First, the VA strikes again; Todd Starnes has this sorry…tale.
A choir from the Alleluia Community School, a high school in Augusta, GA, was told—when they arrived to perform at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, and not before—that they could sing about Frosty the Snowman. They were explicitly barred from singing such offensive songs as “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World,” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” because the American veterans there, all of whom had fought for our country and suffered the consequences of those fights, couldn’t bear the stress of hearing such carols.
Brian Rothwell, spokesman for the VA center, had this excuse:
It is out of respect for every faith that the Veterans Administration gives clear guidance on what “spiritual care” is to be given and who is to give it.
Second, a tale of a Christmas in the Hanoi Hilton in 1970, via Richard Goldstein in The New York Times:
As Christmas 1970 approached, 43 American prisoners of war in a large holding cell at the North Vietnamese camp known as the Hanoi Hilton sought to hold a brief church service. Their guards stopped them, and so the seeds of rebellion were planted.
A few days later, Lt Cmdr Edwin A Shuman III, a downed Navy pilot, orchestrated the resistance, knowing he would be the first to face the consequences: a beating in a torture cell.
“Ned stepped forward and said, ‘Are we really committed to having church Sunday? I want to know person by person,'” a fellow prisoner, Leo K Thorsness, recounted in a memoir. “He went around the cell pointing to each of us individually,” Mr Thorsness continued. “When the 42nd man said yes, it was unanimous. At that instant, Ned knew he would end up in the torture cells.”
The following Sunday, Commander Shuman, who died on Dec 3 at 82, stepped forward to lead a prayer session and was quickly hustled away by guards. The next four ranking officers did the same, and they, too, were taken away to be beaten. Meanwhile, as Mr. Thorsness told it, “the guards were now hitting POWs with gun butts and the cell was in chaos.”
And then, he remembered, the sixth-ranking senior officer began, “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.”
“And this time,” he added, “we finished it.”
Yet, the VA claims its policy is meant to welcome and respect all faiths while at the same time protecting them from “unwelcomed religious material.” By disrespecting the Christian faith. By defining the Christian faith as “unwelcomed.” The faith for which those men in the Hanoi Hilton had fought, even in barbarous captivity.
How does any of this work, exactly, Brian? A (very) belated Merry Christmas to you, too.
h/t Power Line