{"id":3709,"date":"2011-06-30T12:22:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T16:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2011-06-30T12:22:59","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T16:22:59","slug":"houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals","title":{"rendered":"Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Three national veterans groups have filed a 26-page complaint in federal court\u00a0that officials at the Houston National Cemetery have defied the court\u2019s order to quit censoring prayer and banning the words \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cJesus\u201d from funeral services.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a Memorial Day injunction by federal judge Lynn Hughes, local veterans say the Department of Veterans Affairs has continued to censor their prayers, eulogies and traditional ceremonies in violation of their First Amendment guarantees that the government\u00a0will not\u00a0impede their free exercise of religion or\u00a0their freedom of speech.<\/p>\n<p>The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Memorial Ladies\u00a0cited \u201creligious hostility\u201d at the cemetery, charging that\u00a0the cemetery\u2019s director, Arleen Ocasio, bans religious phrases and requires prayers to be submitted in advance for her approval. She has also turned the cemetery chapel into a meeting room, they said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were told we could no longer say \u201cGod bless you\u201d and \u201cGod bless your family,\u201d said Marilyn Koepp, a volunteer with the National Memorial Ladies. \u201cHow did I feel? I probably shouldn\u2019t say how I felt because it was absolutely apalling that this woman would come aboard and tell us we can not say \u2018God bless you.\u2019 What is happening to our country?\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/va-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-religious-words-from-services.html#ixzz1QmDa9IAu\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three national veterans groups have filed a 26-page complaint in federal court\u00a0that officials at the Houston National Cemetery have defied the court\u2019s order to quit censoring prayer and banning the words \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cJesus\u201d from funeral services. Despite a Memorial Day injunction by federal judge Lynn Hughes, local veterans say the Department of Veterans Affairs&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,976,969,74],"tags":[2254,997,1000,2248,996,394,2201,2244,998],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-free-speech","category-political-correctness","category-religious-freedom","tag-american-legion","tag-arlene-ocasio","tag-federal-judge-lynn-hughes","tag-free-speech","tag-houston-national-cemtery","tag-jesus","tag-news","tag-political-correctness","tag-veterans-of-foreign-wars"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-\u201cgod-bless-you\u201d-from-veterans\u2019-funerals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three national veterans groups have filed a 26-page complaint in federal court\u00a0that officials at the Houston National Cemetery have defied the court\u2019s order to quit censoring prayer and banning the words \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cJesus\u201d from funeral services. Despite a Memorial Day injunction by federal judge Lynn Hughes, local veterans say the Department of Veterans Affairs&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-\u201cgod-bless-you\u201d-from-veterans\u2019-funerals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-30T16:22:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-\u201cgod-bless-you\u201d-from-veterans\u2019-funerals","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals","og_description":"Three national veterans groups have filed a 26-page complaint in federal court\u00a0that officials at the Houston National Cemetery have defied the court\u2019s order to quit censoring prayer and banning the words \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cJesus\u201d from funeral services. Despite a Memorial Day injunction by federal judge Lynn Hughes, local veterans say the Department of Veterans Affairs&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-\u201cgod-bless-you\u201d-from-veterans\u2019-funerals","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-06-30T16:22:59+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals","name":"Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-30T16:22:59+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-30T16:22:59+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/06\/houston-national-cemetery-defies-judge-bans-%e2%80%9cgod-bless-you%e2%80%9d-from-veterans%e2%80%99-funerals#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Houston National Cemetery defies judge, bans \u201cGod bless you\u201d from veterans\u2019 funerals"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3711,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions\/3711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}