Six California firefighters have gone to federal court in an attempt to have the chaplain program ended at the state agency for which they work, reports the New York Times.
The government employees say the chaplains' corps of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention violates the Constitution by mixing church and state.
According to the Times report, the mid-level officers brought the suit earlier this year, saying the corps is made up of almost exclusively Christians and that the clergy had improperly tainted the government agency with religion.
The chaplains' corps is just 2 years old, having replaced a peer-counseling program. Of over 50 chaplains, reports the Times, less than 10 percent are from faiths other than Christianity.
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