A Veterans Affairs chaplain is hitting back after a sermon resulted in a sanction that his lawyer says violates the First Amendment.
Rusty Trubey, a chaplain at the Coatesville VA Medical Center, ended up in hot water over a sermon from June 2024 when he read from Romans 1. First Liberty Institute associate counsel Erin Smith explained how everything went down, and why Trubey was punished.
“The specific text that he was reading was Romans 1 verses 23 through 32, so before he gave the sermon, he did explain that what he was going to say was going to be hard to hear or uncomfortable for people,” she said.
“But he also was explaining that in order to be able to hear the good news of what he was going to be preaching, it’s important that you hear bad news. The Bible describes in Romans 1, behaviors the culture engages in and one of those behaviors that the Bible describes is homosexual behavior.”
As Trubey’s service continued along that theme, some people got up and left. This did not deter him from continuing to preach, but following the sermon he was approached by a VA officer to discuss some complaints that had been made by attendees. The chaplain was briefly removed from his duties and investigated but was eventually allowed to return to his normal duties.
While the reprimand was removed from his record, Trubey was told by his supervisor that a review process for his sermons would be implemented. This is unconstitutional, he believes.
First Liberty Institute fired off a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, demanding the rule be rescinded before it can infringe on anyone’s right to speak and worship freely.
“The government has no business censoring anyone’s sermon, including military chaplains,” Smith said. “This is just the kind of woke policy that we anticipate Secretary Collins wants to purge from the VA.”
“What’s more, the changes to the SOP allow Chaplain White and other supervisors to continue to discriminate against chaplains on the basis of their religious viewpoints simply because they find the viewpoint ‘divisive, cultural, or political,’” the letter continues, going on to quote SCOTUS case United States v. Eichman.
“‘If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.’ Indeed, the Bible and other religious texts comment extensively on what some people could deem ‘divisive, cultural, or political,’ and chaplains would be hard-pressed to preach a sermon avoiding these topics and giving the viewpoint espoused by their religious text. This opens the door for supervisors to punish chaplains simply for preaching a viewpoint they find offensive.”
“We really do look forward to seeing the good work that he’s going to do for religious liberty and taking care of the chaplaincy and the VA,” Smith added. “Our hope is that we can resolve this very amicably. If we can’t, then we are prepared to litigate a case.”
Independence Law Center’s Randall Wenger agreed.
“Chaplains do not give up their First Amendment rights in order to serve. Censoring the content of a chaplain’s sermon is an unconstitutional violation of their God-given rights to religious freedom and free speech.”
