The Biden administration backpedaled from banning a Catholic men’s group from holding a Memorial Day Mass at a national veterans’ cemetery in Virginia after the state’s attorney general intervened.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, announced Thursday that the National Park Service had changed its mind over blocking Knights of Columbus Council 694 in Petersburg from conducting a Mass on Monday inside the Poplar Grove National Cemetery.
The Biden administration did so after Miyares’ office joined a lawsuit against the NPS that claimed the ban was discriminatory.
Related: Biden’s National Park Service Deny Memorial Day Mass Celebrated By Knights Of Columbus In Virginia
“Within hours of my filing, the Biden Administration reversed course and will now allow the Knights of Columbus to gather at the Poplar Grove National Cemetery this Memorial Day,” the AG posted on X. “It’s shameful that they were denied in the first place.”
Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin concurred.
“Virginia is the birthplace of religious liberty and I applaud our AG @JasonMiyaresVA standing side by side with the @KofC to protect this important and worthy tradition,” Youngkin said on X.
The controversy erupted, as the Tampa Free Press reported on Thursday when the NPS declared that the Knights’ annual service, a Memorial Day tradition that the group conducted at the cemetery since the 1960s, was a “demonstration” and could be banned.
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Parks officials told the Knights, a fraternal organization for Catholic men, that they could hold the Mass on a patch of grass near the parking lot, which they have designated as a ‘First Amendment Area.’”
First Liberty Institute, a religious liberty legal aid group, sued on the Knights’ behalf. They asserted the ban was discriminatory and violated the Knights’ First Amendment rights.
In filing his brief in support of the Knights, Miyares called the NPS to ban a “blatant act of unlawful discrimination.” They said it was “shameful” that the federal government wanted to stop the group from praying for military personnel who died in service to our country.
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