God and Country

After being repeatedly called out for decrying one cross and not others, atheist and former Army Captain Jason Torpy, of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, finally addressed the “controversial” issue of Arlington National Cemetery:

Other memorials are biased toward Christianity and ought properly to be removed to private property.  The Camp Pendleton cross is just one of many…

The Argonne Cross at Arlington, a 1921 monument erected “In memory of our men in France” also excludes all non-Christians.  This cross now memorializes a time when our military had nearly no recognition for anyone not Christian and was segregated by both race and gender…

In deciding to include the Argonne Cross with others “to be removed,” this initially seems like an opportunity to applaud Torpy’s intellectual Read more…

The US Naval Academy practice of conducting a noon-meal prayer is making its near-annual trek through the media.  This time, Talbot Manvel, an “adjunct instructor” at Annapolis, wrote an article in the Baltimore Sun saying the USNA puts “tradition ahead of the Constitution.”

So how is the academy defying the Constitution? It has established a religious practice: prayer at its mandatory noon meal for its midshipmen (students). They are marched into the mess hall, called to attention to listen to announcements, and then to prayer by a chaplain before sitting to eat. They are not permitted to leave, and thus they are forced to listen.

(Manvel becomes the latest Naval Academy instructor to publicly malign his employer.)  Manvel’s article is rife with error.  He cites Mellen v. Bunting, in which the 4th District Court held mealtime prayers at VMI were unConstitutional — a ruling the Supreme Court declined to review.  However, he ignores the ruling’s own qualifier:  Read more…

Ensign Michael Izbicki, a 2008 US Naval Academy graduate, previously sued the US Navy to gain status as a conscientious objector.

A Connecticut news outlet reports Izbicki has been granted an honorable discharge; he, in turn, is dropping his lawsuit.

Importantly:

He’s not getting out of the Navy scot-free. As part of his honorable discharge, Izbicki will have to reimburse the Navy for his education at the Naval Academy. Normally men and women attend the service academies free of charge.

Update: Also covered and with background at the Christian Post and GetReligion.org.

Via the ADF.

The long-running ACLU lawsuit against the Mount Soledad cross in San Diego reached another milestone at the 9th Circuit, with a three-judge panel ruling the cross is unConstitutional.

A war memorial cross in a San Diego public park is unconstitutional because it conveys a message of government endorsement of religion…The court said modifications could be made to make it constitutional, but it didn’t specify what those changes would be.

The 9th Circuit panel did not direct that the cross be torn down.  Instead, Read more…

In the other case on DADT, former flight nurse Maj Margaret Witt, who was discharged under DADT, has claimed she can return to service while her case is appealed.  The DoJ is appealing the ruling in her favor, but did not request a stay on the ruling while it is appealed.  The ACLU has represented Witt.

The Air Force, for its part, said no request was made because they have had no indication Witt wanted to be reinstated, making a request for stay moot.  Should she begin an application, they would have a response, and might subsequently seek a stay.

According to a local news station, PFC Naser Abdo has been recommended for honorable discharge five months after seeking status as a conscientious objector.

Abdo had previously been called a “traitor” by the American Islamic Forum for Democracy for seeking CO status while opposing only US military operations, not war in general.

As noted earlier, a Christian Ensign has sued the Navy with the help of the ACLU for not getting CO status, despite declaring himself a pacifist.

The North Carolina city of King has been in the news over the past few months over its decision to remove a Christian flag from a veteran’s memorial — after a threat of financial ruin from the ACLU.  Local citizens subsequently raised their own Christian flag, and then stood guard over it 24/7.

King officials, with pro bono assistance from the Alliance Defense Fund, recently voted to reinstate the memorial…sort of:  Read more…

In a flashback to an item noted earlier this month, the city of Phoenix, AZ, was extremely grateful for the prayer at a City Council meeting led by Hindu Rajan Zed.

