Two law firms have requested that U.S. Secretary of Veteran Affairs Doug Collins repudiate actions taken by a military chaplain supervisor in Pennsylvania who has implemented pre-approval protocols for sermons following a chaplain’s message from the Book of Romans about sexual immorality.
A Feb. 11 letter sent to Collins by First Liberty Institute, a religious liberty law firm, and the Independence Law Center, affiliated with the Pennsylvania Family Institute, is seeking “immediate action to eliminate the speech code being imposed by the VA and ensure that Chaplain [Rusty] Trubey and his colleagues may preach according to the dictates of their conscience.”
“The government has no business censoring anyone’s sermon, including military chaplains,” said Erin Smith, associate counsel at First Liberty. “This is just the kind of woke policy that we anticipate Secretary Collins wants to purge from the VA.”
In June of 2024, Rusty Trubey, an Army Reserve chaplain at the Coatesville VA Medical Center for the past 10 years, preached a two-part sermon series from the first chapter of Romans. The second message of the series, entitled, “When a Culture Excludes God,” included the Biblical text Romans 1:23–32.
According to the law firms, before Trubey read the Scripture aloud he explained to those attending the worship service that that in order to hear God’s good news of hope and redemption, they needed to hear how the Bible describes behaviors that cultures engage in and celebrate when they exclude God from their lives.
After Trubey read the Scripture, some people walked out of the room before he concluded his sermon by explaining that God provides grace, forgiveness to all who trust in God, regardless of past behavior.
When the worship service concluded, an onsite VA police officer informed Trubey of alleged complaints about his sermon. After Trubey informed his supervisor, Chaplain Brynn White, of the complaints about his sermon to police, she relieved him of his chaplain duties while an investigation of his “inappropriate conduct” ensued over the next several months.
Following the law firms’ issuance of a Letter of Representation on behalf of Trubey, the VA facility rescinded Trubey’s reprimand and allowed him to resume his chaplain duties. But not before White implemented a review process requiring all chaplains to submit their sermons for pre-approval.
“Chaplains’ sermons hold a special place in the context of the First Amendment’s Free Speech protections, and chaplains do not forfeit those rights by virtue of their employment by the federal government,” the letter explains. “The VA punished Chaplain Trubey for exercising his rights and now proposes changes to the SOP that would allow the Coatesville Facility to continue violating his free speech rights and the rights of all chaplains.”
In the letter to Secretary Collins, the attorneys explain further, “What’s more, the changes to the SOP allow Chaplain White and other supervisors to continue to discriminate against chaplains on the basis of their religious viewpoints simply because they find the viewpoint ‘divisive, cultural, or political.’ ‘If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.’ United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310, 319 (1990). Indeed, the Bible and other religious texts comment extensively on what some people could deem ‘divisive, cultural, or political,’ and chaplains would be hard-pressed to preach a sermon avoiding these topics and giving the viewpoint espoused by their religious text. This opens the door for supervisors to punish chaplains simply for preaching a viewpoint they find offensive.”
At press time, a response from Collins was pending.
Photo: Screenshot courtesy of First Liberty Institute