About time. According to the New York Times, six California firefighters have filed suit in federal court seeking to end the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention's chaplain corps. They claim it "impermissibly mingles church and state."

The middle-level officers brought the lawsuit earlier this year, saying that the chaplain's corps, run by an evangelical minister who is also a senior official of the department, was almost exclusively Christian and had improperly injected religious faith into a government organization.

Norman Hill, the chief counsel for the forestry department, said he believed the chaplain program was constitutional. "This is designed to provide an additional dimension to the counseling people receive when they have a need for these services," Mr. Hill said. "There is very minimal involvement of religion in the workplace."

But, it's not supposed to be "minimal involvement." The bright line is drawn at no involvement at all.