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April 3, 2024
Julianne Flynn, MD
Executive Director
Veterans Affairs South Texas Health Care System
RE: Executive Director Flynn, on behalf of its 44 military veteran client patients at your Audie L. Murphy Veteran Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) facility, San Antonio, Texas, MRFF demands that you immediately remove the illicit, unconstitutional, Christian proselytizing “Easter Tree” display and “He is risen” signage, which are under your personal control and direction.
Dear Executive Director Flynn,
My name is Mikey Weinstein, and I am the head of a large civil rights organization called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF, mrff.org). MRFF currently represents well over 87,000 active duty, reserve, National Guard, and military veteran clients, as well as many clients among the 17 national security agencies and DHS (Coast Guard) and DOT (U.S. Maritime Service). MRFF’s specific mission is to protect the constitutionally-mandated wall separating church and state in the above-referenced governmental venues.
MRFF has been retained by 44 military veterans who are also patients under your leadership as Executive Director at your Audie L. Murphy Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC), 7400 Merton Minter, San Antonio, Texas, 78229.
Of these 44 honorable American military veteran patients/MRFF clients, 32 are practicing Christians, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, 3 practice the Jewish faith, 2 practice Native American faith traditions, 2 practice the Islamic faith, 1 practices the Hindu faith, 1 practices the Buddhist faith, and 3 follow non-faith traditions.
Executive Director Flynn, let me get right to the bottom line here. In the nearly 20 years MRFF has been fighting to protect Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state in the VA, DoD, and other Federal agencies, we have NEVER seen such an IN YOUR FACE, repulsive parade of fundamentalist Christian proselytizing as what has tragically been allowed by you with this “Easter Tree” display in the waiting room of your geriatric (GEM) clinic at the Audie L. Murphy VAMC!
Please see the e-mail contained below in this letter, with impactful photographs, from one of our 44 MRFF client complainants on this sordid matter, which provides excellent detail as to the vile, inexcusable, unconstitutional violations occurring under your personal direction, ma'am.
Further to this point, please see the breaking news article immediately below from MRFF’s Senior Research Director, Ms. Chris Rodda:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/4/3/2233268/-The-most-outrageous-display-of-Christian-proselytizing-MRFF-has-ever-seen-at-any-VA-facility
Executive Director Flynn, your allowing this partisan display to promote and proselytize Christianity and ONLY Christianity is an atrocious and singularly ignominious act of illicit, unconstitutional Christian supremacy, dominance, exclusivity, triumphalism, and exceptionalism. It flagrantly violates not only the No Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and its construing caselaw but your own VA regulations as well.
The display of numerous, overt Christian proselytizing Easter decorations (“Easter Tree” and “He is risen” signage) at the Audie L. Murphy VAMC is in clear violation of the VA’s own regulations and policies regarding religious displays, which state that a display “should not elevate one belief system over others,” such as VA Directive 0022, "Religious Symbols in VA Facilities," January 31, 2020, (emphasis added):
2. POLICY. Religious symbols may be included in a passive display, including a holiday display, in public areas of VA facilities (see subsection a. below), if the display is of the type that follows in the longstanding tradition of monuments, symbols and practices that simply recognize the important role that religion plays in the lives of many Americans. Such displays should respect and tolerate differing views and should not elevate one belief system over others. …
b. VA is committed to inclusivity and nondiscrimination and evaluates all displays in public areas on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the policy stated above. VA particularly encourages the placement of diverse religious symbols together in passive displays in public areas.
The “Easter Tree” display and other illicitly sectarian “He is risen” signage would not even be allowed as a permanent display in a VA facility chapel, let alone a public area, as it is at Audie Murphy VA Medical Center. VA medical facility chapels are required to be “religiously neutral” at all times when there is not an actual service taking place for a particular faith group, as is clearly stated in VHA Directive 1111, “Spiritual Care,” July 21, 2021 (emphasis added):
9. CHAPELS AND OTHER WORSHIP FACILITIES
a. Chapels. The chapel, or a room set aside exclusively for use as a chapel, must be reserved for patients’ spiritual activities, such as: worship, prayer, meditation and quiet contemplation. Such chapels are appointed and maintained as places for meditation and worship. When VA chaplains are not providing or facilitating a religious service for a particular faith group, the chapel must be maintained as religiously neutral, meaning it cannot be viewed as endorsing one religion over another. Religious literature, content and symbols must be made readily accessible to VA patients and visitors in a chapel or Chaplain Service office at their request. The only exception to the policy on maintaining chapels as religiously neutral are the chapels at VA medical facilities which were built with permanent religious symbols in the walls or windows. In these cases, the VA medical facility Director must also designate an appropriately sized room or construct a religiously neutral chapel, which is maintained in accordance with this VHA directive and VA Space Planning Criteria …
Here is that key e-mail mentioned supra from one of MRFF’s 44 clients (who happens to also be a Christian) on this instant matter at hand:
From: (MRFF client’s name withheld)
Date: April 3, 2024 at 12:35:48 PM MDT
To: Mikey Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Subject: statement letter: revised, pls use this letter
Mikey,
At a recent visit to the Audie L. Murphy VA Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, accompanying a family member, I was taken aback and appalled to see the outrageous use of Christian Easter decorations in a common space waiting room.
Although I am Christian myself, the setup was like that of a Sunday school foyer or classroom. It was unconscionable to have that put upon me and others. It felt to be unnecessarily hurtful to the purpose of the facility for medical care and treatment of all veterans, inconsiderate of the broad diversity of those who use the facility.
Having a lifelong and expansive connection with the U.S. military through family and friends and, also, a robust experience with the Veterans Administration, I feel reprisals to my family and myself for speaking out on this issue are possible. I do not wish to bring that impact upon my family and friends. I am, therefore reaching out to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) for direction with my concerns.
I hope for everyone to have the right to religious freedom in that religion is not indiscriminately put upon others without their consent or desire.
Respectfully,
(MRFF client’s name withheld)
Executive Director Flynn, on behalf of its 44 military veteran client patients at your Audie L. Murphy VAMC facility in San Antonio, Texas, MRFF demands that you immediately remove the illicit, unconstitutional, Christian proselytizing “Easter Tree”display and “He is risen” signage, which is under YOUR personal control and direction.
Failure to timely remove this unconstitutionally offensive Christian “Easter Tree” display and “He is risen” signage from the waiting room of your geriatric (GEM) clinic at your Audie L. Murphy VAMC will result in expeditious, aggressive, and highly visible Federal litigation to, inter alia, force your VAMC facility to follow its own VA regulatory structure prohibiting such wretchedly illegal and constitutionally-violative displays of singularly sectarian Christian religious dominance to the exclusion of all other faith and non-faith traditions at a critically needed, U.S. government medical facility.
Additionally, MRFF demands on behalf of its Audie L. Murphy VAMC clients that the person or persons directly or indirectly responsible for allowing this unavoidable and outrageously egregious display of Christian proselytizing be visibly and aggressively punished and that the staff of the Audie L. Murphy VAMC be instructed in the VA regulations cited above to prevent any future violations of the VA’s clear and unambiguous prohibition of such sectarian displays.
MRFF is standing by, anticipating your swift and satisfactory response.
Sincerely,
Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, Esq.
Founder and President
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
505-250-7727
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