An unnamed US Soldier in Afghanistan took personal umbrage at the removal of a cross from the local chapel.

U.S. soldiers assigned to Camp Marmal in northern Afghanistan said the removal of a cross from an Army chapel has created a “huge controversy” and at least one soldier called it a “direct attack against Christianity and Judaism.”

How Judaism plays into it isn’t exactly clear, but if the facts are correctly laid out in the article, he may actually have a point:

The chapel is used for general Protestant services and a Baptist church service. There is a smaller chapel used for other services. The camp also has a mosque and a German chapel that is used for Catholic services.

In other words, every faith group has a place to ‘call their own.’  What do you think the chances are the mosques are identifiably Islamic?

Irrelevant, some will say:  The regulation says no permanent symbols — even if one group is the sole user of the facility.  They’d be right, even if that’s likely an overly burdensome interpretation of the intent of the regulation. 

Former Army Captain and atheist Jason Torpy of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers went a step further, saying the cross attacked religion:

Christians are calling this an attack on their religion.  This implies that putting up a 6-foot cross on a prominent military facility is not an attack on all competing religions.

It is asinine to assert the display of one religious symbol is equivalently an attack on all other religions.  (That’s not to say there aren’t symbols that attack religion, as will be discussed in the near future.)  Torpy doesn’t stop there, however, claiming vicarious persecution:

The Muslims, Jews, humanists, atheists, and other non-Christians are likely to have felt as if they weren’t fully members of the unit because of their beliefs.

By what means is Torpy able to know what “non-Christians [were] likely to have felt?”  It is already public knowledge that there were no complaints from Muslim or Jewish servicemembers.  Torpy is using broad speculative generalities to appropriate a consensus of support where none exists.

In other words, he’s making stuff up.

It’s equivalently as likely “Muslims, Jews, humanists, atheists, and other non-Christians are likely to have felt” nothing as they saw the cross — if they saw it at all — other than the cognitive recognition of the chapel facility.

Similarly, when Christians walk by the two mosques on the same base, or when Muslims walk by the separate Catholic chapel, they don’t feel as though they are less of a person in the eyes of the US military.  They just know they need to keep walking to find facilities intended to support other faith groups.

This cannot always be the case.  There are certainly times when the military can erect only a single tent — if that — to help its Soldiers exercise their religious freedoms.  At those times, if more than one faith is present it certainly makes sense not to designate the area for a particular faith, or to mark it with permanent symbology.  That is not to say the “chapel” converts to a “secular” building at all other times.  The removal of icons representing specific ideologies is a demonstration of sensitivity to those of other faiths, not an attempt to avoid a perception of “preferential treatment,” as Joe Conn of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State implied.

However, if each represented faith group already has a designated area — much like many military facilities currently do — why do the areas designated for worship by a specific faith group need to be “neutralized” if no one else is using the facility?

Well, the regulations say so, that’s why.  In other words, the regulations at issue inadequately recognize the current military environment.

The solution?

“As a soldier, I will follow the orders,” he said.
 
“My fight is not to have the cross put back up,” the solider [sic] told Fox News. “My fight is to have the regulation changed. My God is bigger than a wooden [symbol] and I don’t need to defend Him.”

That is extremely well said.