God and Country

In its annual “The Military Commander and the Law,” the Air Force Judge Advocate General‘s School publishes guidance for commanders to help them understand some legal complexities related to their jobs.

For example, the nearly 700-page text contains explanations on issuing Articles 15, how to deal with FOIA, personnel issues, and sections on virtually every issue in which the law may impact a commander’s actions.

More interesting, however, was the new addition in 2010 of what could be best described as “Weinstein Guidance.”

The manual gives commanders new guidance on how to handle advocacy lawyers Read more…

The Stars and Stripes notes some deployed American troops filmed a short video under the auspices of OutServe, a homosexual advocacy group, for the “It Gets Better” project,

an initiative created to show young gay and transgender individuals the happiness and potential that awaits them if they can make it through their tumultuous teen years.

The Stripes article was written at the end of January, shortly after the video was posted to YouTube.  There has been little public reaction to the publication.  (As a point of clarification, “transgender” individuals are still banned from military service.)

The video begs an interesting question:  What would the reaction be if uniformed, deployed (and armed) servicemembers posted a YouTube video on behalf of their non-Federal entity extolling the religious Read more…

The Colorado Springs Independent‘s Pam Zubeck — a veritable PR arm of Michael Weinstein’s MRFF — has a post stating a US Air Force Academy fourth class cadet (freshman) sent an inappropriate religious email to his classmates.  She said the cadet

has been “counseled” for sending an e-mail to the entire freshman class urging them to pray and citing specific Scriptures. [formatting original]

She then includes the content of the 500-word email, which had been sent only two days prior.  The email does, shockingly, “urge people to pray” and does, indeed, cite “specific Scriptures.”  What Zubeck fails to mention is the email is a forward of a daily devotional by Gloria Copeland, distributed on the same day the cadet forwarded it:  Read more…

Michael Weinstein, the only paid officer and President of his Military Religious Freedom Foundation, reduced his personal compensation by nearly $80,000 in 2010, according to his most recent tax documents.  That same year, his “charity” saw a slight decrease in revenue of about $13,000.

In prior years Weinstein’s exorbitant salaries — which are paid by himself, to himself, from his charity’s revenue – have been highlighted as inconsistent with both his implications that donations to his charity “support the troops” and with the general practices of other charities, whose president/CEO compensations are generally markedly lower (even if the charities are markedly larger).

The $218,201 Weinstein paid himself from the MRFF funds still represented 41% of his charity’s total revenue in 2010.  That’s down from the 54% he paid himself in 2009, though it still represents a substantial percentage of what his donors are presumably Read more…

US Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va) has written a letter (PDF) signed by 35 members of the House asking the Air Force restore a unit’s motto that was changed after an atheist’s complaint.  The incident to which Rep Forbes is referring was actually first reported on ChristianFighterPilot.com, with the Religion Clause and the ADF Alliance Alert subsequently citing this site.

As noted three weeks ago, the USAF Rapid Capabilities Office responded to “needling” from former Army Captain Jason Torpy, an atheist, and changed its motto from “Doing God’s work with other people’s money” to “Doing miracles with other people’s money.”

The letter, addressed to Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz, says:

It has come to our attention that the US Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) has modified the logo on its official patch to remove its reference to “God,” following a complaint from Read more…

Update: The Army defended its actions, with FoxNews saying it was a “cautionary move to preserve “military order and discipline,”" not censorship.

In a surprisingly underreported story, the US Army reportedly censored — and then admitted the wrong of censoring — US military Catholic chaplains during their performance of their Catholic Mass.  Catholic priests were apparently given letters to read to their parishes explaining the Catholic opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring insurance coverage for things that violate Catholic beliefs.

On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels. The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution.

The US Army’s Chaplaincy office responded:  Read more…

The 2012 National Character and Leadership Symposium at the US Air Force Academy will be held from 22 to 24 February.  Ross Perot will be the keynote speaker.

Other speakers will come from a variety of backgrounds and careers, including a Medal of Honor recipient and

• Retired Brigadier General Dick Abel, former President of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and former Executive Director of the Military Ministry of Read more…

The controversy over the “glam goth” band Aiden being invited to play to a military audience at the atheist Rock Beyond Belief at Fort Bragg has seen comments on a wide variety of websites.  In the tradition of “crowd-sourcing” solutions, one commenter came up with a unique idea to ameliorate the scandal:  Richard Dawkins should ask that Aiden be removed from the lineup.

Much of the discussion seems to be centered on whether Aiden Read more…

While some will doubt the degree to which Christianity and the Bible permeate American culture, it is often interesting to see people cite quotations from the Bible, often unknowingly.  (It’s often more entertaining to see them claim something is in the Bible that isn’t, though.)

