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thedrifter
09-20-06, 10:14 AM
September 19, 2006
Chaplain: Change prayer policy

By Chris Amos
Staff writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Navy chaplain, convicted last week of disobeying a lawful order, called Tuesday for the repeal of a Navy policy that he said illegally restricts the right of chaplains to pray as they wish.

Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt said military officials should have neither control over the content of a chaplain’s prayers nor the authority to restrict the time or place that a chaplain chooses to pray. Klingenschmitt, in Washington to lobby senators for a less restrictive set of controls on Navy chaplains, said such authority should lie only in the religious authorities who appoint chaplains and have the power to fire them.

Giving military officials such control violates chaplains’ constitutional right to be free from an established state religion, he said. Klingenschmitt said repealing the order from the secretary of the Navy would be easy to accomplish.

“They can do that with one phone call,” said Klingenschmitt, wearing a black civilian religious outfit, at a news conference in a park across from the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill.

If the policy is not changed, Klingenschmitt said he would file a lawsuit in federal district court to have it overturned.

Last week, a military jury recommended that Klingenschmitt be given a reprimand and be fined $3,000 for wearing his uniform to a March conference in a park across the street from the White House.

Rear Adm. Frederic Ruhe, convening authority for the court-martial, can accept the recommended sentence or lower it.

Ruhe must also submit a report of misconduct to the chief of Navy personnel, who must then decide whether a separation hearing for Klingenschmitt will be held.

Klingenschmitt said Tuesday that he expects to be forced out of the Navy by year’s end.

He also said he was ordered out of the Norfolk Naval Station, Va., chapel after the jury’s verdict was announced. He said he has been reassigned to the base’s transient personnel unit, where he said he continues to counsel sailors and perform other chaplain’s duties.

Lt. j.g. Karl J. Lettow, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, said Tuesday night that the Navy did not have a comment on Klingenschmitt’s news conference.

Ellie