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From East Hartford, Connecticut comes word of a controversy over police chaplains.
It’s a first for the New England town. The goal is to help, not proselytize.
Seems someone got upset that the police department added five volunteer chaplains.
The aggrieved citizen reached out to the Freedom From Religion Foundation – a gang of atheists, agnostics and free-thinkers. And they are threatening to sue the city unless the chaplains get the heave-ho.
The Wisconsin-based atheists say police chaplain programs are unconstitutional.
“Nonreligious citizens, as well as non-Christians, should not be made to feel excluded or like outsiders in their own community,” FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said. “Belief in a deity is not ‘universal,’ and as we like to point out at FFRF: Nothing fails like prayer.”
The godless heathens are also upset because the police department posted a faith-based message on its social media pages.
How do you remake a town into a community? Well, you start by carefully adding four reverends and one pastor as East Hartford Police Department chaplains, bringing the face of God to the community through prayer and religious devotion. God and acceptance is universal, so we support all religions. Please join me in congratulating the newest volunteer members of the EHPD! Goodness knows we need their prayers!
East Hartford Police Dept.
The FFRF called on the city to “remove all divisive social media posts to respect the diversity of its citizens.
“The best approach for the East Hartford Police Department would be to provide secular support services and to leave determinations on religious support to individuals,” they said.
I’m fairly certain that when a police officer is running into the danger zone, he’s not asking a secular humanist with a man bun for divine protection.
Police chaplains provide emotional, moral and spiritual support to officers who are dealing with the worst of humanity. Civilians can’t even begin to image the horrors that law enforcement must deal with.
And for atheists to try and take away their spiritual support system is not just reprehensible – it’s ungodly.