WHY ARE BIBLES BANNED AT WALTER REED HOSPITAL? THAT'S WHAT REP. STEVEN KING WANTS TO KNOW!

The House Floor Speech about the military banning the bible starts at 4:28


"No Religious items, i.e., bibles, reading materials, and or artifacts are allowed to be given away or used during a visit"
Walter Reed Bans Bibles 9.14.11

FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL WRITES:

***Breaking News*** As we were about to hit the send button on this email, FRC received word that the military may have rescinded its Bible ban. We will have more to report on Monday.

The soldiers who wake up in Walter Reed Medical Center are in Maryland--not communist China. But under the Navy's new rules, they may not know the difference! After months of peeling away the military's core values, Obama's army is on the move. And this time, it has a high-value target: the Bible. In a memo obtained by FRC, Navy officials have announced that "no religious items (including Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit." The new orders are buried in a four-page document about patient care, which an Army officer forwarded to us in disbelief. Effective immediately, families, friends, and even pastors will have to check their beliefs at the door to visit one of the largest military hospitals in the United States.

Last night, after we circulated the memo to leaders on the Hill, an outraged Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) took to the House floor and blasted the policy. "Mr. Speaker, these military men and women who are recovering at Walter Reed and Bethesda have given their all for America ... They've defended and taken an oath to the Constitution, and here they are. The people that come to visit them can't bring a religious artifact? They can't bring a Bible? ...A priest can't walk in with the Eucharist and offer communion to a patient who might be on their deathbed because it's prohibited in this memo from the Department of the Navy?"

This is Obama's military, where homosexuality is celebrated and Christianity is censored; where witches are financed and crosses are scorned; where bestiality is embraced and Bibles are banned; where same-sex "weddings" are encouraged but international charity is not. After three years of ideological warfare, the administration's intent is clear: to disarm the military of its biggest weapon. Faith. Regardless of President Obama's agenda, there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that empowers the government to stop family members from giving Bibles or crosses to their loved ones. And from a PR standpoint, I'm not sure the best way to boost approval ratings is by denying comfort to wounded warriors. Unfortunately for our troops, who have endured so much turmoil under the Obama administration, this is another blow. Hopefully, with the help of Congressman King and others, it's only a temporary one.

It was a grueling three hours for officials at Health and Human Services (HHS), but Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) certainly got his point across. Yesterday, in a packed room, House leaders pounced on the Obama administration for its religious bias in government outreach. At the heart of the discussion was HHS's decision to cut off funding for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) program for sex trafficking victims. Despite scoring the second highest in HHS's own evaluation process, political appointees refused to renew USCCB's contract, and sources inside the agency say the group's pro-life beliefs--not its program delivery--were to blame. George Sheldon, the Obama appointee who made the final decision (against the recommendations of his own staffers), took the brunt of yesterday's criticism.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who regularly highlights the problem of sex trafficking in Congress, talked about the abuse of the HHS process. "In this system, grants are becoming earmarks." Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked Sheldon what was on everyone's mind: " Why do you have a point system if you are going to ignore it? ...What score would have been good enough to award the USCCB? What else could they have done other than scoring high enough, performing well and being recommended by career staff?" Another friend of FRC, Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), explained how traumatizing it would be to push abortion on women who are already suffering physically and emotionally. While the matter is far from over, we congratulate Chairman Issa and others for taking the time to spotlight the corruption at HHS. Maybe next time, officials will think twice about discriminating against organizations like the USCCB.

SOURCE: FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL

RELATED STORY:

U.S. Military to Rescind Policy Banning Bibles at Hospital

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center said they are rescinding a policy that prohibits family members of wounded military troops from bringing Bibles or any religious reading materials to their loved ones.

The decision to rescind the ban on Bibles came exactly one day after a Republican lawmaker denounced the policy on the House floor and called on President Obama to publicly renounce the military policy.

“The President of the United States should address this and should excoriate the people who brought about this policy and the individual who brought it about should be dismissed from the United States Military,” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told Fox News & Commentary.

King spoke from the House floor Thursday blasting a policy memorandum from the commander of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center written by Chief of Staff C.W. Callahan. The September 14^th memo covers guidelines for “wounded, ill, and injured partners in care.”

“No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit,” the policy states.

“That means you can’t bring in a Bible and read from it when you visit your son or your daughter, perhaps – or your wife or husband,” King said. “It means a priest that might be coming in to visit someone on their death bed couldn’t bring in the Eucharist, couldn’t offer Last Rites. This is the most outrageous affront.”

A spokesperson for the medical center told Fox News late Friday that the policy will be rewritten and its intent will be made “crystal clear.”

“The instructions about the Bibles and reading material have been rescinded,” said Sandy Dean, a public affairs officer for Walter Reed. “It will be written to articulate our initial intention which was to respect religious and cultural practices of our patients.”

Dean said the instruction was “in no way meant to prohibit family members from providing religious items to their loved ones at all.”

If that’s the case, why is the policy being rescinded?

“We don’t want there to be any misinterpretation of what we’re trying to say,” she told Fox News. “We appreciate Congressman King bringing this to our attention. We don’t want our instructions to be ambiguous.”

We appreciate him bringing it to our attention.

Rep. King said the military has some explaining to do.

“I don’t think there’s any excuse for it and there’s no talking it away,” King told Fox News. “The very existence of this, whether it’s enforced or not, tells you what kind of a mindset is there.”

“The idea that these soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that have fought to defend our Constitution, and that includes our First Amendment rights to religious liberty –would be denied that religious liberty when they are lying in a hospital bed recovering from wounds incurred while defending that liberty is the most bitter and offensive type of an irony that I can think of,” he said.

The policy has brought strong condemnation from religious and conservative advocacy groups.

“It flies in the face of not only the Bill of Rights, but 200 years of federal law,” said Ken Klukwoski, of the Family Research Council. “This current administration is showing unprecedented hostility towards those practicing the Christian faith.”

“But beyond that,” he told Fox News, “We’ve also seen a militantly secular attitude of trying to sterilize the Defense Department of all references to faith.”

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, echoed Rep. King’s demand that whoever is responsible for the memo be fired.

“It cannot be allowed to stand,” Land told Fox News. “It must be rescinded and the people responsible for perpetrating it should be fired.”

Land said the policy “shows the ugly face of the pseudo-tolerance of secularism.”
“They claim to be tolerant but this is as intolerant as you can be – to not allow wounded soldiers to have religious artifacts,” Land said.

King said Americans must “take a very strong stand.”

“Christians are generally nice people and for that reason they can victimize the Christians in this country,” he said. “There was a reason that Christ gave us the demonstration of righteous anger when he threw the money changers out of the temple. It gives us some license to throw these kinds of people out of the military.”

King said he’s been alarmed at a trend he’s seen to scrub Christianity from the military – most recently the decision to remove a cross from an Army chapel in northern Afghanistan because it violated Army regulations.
He placed the blame on the Obama Administration.

“This is Orwellian,” he said. “Who would have believed even two or five years ago that the Executive branch of government led by our Commander in Chief Barack Obama would produce some kind of document that would prohibit family members coming into our military hospitals

Klukwoski said he’s noticed a similar trend in what he called “anti-faith measures.”
“We are seeing a shocking level of hostility towards religious faith but beyond that – we’ve also seen a militantly secular attitude of trying to sterilize the defense department of all references to faith and references,” he said.

SOURCE: FOX NEWS