The Pease Air National Guard Base in New Hampshire will continue allowing its chaplains to deliver prayers and Bible readings at official events, despite claims by secular non-profit Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) that such activities are unconstitutional. 

As The Stream reported last week, religious freedom law firm First Liberty Institute encouraged the base to ignore the FFRF’s warning. In an advisory letter representing the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, First Liberty Senior Counsel and Director of Military Affairs Mike Berry wrote that forbidding military chaplains to pray or read Scripture at events would actually violate the Constitution, federal law and Department of Defense policies. 

“We’re very pleased to see the New Hampshire Air National Guard do the right thing and continue their tradition, as the law clearly allows,” Berry said in a press release. “It is perfectly constitutional to offer invocations at military events and service members have every right to exercise their faith under the First Amendment.”

Berry previously told The Stream that limiting the religious freedom of military chaplains would harm religious liberty for all service members. “It is vital that our military be just as spiritually fit as it is physically and mentally fit,” he said.

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty commended the base’s decision to continue allowing chaplains to offer invocations. “Chaplains and service members have the right to freely exercise their religious beliefs without fear of reprisal,” said retired Army Col. Ron Crews, Executive Director for the Chaplain Alliance.

In a report for the NH Journal last week, FFRF staff attorney Sam Grover said he was “disappointed” to hear that the base wouldn’t be responding to the complaint. “We will see what other legal remedies we can pursue,” he said.