Stifling Religion at the Expense of Disaster Victims

If you want a good idea as to the priorities of some Americans look no further than what took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The need for relief was of course great and one of the organizations willing to alleviate suffering was the Calvary Baton Rouge Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The church did so by providing free food through a barbeque to residents of a housing project managed by FEMA. In addition to food, the church also shared the message of the gospel with residents.

Some officials of what is known as the Keta group decided that speaking about the gospel could not be tolerated even if this meant foregoing the food benefits. Keta managed the FEMA project.

Fortunately a letter, authored by attorney Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund, explained the First Amendment rights of church members to the Keta group and caused FEMA to reverse gears. The troubling aspect of this is the extent to which some will go to inhibit the free expression of religion. The suffering of disaster victims is not too high a price to pay, in the minds of some officials, if that's what it takes to silence church members.