Senate panel kills troopers’ prayer bill

Senate panel kills troopers' prayer bill

A Senate panel yesterday rejected legislation that sought to let Virginia State Police chaplains invoke Jesus Christ or any other deity in their prayers at public events.

The vote likely ends for this year a legislative effort to override state police policy that restricts chaplains to nonsectarian prayers at memorial services and trooper graduations.

On a voice vote after a lengthy debate, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee defeated House Bill 2314, sponsored by Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr., R-Grayson, a retired state trooper.

Last year, six troopers resigned from their positions as volunteer chaplains as a result of the policy. State police Superintendent Col. W. Steven Flaherty implemented the policy last summer, after a court ruling that said government officials may not convey a religious preference in their prayers at official events.

The state police policy says chaplains should refrain from invoking a deity and instead offer inclusive, nonsectarian prayers at official government events.

"They have rights just as much as you and I," said Carrico, who championed the chaplains' cause. "They have a uniform, but they volunteer their time. . . . They should have the right according to the dictates of their conscience to be able to pray and do their job."

Assistant Attorney General Steven McCullough said allowing chaplains to administer sectarian prayers could be "defensible against a legal challenge."

But McCullough also said the current policy does not infringe on the First Amendment rights of the chaplains. Under questioning from a skeptical Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, he said that in order to be constitutional, the chaplaincy "cannot favor one religion over another."

Carrico's bill did not specify any particular religion. It would have prohibited the state police from prescribing, proscribing or regulating the content of the voluntary chaplains' prayers at public events.

The bill had passed the House of Delegates on a 66-30 vote earlier in the legislative session, but Gov. Timothy M. Kaine opposed the measure.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia had threatened to file a lawsuit had the bill become law.

"Our most fundamental notions of religious freedom and equality hinge on the government not using its enormous power to promote any one religion at the expense of others," ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis said.

"This bill was a direct, frontal attack on this constitutional principle."

Conservative groups blasted the committee's decision.

"The birthplace of religious freedom is now the home of censorship and bigotry," the Family Foundation of Virginia said in a statement.

But Cantor Michael Shochet, the chaplain coordinator for Fairfax County and a former Baltimore police officer, told the committee that a government chaplain is to offer comfort without excluding any faith; that it was possible to be "spiritual without being religious.

"When a government-sponsored prayer forces a pluralistic group of citizens to accept the words of one faith, it goes against the grain of what our forefathers believed," he said.

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or .