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Return to Article: EPA, VA clear officials who appeared in religious video

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  Fedworker, the Hatch Act applies to specified political activities. Not religion. Your post is unrelated to this item.

  What happened to our Constitution?, please show me where separation of church and state is enshrined in our Constitution... find the text that says that phrase. I challenge you. We have a non-establishment clause. Separation of church and state does not mean Federal employees have to leave their religion, or lack of religion, entirely at the door. But it does mean there are some lines you do not cross. The folks who crossed the line at DoD were disciplined. The other folks from EPA and VA did not cross the line. Would I have done what they did? No. But like it or not, they were just careful enough.

  I don't want to go on witch hunts against the religious or the irreligious or the antireligious. The service members should have known to take off their uniforms and speak as private citizens, outside of what was clearly a Federal reservation. What they did was clearly wrong. And they violated not just ethics rules, but common sense behavior. That's the diffence between them, K Kippel, like it or not.

  B Woop Posted August 14, 2007 11:50 AM
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  I got out my copy of the constitution and couldn't find any reference to the "Seperation of Church and State". If they did this on their own time its fine, I noticed most of the posting to Gov Ex are done on goverment time is this a similar violation of the Hatch act ?

  dan ketter Posted August 14, 2007 10:17 AM
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  I was born and raised Catholic, and went to twelve years of parochial school. But if the Catholic Church asked me to appear in a promotion as a Federal employee, even for an issue I agreed with, I would decline because of the APPEARANCE of government endorsing a religious message. Even if it was legal, I would not find it appropriate because of the appearance it leaves. This is a concept that I see that is lost on the higher echelon of Government employees and elected officials these days - the appearance of impropriety. They only seem concerned over whether something is legal (if that much) not over whether something is appropriate. That's sad, because it erodes people's faith in government when officials do not live by a higher standard than just legality. Maybe I'm too old fashioned.

  JT Posted August 14, 2007 8:04 AM
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  As usual, no penalty for the upper echelon who blatantly violate the Hatch Act. Meanwhile, rank-and-file USDA workers are being persecuted for circulating an email encouraging co-workers to write Congress protesting a bill to re-open a lawsuit that would overload the system and cost taxpayers millions. If these "superiors" don't get penalized for violating Hatch, then neither should the "worker bees."

  fedworker Posted August 10, 2007 12:33 PM
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  Thank you GovExec & National Journal, for publishing this story. Just another example of some of the best government journalism available today.

  Cal Posted August 10, 2007 11:14 AM
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  Why am I not surprised that gambling takes place at Rick's? Another whitewash by the most irresponsible, unaccountable, incompetent administration in history. To think we have to survive another 17 months of this travesty.

  Richard Hermann Posted August 10, 2007 10:46 AM
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  Espousing their own religious views "on numerous occasions" while being "filmed during the duty day, in uniform with rank clearly displayed, in official and often identifiable Pentagon locations" -- and you did not say whether or not they were using federal government audiovisual equipment or production personnel -- is appalling. If that video does not satisfy the DOD requirement against "appearing to provide government endorsement of non-official activities," what does? The insistence on pressing their personal religious agenda is, among other things, exclusionary, elitist, contrary to the essence of separation of church and state, and perpetuates the all too pervasive belief that there exists an "old boy network" with all the trappings of nepotism, favoritism, and discrimination.

  These PUBLIC SERVICE employees do/did not just work for the President, but for every citizen of the United States, regardless of what their religious beliefs happen to be. Contrary to DOD's own inspector general's findings, those who chose to ignore the implications of this activity by finding nothing illegal are complicit in that wrong-headed behavior.

  As for providing EPA employees with ONE HOUR of ethics training out of an ENTIRE YEAR, this is clearly indicative of the importance placed on ethics in that agency.

  George Selby Posted August 10, 2007 10:43 AM
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  This is another example of Bush Administration trying to push religion down our throats. I think it is funny that the DoD Inspector General thought that it was wrong for the military to be participating in a promotional video for Christian Embassy, but the EPA Inspector General thought that it was okay. I did not know that the Christian Embassy has a government function within the Executive Branch of our government. But we now know that they do. If it was appropriate to be there, way doesn't John Manibusan state the justification for the EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson participation? May be they are praying for all the hazardous material to disappear in the US. Our ethics training for my agency must be different the EPA's training.

  K Kippel Posted August 10, 2007 9:14 AM
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  As someone familar with ethics in the Department of Defense, I have to take issue with some of the statements in this article.

  First, the statement in the article that "All Defense employees are required to complete annual ethics training" is incorrect. The Department of Defense generally follows the standards established by the Office of Government Ethics (see 5 CFR 2638.704 and 5 CFR 2638.705), and requires annual ethics training for general officer and civilian equivalents and all others required to file a financial disclosure statement (OGE Form 450). At my activity, which has major contracting functions, less than 25% of employees are required to complete annual ethics training.

  Second, I take issue with the implication ("The EPA requires training on ethics rules ... for some, but not all, of its employees") that the EPA Administrator was not required to complete annual ethics training. The Administrator is an SF 278 filer, and as such is required by Office of Government Ethics regulations to complete annual ethics training. The same regulation requires an undersecretary at the VA to complete annual ethics training.

  The DoD IG found that some of the people who appeared in the video violated ethics regulations, but others who appeared in the video did not. EPA and VA have concluded their officials did not violate ethics regulations. I have not seen the video in question, but I expect that the participation in the video was similar to that detailed in the DoD IG report, and that they gave testimonials in support of Christian Embassy. I also tend to think that being identified as a presidential appointee and an undersecretary violates 5 CFR 2635.702(b) ("(b) Appearance of governmental sanction. Except as otherwise provided in this part, an employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that could reasonably be construed to imply that his agency or the Government sanctions or endorses his personal activities or those of another."). Even if the agency is not identified, saying that you are a presidential appointee implies Government sanction just as appearing in military uniform implies Government sanction.

  vanpup Posted August 10, 2007 7:52 AM
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  Separation of Church and state is enshrined in our Constitution. I never thought I'd see the day when the military does more to support that basic fact of US democracy than other agencies. This is appalling. What corruption.

  What happened to our Constitution? Posted August 10, 2007 4:38 AM
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  Of course, the veterans protesting the war might lose their benefits for appearing in public with uniforms, but no insignia, while the big shots & political good ole boys can film religous stuff on governement property, in the Pentagon yet, and it is just fine. What a bunch of hypocrites.

  rmk Posted August 10, 2007 1:03 AM