RICHMOND | A bill reversing an administrative order that state police chaplains offer ecumenical, nondenominational prayers at official events has won House passage.
The legislation passed the House 66-30 Wednesday with 14 Democrats and both independents joining 50 Republicans in support. All votes against it were from Democrats.
Backers of the bill said it restored the chaplains’ right to religious freedom. Likewise, opponents said the bill violates the First Amendment by having the state advocate one specific religion.
The bill passed as the American Civil Liberties Union warned in a news release Wednesday that it considers the bill unconstitutional and will sue if it passes.
The measure now heads to the Senate, where a similar bill that would more broadly allow for denominational prayer at government-run events awaits action. Should the measures win House and Senate approval, they would likely face Gov. Tim Kaine’s veto.
“If you are getting paid to be a state chaplain, and you are on the clock as a state employee, you shouldn’t be proselytizing, you should be in these public settings offering prayers that should really be inclusive,” said Mr. Kaine, a Democrat.
Delegate Charles W. Carrico, a retired state police trooper, drafted the legislation after state police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty issued a directive to chaplains to offer generic prayers at department-sponsored public events such as graduations from the trooper training academy.
“I do not want to interfere with anyone else’s religion. I am a Christian, and I will profess that,” said Mr. Carrico, Grayson Republican. “The Christian faith happened to be the one under attack when this came about.”
Superintendent Flaherty issued the guidance in response to a federal appeals court ruling last year upholding a Fredericksburg City Council policy against opening council meetings with prayers that mention Jesus.
The directive does not apply to chaplains in private venues such as funerals or in counseling grieving troopers or their loved ones.
House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, Salem Republican, said the bill simply protects the constitutional right of people praying in government-sponsored venues to express their religious beliefs. He said that Thomas Jefferson never intended to squelch any form of prayer when he wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and neither does the First Amendment.
“Jefferson did not mean to bleach out from our society all public prayer, or all prayer from the various denominations,” Mr. Griffith said.
Mr. Griffith called opponents’ use of the same constitutional free-worship guarantees to argue that the bill is an impermissible state intrusion into religion “Orwellian doublespeak.”
Delegate Adam Ebbin, Alexandria Democrat, said the bill blurs the distinction “between state-endorsed religion versus the exercise of free religion by individuals.”
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