Chaplain Pursuing Religious Freedom Enlists Rutherford Institute's Aid
by Chad Groening
November 7, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The head of a conservative civil liberties legal organization says he has filed suit on behalf of a Christian Navy chaplain who charges that current U.S. Navy policy places limits on when, where and how chaplains in that military branch may pray and also forbids them from praying in the name of Jesus. John Whitehead, president of the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute, says his suit on behalf of Lieutenant Gordon James Klingenschmitt will have two goals. First of all, the attorney notes, he will address the Navy's prayer policy, which led to the lieutenant's recent court martial conviction for disobeying an order by praying in Jesus' name while in uniform outside the White House last March.
"The Supreme Court's been pretty clear that people can't be told how to pray and government can't be writing prayers, and that's essentially what the Navy's doing," Whitehead says. "They're setting up a kind of a unitarian form of religion," he asserts.
Secondly, the Rutherford Institute spokesman says, the lawsuit will deal with the Navy's recent refusal to recognize a change in Klingenschmitt's denominational affiliation. "He resigned from the ecclesiastical group that was endorsing him and immediately went to a Full Gospel group that was supporting him," the lawyer explains, "and the Navy is refusing to take that."
What he and his client believe is that "the Navy is retaliating against Gordon Klingenschmitt," Whitehead says. He has filed a request for a temporary restraining order, which he believes would stop the Navy from expunging his client from the service, at least until his case can be adjudicated. "We could get a hearing on that within the next 60 days," the chaplain's attorney adds, "and at that point, we would like to see what the Navy's thinking about doing."
Whitehead says his hope is that the Navy would drop at least that part of its punitive action against him, but Klingenschmitt's superiors may continue efforts to punish him or even to drum him out of the service. If that occurs, the Rutherford Institute attorney says his group would continue to pursue its Establishment Clause complaint against the Navy.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
