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

[Pandora]

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.

....

{Steve} 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 14th 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“The instructions about the Bibles and reading material have been rescinded,” said Sandy Dean, a public affairs officer for Walter Reed.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If that’s the case, why is the policy being rescinded?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.

[Alphabet Soup]

They thought that they could sneak that by us...

[LadyVirginia]

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“The instructions about the Bibles and reading material have been rescinded,” said Sandy Dean, a public affairs officer for Walter Reed.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,”

i think it was intepreted exactly the way it was intended.

 

When's the one time you'd expect people would want religious items?  Ah, when they're in the hospital. To me that's down right cruel to deny someone who wants it the comfort of their Bible or other religious items.

What religion and culture needs the prohibition of Bibles to be protected?

[Glock32]

This is just a preview of what it will be like when one is unable to escape the purview of the state in any part of your life. They will have a monopoly over education, a monopoly over health care, eventually a monopoly over industry, and all of these domains will then become subject to their ministrations. Today it was a military hospital. By the time we're a generation into government health care, it will be every hospital in the country.

[Libertas]

I bet the flow of cult manuals like the Koran would have been allowed to pass through without narry a word...

This was a naked attempt to curtail the religious freedoms of Christians first and foremost.

[LadyVirginia]

This was a naked attempt to curtail the religious freedoms of Christians first and foremost.

yup.