Category Archives: Military Regulations

GAO Publishes Conscientious Objector Study

At the direction of Congress, the Government Accounting Office conducted a study of conscientious objectors, the trends in the military, and the military processes.

A summary of the report, which also contains a link to the full report, indicates that over the past 5 years there have been 425 applications for conscientious objector status; 53% were approved and 44% were denied, with the others having some form of administrative status.  Of those that were approved, all but 14 received honorable discharges.  The remainder received “general” discharges.  Average time for application processing was 7 months.

Analysis of the Pentagon IG Report on “Christian Embassy”

Joint Ethics Regulation (JER), DOD 5500.7-R 5 C.F.R. section 2635.702
(b) Appearance of governmental sanction.
…an employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that could reasonably be construed to imply that his agency or the Government sanctions or endorses his personal activities or those of another…

On 20 July 2007, the Inspector General (IG) of the Pentagon published the report of its investigation of allegations of misconduct by military officers who participated in a “Christian Embassy” promotional video.  On or about 4 August the IG released a public version on its website.  Shortly thereafter, Michael Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) celebrated its role as the instigator of that investigation nearly 9 months prior.  In typical hyperbolic fashion, Weinstein responded by saying

[The report reveals a] long and deep collusion with a fundamentalist, religious missionary organization, the ‘Christian Embassy’. That these senior Pentagon officials control the world’s largest nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal should eviscerate the American public’s trust and confidence in their military and civilian leadership…[The] MRFF intends to file expeditiously a comprehensive Federal lawsuit that will rapaciously pursue legal remedies to the multitude of horrific Constitutional violations this DoD/IG report reveals.

Other organizations were not so convinced.  The Family Research Council Read more

FRC Responds to Pentagon IG Report

According to One News Now, Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, is concerned that organizations like Weinstein’s MRFF may “extrapolate” the IG’s recent decision regarding Pentagon officers’ participation in a Christian Embassy video (see recent post below).

The IG found that the officers violated Joint Ethics Regulations regarding endorsement of a “non-federal entity while in uniform,” but also noted that the violations had nothing to do with religion.  Weinstein has proclaimed on his website that the report proves

…the intentional dismantling of the Constitutionally mandated wall separating church and state by some of the highest ranking officials in the Bush Administration and the U.S. military…

Perkins points out that the issue at stake was not Constitutionality or the Establishment Clause, as Weinstein insists, but non-religious ethics regulations.

Perkins expressed concern that “extrapolation” to the appearance of punishing the officers’ involvement with a religious organization (which was not the case) may “intimidate…military personnel from being associated with religion.”

Tikkun Covers Weinstein…with a Catch

Tikkun, which describes itself as a “progressive Jewish magazine,” recently gave an interview to Michael Weinstein in which he repeated many of his standard lines (America is equivalent to Nazi Germany in 1937, on a train to Slaughterville, withering fields of fire and sucking chest wounds, etc).

When Weinstein couldn’t come up with one, Tikkun told him it believed that the reason for the rise of the “Christian Right” was that only Christians were adequately responding to a “spiritual crisis” in America.  Weintein was asked how he would address this “crisis:”

How do you build character in this multi-religious, pluralistic way, that is feminist, that is sensitive to people, and yet is part of this huge, military, dominate-the-world force that seems to be what the American military is up to now?

His response:  Read more

Weinstein Challenges JROTC Text on Religious Grounds

The Jewish Daily Forward notes that Mr. Michael Weinstein is taking issue with a JROTC text which “questions the validity” of the current popular interpretation of the phrase “separation of church and state.”  Though religion is nowhere mentioned, he views this as an example of “evangelical Christianity’s creeping encroachment.”  As is typical for a Weinstein article, it includes his latest tally of reported death threats. More interesting is Weinstein’s announcement that he is about to embark on a new “far-reaching litigation strategy.”  He also has a new book in the works titled “Taking God to Court.”

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