by WorldTribune Staff, May 23, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
Memorial Day services at national cemeteries are a longstanding Knights of Columbus tradition.
That is, until the progressives who run the show at the Biden administration stepped in.
For the second year in a row, the Knights this Memorial Day are being denied a permit by the National Park Service to hold its annual Memorial Day Mass inside a national cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia.
The Knights of Columbus Petersburg Council 694 has filed for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond Division) in hopes of overturning Team Biden’s policy which designates “religious services” as “demonstrations” that are prohibited at national cemeteries.
“The policy and the decision blocking the Knights of Columbus from continuing their long-standing religious tradition is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” said John Moran, partner at McGuireWoods LLP in Washington, D.C.
The Knights of Columbus Petersburg Council 694 had until last year held a service at the Poplar Grove National Cemetery since at least the 1960s.
The Knights sued after officials at the Petersburg National Battlefield rejected for the second year in a row the application to hold the cemetery Mass, but offered to let them use a location “immediately adjacent to the cemetery,” Valerie Richardson reported for The Washington Times on May 21.
“National Cemeteries are established as national shrines in tribute to those who have died in service to our country, and as such any special activities within the cemetery are reserved for a limited set of official commemorative activities that have a connection to military service or have a historic and commemorative significance for the particular national cemetery,” said Alexa Viets, superintendent of the Petersburg National Battlefield, which includes the cemetery.
Viets told The Washington Times that federal regulations “prohibit the Battlefield from authorizing individuals or organizations to host a special event within National Cemeteries to protect the atmosphere of solemnity, quiet contemplation and tranquility within this space.”
Roger Byron, First Liberty senior counsel, argued that the agency’s decision to deny the Petersburg council violates the First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“The National Park Service is way out of line,” Byron said. “This is the kind of unlawful discrimination and censorship RFRA and the First Amendment were enacted to prevent. Hopefully, the court will grant the Knights the relief they need to keep this honorable tradition alive.”
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