A concerning report comes from Lexington, Kentucky, where the VA Health Care System has instructed staff to eliminate Bibles from all Missing Man table displays. Instead, the Bible is to be substituted with a journal containing blank pages. These displays are intended to pay tribute to service members who are either prisoners of war or missing in action, with a Bible traditionally included as part of the exhibit.
“All table displays within VA Lexington Health Care System will contain the following: small table, white tablecloth, single rose, vase, yellow ribbon, slice of lemon, salt, bread plate, glass, candle, empty chair, and a journal,” the healthcare system wrote in a memorandum.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been actively challenging the presence of the Holy Bible on military bases and VA hospitals nationwide. They claim that veterans in Kentucky found the Good Book triggering.
During the Obama Administration, the MRFF claimed to have a direct line to the Pentagon, and whenever one of their anonymous members was triggered by a Nativity scene on a military base, they would contact the Pentagon, leading to the removal of the display. Founder Mikey Weinstein argues that having the Bible on the Missing Man table constitutes an unconstitutional act of Christian supremacy.
He called the cherished military tradition a “partisan display to promote and proselytize Christianity and only Christianity is an atrocious and singularly ignominious act of illicit, unconstitutional Christian supremacy, exclusivity, triumphalism, and exceptionalism.”
Weinstein further claimed that a permanent display of a Christian Bible is not permitted even in a VA chapel.
“MRFF demands that you immediately remove the illicit, unconstitutional Christian proselytizing material (from the Gideons International organization) from the referenced POW/MIA ‘Missing Man Table’ display, which is under your personal control and direction,” he wrote.
Instead of upholding tradition and the principles of the U.S. Constitution, the health care system yielded to Weinstein’s group, compromising one of the most revered tables in America.
