10 U.S.C. § 6031
Section 6031 · Chaplains: divine services
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 2 court decisions — leading case Anderson v. Laird (1972)
Most recently applied in 119 Fed. Cl. 163 - Klingenschmitt v. United States (November 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) An officer in the Chaplain Corps may conduct public worship according to the manner and forms of the church of which he is a member.
(b) The commanders of vessels and naval activities to which chaplains are attached shall cause divine service to be performed on Sunday, whenever the weather and other circumstances allow it to be done; and it is earnestly recommended to all officers, seamen, and others in the naval service diligently to attend at every performance of the worship of Almighty God.
(c) All persons in the Navy and in the Marine Corps are enjoined to behave themselves in a reverent and becoming manner during divine service.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
In subsection (c) the words “and in the Marine Corps” are added to execute the definition of “Navy” in section 1, article 1, of the Act of May 5, 1950, ch. 169, 64 Stat. 146.
Amendments
1959—Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 86–140 repealed subsec. (d) which required each chaplain to report annually to the Secretary of the Navy the official services performed by him.