Officials with the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) in Yountville say they evict an 84-year-old widow from California Veterans Home unless she stops teaching a Bible study for fellow residents.

Pacific Justice Institute is representing Artis Breau. She and her late husband moved into the Veterans Home nine months ago. Her husband served as a Merchant Marine in World War II and later was in the Air Force during the Korean War. She was a civilian employee in the Pentagon.

Breau volunteered in the chaplaincy program and began leading Bible studies. Trouble started in September when someone claimed that a discussion she had with another resident about Heaven and Hell caused him to lose sleep.

Officials called it “elder abuse.” They suspended her volunteer status indefinitely. In March, they threatened to expel her from the home if she continued to teach the Bible.

The Bible studies are all voluntary. She thinks the underlying issue is that she is a Jew who became an evangelical Christian, which is a problem for some of the chaplains used by the home.

“CalVet’s treatment of this widow is shameful,” PJI wrote in a letter to officials. “Throughout this process, we have been deeply disturbed not only by the lack of constitutional guidelines, ineptitude, and lack of due process in the investigation, but even more by the notion that discussing religious views on the eternal state of the soul is somehow elder abuse or emotional abuse. Our client’s husband fought for his country to preserve the freedoms now being threatened by CalVet. Our veterans deserve better.”

Veterans have benefitted from her teaching for a long time. This is a classic case of religious discrimination.

“Artis isn’t fighting just for herself, but for the Gospel and for the residents who are unable to fight for themselves against the State’s attempted intimidation,” said PJI President Brad Dacus.