Hospital Chaplain’s Free-Speech Rights Restored
A chaplain at a Michigan veterans’ hospital has been invited to return and minister to patients.
Martin Colburn, a Christian chaplain of two veterans’ organizations, had been meeting patients who gave him permission to do so, counseling them and praying with them. Daniel Blomberg is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).
“One day back in February he was just summarily thrown out of the hospital because he had a Bible in his hand and he had been meeting with a patient,” Blomberg explains. “And on February 13, he received a letter saying he wasn’t welcome to come back except to receive his own veteran’s benefits because he was a wounded warrior himself.”
Blomberg was asked if Colburn was the victim of hostility toward religion.
“It’s hard to say. It certainly seemed like that initially and from certain hospital officials. However, in our negotiations with officials, it was very positive and the focus was really more on ensuring patients’ safety and protecting the right of Mr. Colburn and of the patients to exercise their religion freely,” he notes.
After ADF intervention, Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center in Iron Mountain is now allowing Colburn to return and minister.
(Source: OneNewsNow)
