The
Freedom From Religion Foundation is asking the Secretary of Veterans
Affairs to change VA materials and the VA website, which currently
promote "spirituality."
FFRF
makes this request to support the 23.1% of men and women in the
military who identify as atheist, agnostic, or as having no religious
preference.
FFRF
Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott sent a letter to Secretary of Veterans
Affairs Eric Shinseki on July 29 requesting the VA stop promoting
religion and spirituality to veterans, thereby alienating nearly
one-fourth of veterans.
The
"Spiritual Healing and Connection" section of the VA website violates
the Constitution and pushes religion and "spirituality" on veterans,
FFRF charges.
"Not
only are they arbitrarily told that something is wrong with them, they
are prescribed 'prayer and reading scriptures' as one remedy," Elliott
wrote.
The
federal website endorses assertions from a VA chaplain that health
providers should treat "mind, body and spirit" saying, "Holistic health
is a three-legged stool. If one leg is missing, the stool isn't stable."
The website also encourages veterans
to visit VA chaplains. The military has refused to accept humanist or secular chaplains.
The
VA and its website imply that the nonreligious men and women serving in
the military are somehow incomplete, and demonstrate the lack of
resources and support available to them.
"The
VA is a secular branch of a secular government and has no business
interfering with the private religious views of its veterans," Elliott
wrote.
FFRF
sued the Department of Veterans Affairs over its integration of
spirituality into healthcare in 2006. The case was lost not in its
merits but on taxpayer standing in
2008.
FFRF
is a national nonprofit that works for the separation of state and
church and has 19,000 members, a quarter of whom are veterans.
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