[Zed] started and ended the prayer with “Om”, the mystical syllable containing the universe, which in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work. Zed sprinkled few drops of sacred water from river Ganga in India around the podium before the prayer.

Zed also provided the Mayor and the AZ Secretary of State with a copy of the religious text Bhagavad-Gita.

Meanwhile, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State continues to complain about Christian prayers in other cities, as has the ACLU in the past.  Even Read more…

The city of Lancaster, California, has been criticized by the ACLU and sued by the Jewish Defense League for “sectarian Christian prayers” at city meetings.  In an interesting contrast, it does not appear either the ACLU or the JDL have said anything about the city of Vacaville doing the same thing in Sanskrit:

Acclaimed Hindu leader Rajan Zed will deliver invocation from Sanskrit scriptures before Vacaville City Council on [July 27th]. After Sanskrit delivery, he then will read the English translation of the prayer.

Sanskrit is considered a sacred language in Hinduism Read more…

As noted by the ADF at Speak Up, World Magazine has a fairly comprehensive article on the topic of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the opposition to its possible repeal.  The article makes two important points:  First, that the repeal of DADT is only the “first step:”

Matt Coles, director of the ACLU’s Center for Equality, in a recent essay argued that the military could be the engine for even greater changes. “Getting rid of DADT won’t be enough,” Coles wrote. “There’s another little law called the Defense of Marriage Act that will have to go as well.”  Read more…

In an interesting (if unverifiable) development in the drama of the WWI memorial in Mojave, an anonymous letter was given to a local paper claiming responsibility and containing a numbered list of justifications for the theft.  The author says

If an appropriate and permanent non-sectarian memorial is placed at the site the cross will be immediately returned…Alternatively, if a place can be found that memorializes the Christian Veterans of WWI that is not on public land the Cross will promptly be forwarded with care and reverence for installation at the private site.

Interestingly, a wide variety of groups have disavowed the theft, including the Read more…

The decades-long battle to remove the Mount Soledad cross from the hills of San Diego is once again at the appeals court.  In various formats, lawsuits have challenged the Mount Soledad cross for years.  In this most recent iteration, the US District court in July 2008 ruled in favor of those who support the cross remaining at its current location.

The basic complaint is that the cross is an inherently religious symbol, and by sustaining it on public land, the US government violates the Constitutional prohibition against “establishing” a religion.

The ACLU, which is representing the plaintiffs, has had to defend itself against accusations that it wants to remove crosses (and any memorials with them) from all public lands–including military cemeteries.  An attorney for the American Legion, Read more…

In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) erected a cross on a non-descript area of the desert in California as a war memorial.  In 2001, the ACLU filed suit to have it removed. A district court ruled that the primary purpose of the cross was to advance religion; therefore the presence of the cross on government land was unConstitutional.  Currently, the now-steel cross is covered by a wooden box to obscure its shape.

The case will be heard by the Supreme Court on October 7th.

While the ACLU repeatedly claims it is not trying to remove crosses Read more…

Organizations who oppose religion in public life (including the military) generally dismiss as ‘ludicrous’ the assertions that their goal is to scrub all vestiges of religious expression from government institutions, like the military.

American Atheists recently undermined that defense when they decried President Obama’s use of “God bless you” in his address to school children yesterday.  The logic was particularly disturbing because it is the same as some activists who oppose religious associations in the military– Read more…

In the vein of the American Atheist’s complaint against NASA, a variety of similarly-minded groups continue to bring accusations of wrongdoing against government-associated religious organizations.  For example, the ACLU has criticized the Gideons providing religious materials while in some association with a government entity (including the Gideons’ interaction with the US military).

Controversies notwithstanding, the ubiquitous nature of the Gideons ministry almost inevitably leads to the never-gets-old joke:

How do they get those Bibles in all those locked hotel rooms?

Well, in 1996 evidence arose that the Gideons were successful in getting a Bible into one of the most inaccessible nightstands in the world; in fact, it’s not even in the world. Read more…