral by bureaucratic decree would not only not be appreciated - it would be unconstitutional.
I do not give up my right to the free exercise of religion merely by stepping onto federally owned property. That is fairly well settled law in and of itself - it is why there was a chaplain on my ship in the Navy, why there are worship facilities in federal prisons, and why the aforementioned restraining order was filed protecting the pastor’s right to invoke Jesus at the Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery.
Is that what’s happening here?
Sure, but as I understand it (based on a reading of this link provided by leftfield6), that’s not what’s happening. If the family wishes a religious ceremony, they can have one. Otherwise, the ceremony is secular.
Which direction of lean here is the direction towards freedom of religion?
And this has what to do with the OP?
It is not. All the right-wing nuts are shouting that as the headline, but the family can have whatever kind of service they want. The policy seems to be that you get a secular service unless you tell them what kind of religious service you want.
There really are two situations/issues in question here.
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The reference to a specific god/deity in a ceremony that is not connected directly to one internment, and
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A families wishes for how the ceremony for their loved one should be conducted.
For issue #1, meh, don’t care so much. As an atheist I’d like to see all references to a god stripped out of government completely, but it’s not going to happen. So, no use getting my undies in a bunch over that one.
Issue #2 now, is another story. Volunteer, staff member, whatever, if I’m burying a family member, I have the right to conduct that service with whatever denomination/religion I want. You don’t get to insert your god just because you want to.
I think the reason that this issue has popped up in Houston and nowhere else is a combination of a local bureaucrat taking things maybe one step too far in applying the rules, and a local gung-ho volunteer (Nobleton Jones) who is a little too eager to shove religion in other people’s faces.
The Liberty Institute is behind the lawsuit. Their summary of the affair isn’t really accurate, but it’s more accurate that the thread title.
My uncle was buried in the Houston National Cemetery after a career as NCO in the Army Air Forces (The Mighty 8th) & the USAF. This was years ago, when government funding took care of things. Although he was never known to darken the doorway of a church, a preacher was foisted upon us. Just because that’s the way things were done.
Airmen from one of the San Antonio bases gave the rifle volley, which somehow was timed to drown out the last pious words of the rent-a-preacher. My mother thought her brother would have been amused…
I think that rather than the family’s wishes it should be the views of of the deceased or any wishes they made that govern such a thing.
Some families represent more than one religion. Since a funeral is all about respect for the deceased, I would find it highly ironic if the next of kin happened to be a convert to a religion that the deceased himself considered anathema.
I agree with that, a better way of stating it.
My parents are both christians, and that’s what they want their memorial service to reflect. Even though I’m an atheist they will get the service they want. On the other hand, if I were to pre-decease them, there would be a helluva fight between them and my wife. My parents would insist on a traditional ceremony with prayers, hymns, etc, as well as embalming, a casket, and a concrete vault. My wife knows my wishes, which are no religion at all, a few simple, hopefully amusing and uplifting anecdotes about me told by friends, followed by a green burial.
I agree with the sentiment, but that’s just not how funerals work in this country. Legally it doesn’t really matter what the decedent wanted or pre-planned for their funeral; their next-of-kin must still sign off on it and can arrange whatever type of funeral s/he want (& can pay for). One can do stuff like write your funeral plans into your will and make any bequests contingent on your heirs following your instructions or have legal instruments drawn up specifying who’s to be regarded as your “next-of-kin” and have authority over the disposition of your remains.
In leftfield6’s example if push came to shove his parents would loose in every fight (or at least court fights) they picked with his wife. If he was unmarried (& lacked adult children) he could still have his lawyer draw up documents designating a 3rd party to have control over his remains. His parents would still probally loose in a court case, but it wouldn’t be as forgone a conclusion than it would be if it was his wife they were fighting with.
Bridget Burke I had an agnostic great-great-uncle who died in the early '60s (over 20 yrs before I was born) and my father still talked about hell his widow raised over not letting a chaplain at the funeral. He was a career officer (medical doctor), served in both World Wars, and had a bunch of “VIPs” as his funeral. She got her way (& dragged 2 senators & a congressman into it in the process). Apparently she managed to, quite ironically, “put the fear of God” into the Army officers she was dealing with.