Government employees use positions to promote fundamentalism

David Miller is a Navy veteran and as such qualified to seek medicare care from Veteran’s Affaris. He sought such treatment at the VA Medical Center in Iowa City. Because he is an Orthodox Jew he was targeted by staff members at the facility for conversion attempts to persuad him to become a fundamentalist Christian.

Over a period of two years he has required hospitalization three times and each time he says the chaplains and staff made repeated attempts to convert him. In addition he says that because he is an adherent to Orthodox Judaism he had to go hungry as the staff refused to provide kosher food to him and refused to call his rabbbi who would provide such food. He also described a waiting room where all patients, no matter their faith, were subjected to Gospel music extolling a fundamentalist view of Christianity.

The chaplain at the center, David Brown, is a minister with the extreme fundamentalist Assemblies of God and he has refused to comment on the allegations against him.