A Veterans Affairs chaplain was allegedly sanctioned for a sermon he gave at a veteran's hospital in Pennsylvania, which his lawyers argue is a violation of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In response, First Liberty Institute and the Independence Law Center sent a letter on behalf of Rusty Trubey, a veteran chaplain at the Coatesville VA Medical Center on Tuesday, asking U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins to take immediate action to eliminate a speech code being imposed by the Veterans Affairs (VA). They are also asking Secretary Collins to ensure that Chaplain Trubey and his colleagues may preach according to the dictates of their conscience.
"The government has no business censoring anyone’s sermon, including military chaplains," Erin Smith, associate counsel at First Liberty Institute, said. "This is just the kind of woke policy that we anticipate Secretary Collins wants to purge from the VA."
"Chaplains do not give up their First Amendment rights in order to serve," Randall Wenger of the Independence Law Center added. "Censoring the content of a chaplain’s sermon is an unconstitutional violation of their God-given rights to religious freedom and free speech."
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Trubey, who served as an Army Reserve Chaplain and missionary, has been serving as a chaplain at the Coatesville VA Medical Center in Pennsylvania for nearly ten years. In June 2024, as part of his normal duties, Trubey led a worship service in the hospital's chapel, where he preached a sermon from the first chapter of Romans.
Smith explained that the theme of the sermon was what happens when culture excludes God, in which he read from Romans 1 and explained, in accordance with his religious beliefs and in accordance with the teaching of his endorsing body, the Assemblies of God, what the Bible chapters is interpreted to mean.
"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," Smith 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," she added. "The Bible describes in Romans 1, behaviors the culture engages in and one of those behaviors that the Bible describes is homosexual behavior."
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When he read the text, some people walked out of the service, but he continued to preach the sermon. But, when Chaplain Trubey was cleaning up the chapel after the service, an onsite VA police officer approached him, alleging complaints made about his sermon.
Chaplain Trubey then informed his supervisor, Chaplain Brynn White, that the police had been called after his sermon and he was removed from his duties as chaplain, investigated for several months and threatened with a mark on his permanent record.
He has since returned to his position as a chaplain and is doing his normal duties, but before that he was relegated to what is colloquially known in the hospital as "nurse jail," in which he was responsible for stocking shelves and doing inventory.
While the Coatesville hospital has rescinded its proposed reprimand of the Chaplain, his supervisor has implemented what Trubey sees as an unconstitutional sermon review process and is attempting to change the Chaplain Standard Operating Procedure and Performance Plan to limit the topics on which chaplains can preach.
Tubey's lawyers argue that if such a rule was put into effect, this plan would punish chaplains for preaching according to their religious convictions.
"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 lawyers state in their letter to Secretary Collins.
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"‘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,’" the letter said, quoting the Supreme Court case, United States v. Eichman. "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."
Smith said she is confident that Secretary Collins, in his role as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, will champion religious liberty and free speech.
"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 said.
"Our hope is that we can resolve this very amicably. If we can't, then we are prepared to litigate a case," she added.
Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a Coatesville VA Medical Center representative stated, "We’ve received the letter and are reviewing the facts surrounding this incident at the Coatesville VA Medical Center. We value every American's right to freedom of speech and the protections of the First Amendment."
