Navy Rules to Restrict Prayer

The US Navy Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter needs to take a break. At least he needs a course on understanding religious philosophy. He has signed an official rule requiring chaplains to use "nonsectarian" language when praying. This is the codifying of a suggestion memo made in 1998. This has not happened in a vacuum. Navy Chaplain Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt conducted a hunger strike outside the Whitehouse to bring attention to this issue. This rule serves no purpose other than to make religion a meaningless exercise.

If Secretary Winter feels that specific religious expression is so offensive he should dispense with the chaplain service and just hire some councilors because that is what he is trying to turn chaplains into. I find most disturbing his signing such a rule in the face of so much controversy over it. The restricting of minister's expression of worship to the God they serve within the very organization we are using to bring freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq is just ludicrous. If this attitude extends through the administration that would explain the tepid response to the plight of Abdul Rahman, the Afghani who is facing the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity.