Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman for his efforts on behalf of the chaplaincy. I agree with his interpretation of the rules and responsibilities of the chaplaincy. And we try to represent the diverse faith tradition of the men and women who serve. In that faith tradition are those who look at objective fact, free thinkers, humanists, atheists. They too have the same mentoring, spiritual existential needs as others. And, of course, just as Catholics have to handle the needs of Jews and Muslims in the service and Buddhist chaplains handle the needs of others, they're all trained to handle the needs of soldiers. We also want to make sure we have a chaplaincy that reflects the broad diversity of belief systems. Over 20 percent of today's members of the military don't have a theistic outlook, are nonbelievers. That's an important thing to represent in the chaplaincy. Many major universities have humanist chaplains. Hospitals have humanist chaplains. Many of our allied European militaries have humanist chaplains. As one of the other gentlemen argued, there is no political goal or secular agenda here. We simply want to make sure the military is not prevented from providing chaplaincy services for the men and women who put their lives at risk defending our country every day.…”