On the heels of Vice President Mike Pence declaring that Veterans Administration hospitals “will NOT be religion-free zones,” a patient at one VA hospital is finding out that this so-called freedom of religion doesn’t apply to those with “alternative beliefs.”
The patient, who is now a client of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), is a reserve officer and veteran who receives treatment at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachussetts. He contacted MRFF when he was blocked on the hospital’s wi-fi from accessing certain websites, with the reason given for being blocked from these sites being that the sites were in the category of “Alternative Beliefs.” He first got this “Web Page Blocked!” message when trying to access a Freemason site, and then decided to try to access a popular Wiccan site to see what would happen, getting the same message. (See screen shots below.)
The Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital uses FortiGuard Web Filtering to restrict the content its patients and visitors can see. But according to the Fortiguard website, what get’s filtered isn’t automatic; someone must choose the categories of content that will be filtered. From the FortiGuard website:
“FortiGuard Web Filtering is a managed web filtering solution available by subscription from Fortinet. ... FortiGuard Web Filtering includes over 45 million individual ratings of web sites that apply to more than two billion pages. Pages are sorted and rated into several dozen categories administrators can allow or block.”
This means that someone at the hospital very deliberately chose to deny patients and visitors at the facility who hold “alternative beliefs” from being able to access websites about their chosen beliefs.
As seen in the screen shot above, FortiGuard defines its “Alternative Beliefs” category as:
"Websites that provide information about or promote religions not specified in Traditional Religions or other unconventional, cultic, or folkloric beliefs and practices. Sites that promote or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, curses, magic powers, satanic or supernatural beings."
Under this definition, Christian websites should also be blocked, since they encourage prayer to “affect or influence real events” by praying to Jesus, a “supernatural being.” But of course they don’t mean that preferred “supernatural being.”
In an August 28 speech before the American Legion National Convention, and in a tweet that same day, which was retweeted by President Trump, Vice President Pence said, referring to another MRFF client’s lawsuit over a Bible displayed at the Manchester, NH VA Medical Center, “Message to the New Hampshire VA: the Bible STAYS!” He also said that “VA hospitals will NOT be religion-free zones.” (He also made other claims about the VA and the Bible in Manchester that were debunked by FactCheck.org.)
The Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital is now a “religion-free zone” for those internet users whose beliefs this VA facility deems to be “alternative.” Wonder if Mike Pence would object so emphatically to that?