A recent article from Army.mil talked of an Army unit helping give Afghans a way to live their lives without having to fight for the Taliban to support themselves.  The Army is trying Read more…

Fox News and Commentary indicated retired LtGen William Jerry Boykin withdrew from the February 8th National Prayer Breakfast at West Point — after West Point asked him to withdraw.

The U.S. Military Academy pressured a retired U.S. lieutenant general to withdraw from speaking at a West Point prayer breakfast after Muslims and atheists complained, Fox News & Commentary has learned…

“[Boykin] asked them to rescind the invitation, but they were reluctant to do that so he said he would take them off the hook.”

The article also noted Michael Weinstein jumping the shark Read more…

The Associated Press reported a West Point press release indicating General Jerry Boykin had withdrawn from the upcoming West Point National Prayer Breakfast:

Late Monday afternoon, West Point issued a brief statement saying Boykin had decided to withdraw speaking at the Feb. 8 event and that another speaker would be lined up in his place.

The choice of Boykin to speak at the event was criticized by several groups because of his prior statements about Islam:

CAIR also asked West Point officials to retract Boykin’s invitation

“It gives Islamophobes a platform Read more…

Michael Weinstein recently wrote a scathing letter demanding retired LtGen William “Jerry” Boykin be prohibited from speaking to the US Military Academy (West Point) National Prayer Breakfast on February 8th.  The reason:  Boykin is, in Weinstein’s words, “rabidly Islamophobic.”  (That’s the same word he used to describe Franklin Graham in 2010, when he was invited to a similar event.)

Simultaneously, Michael Weinstein has defended and is helping advertise Rock Beyond Belief — which last week received a significant amount of negative attention for inviting what he would seemingly describe as a “rabidly religiophobic” music group to perform.  In fact, the “rabidly Christophobic” Michael Weinstein is scheduled to be one of the event’s speakers.  Weinstein should probably look up the meaning of “phobia.”

Of course, it makes no sense for a person to use the “defense of religious Read more…

In an interesting bit of timing, several groups have decried the decision by West Point to invite retired LtGen William Boykin, author of Never Surrender, to their National Prayer Breakfast on February 8th.  The self-described “progressive” VoteVets.org wrote to West Point Superintendent LtGen David Huntoon saying

You may not be aware of Lieutenant General Boykin’s history of extremist and hateful comments towards Islam…

These remarks are incompatible with the Army values, and a person who is incompatible with Army values should not address the cadets of the United States Military Academy.

Where have we heard similar cries before?  Ah, yes: The claim Franklin Graham was an “Islamophobe” and therefore an inappropriate speaker at a similar event at the Pentagon.  The critics won that one, and Graham’s invitation was rescinded based on his prior speech, not on what he might have said if he had been allowed to attend.  Tony Perkins was “disinvited” for his public comments that were wholly unrelated to his event, as well.  Likewise, Michael Weinstein demanded Read more…

Love how they burn your synagogues…
       - Lyrics by Aiden, Rock Beyond Belief lead-in act

The band Aiden has announced it will be playing the atheist festival “Rock Beyond Belief” at Fort Bragg in March 2012, as the lead-in act to Richard Dawkins, the main attraction at the “concert.”

Never heard of them?  You’re not the only one.  But first, take a look at what the band said in their announcement [emphasis added]:

Justin Griffith, the soldier in charge of setting this up has a very interesting story to tell. The United States military had no problems funding a christian based musical event, but when it was suggested that the large number of atheists and secular humanists who are enlisted, would like to have a function of their own choosing, the top leaders at Fort Bragg decided to pull the plug on the entire thing. Cutting the funding without any reason at all, that I can see, except that maybe christians in the Army are the only ones allowed to have fun…

They fought the law and THEY WON.

Given that they attribute their information to the soldier hosting Rock Beyond Belief, Justin Griffith, its unlikely a call to correct their misinformation would go far.

For the record (again, and again), the US military did not fund a “Christian Read more…

Last week’s speculation that the atheist Rock Beyond Belief would likely face more struggles against US Army restrictions inspired an amazing onslaught of vitriol from the MRFF and its supporters.  That the publicity-hungry event scheduled for the end of March might have another brouhaha in its future seemed to strike a chord.

The MRFF’s Chris Rodda didn’t mince words [formatting original]:

THIS IS COMPLETE BULLSH–…

Strong words for something she supposedly considered so trivial. 

It is possible Rodda really is as ignorant as she’s implying, despite the fact her role as Michael Weinstein’s research assistant should have informed her of what problems may yet be experienced by Rock Beyond Belief.

Last year Rock Beyond Belief organizers obtained copies of documents from Rock the Fort through the Freedom of Information Act.  Though the information has always been in public view, ChristianFighterPilot.com is currently the only site to highlight this fact from the Rock the Fort After Action Report:

“The bands and speakers stayed within the parameters Read more…