For the last several weeks, the Religious Right has been hyping allegations from Kelly Shackleford and his Liberty Institute claiming that the Department of Veterans Affairs has instituted a ban on “the use of Christian words or phrases at veterans’ funerals.”

Liberty Institute has even launched a website called “Don’t Tear Us Down” which claims that “Jesus is not welcome at gravesides” and the campaign is receiving support from other Religious Right groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.

Today the New York Times took a look at the controversy and discovered – shockingly – that the claims being made by the Religious Right are totally misleading. As the NYT explains, the Bush administration instituted a policy in 2007 that “prohibits volunteer honor guards from reading recitations — including religious ones — in their funeral rituals, unless families specifically request them.”

In essence, the policy states that volunteer groups are not allowed to attend military funerals and inject their religion in to it unless their presence is requested by the family. Conversely, if a family does want to included such prayers in the service, they have that right as well.

But to the Religious Right, preventing outside groups from attending funerals and offering prayers at services where they are not wanted or requested is a violation of the religious freedom of the volunteers: