Tag Archives: Religion

President on Sexual Assault: Explore Every Good Idea

President Obama has explicitly told US military leaders to “leave no stone unturned” in their efforts to fight the “national security threat” of sexual assault in the ranks:

Obama said he is pleased that Hagel and Dempsey are looking at proposals on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to address the problem. “What I’ve said to them is I want to leave no stone unturned and I want us to explore every good idea that’s out there,” he said.

What do you think the chances are that the US military will consider the “good idea” that religious faith plays a substantial role in supporting moral conduct?  That’s not Read more

Atheist Supports Restricting Military Religious Freedom

Update: Former Marine pilot Tom Carpenter of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy — a liberal activist group — largely repeated the list below a few weeks later, though he did so without attribution.

Jason Torpy, the one-man band that is the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, recently posted a point-by-point refutation of recent accusations of the US military being hostile to Christianity.

Much of his disagreement was nuance or the way in which something was phrased, which isn’t worth discussing here.  The interesting ones, though, were the cases in which he agreed with the US military’s “anti-Christian” actions:

January 2010 — Department of Defense orders removal of tiny Bible references on military scopes and gunsights.
Torpy: True and appropriate.

This issue has been discussed before.  While there is no religious requirement the references remain, the fact they were targeted because of their (obscure) religious reference — only after Michael Weinstein complained, notably — is troubling.  That he would seek this Read more

Sally Quinn Jumps Shark, Blames Sexual Assault on Religion

As previously noted, Sally Quinn of the Washington Post has become the latest version of Pam Zubeck, the CSIndy “journalist” who is actually an advocate of Michael Weinstein’s cause.  While it has become obvious Quinn is in the tank with Weinstein, it wasn’t clear until this weekend just how far she was willing to go.

In an article on sexual assault in the military — carefully crafted to get visibility because its on a topic of great interest right now — Quinn lays the responsibility for sexual assault in the military at the feet of…religion.

And guess who her source is?

Take the Cadets for Christ, a religious group at the Air Force Academy. According to Mikey Weinstein, Read more

Religious Freedom Critic Weinstein Admits Targeting Christians

In a shockingly blunt piece, Michael Weinstein seems to have inadvertently undermined his own defense against those who claim he’s “anti-Christian” by essentially admitting that he’s opposed to a vast swath of American Christianity.  Said Weinstein [emphasis added]:

Do you know that in this country in 1970, we only had ten mega-Evangelical churches, meaning those with 2,000 or more members? But after 9/11, a new mega-Evangelical church has opened up in our country every 48 hours.
 
That is their right. That’s fine. But when they engage the machinery of the state and the people in the government, that’s when we have a terrible, hideous problem.
 
And this is coming right down from the DoD, up and down the chain of command…

Weinstein seems to clearly convey Christians from these ubiquitous “mega-Evangelical churches” (as opposed to Evangelical megachurches?) are the ones “engaging Read more

MRFF Opposes “So-Called” Christians, Fears Christian Madrasas

Michael Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation has a history of claiming only the “right kind” of Christians deserve religious liberty in the US military.  In 2011, the MRFF demanded the US Air Force Academy rescind a speaking invitation given to someone who “does not represent true Christianity” [emphasis added].  For that same event, Weinstein was personally outraged the invitation was given to the wrong kind of Christian.  In another scenario, Chris Rodda readily admitted the MRFF opposed the religious beliefs of Christians, not any action or conduct on their part.

The MRFF just recently refined their definition of “acceptable” religious Christian belief.

Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired Army Colonel and recent addition to the MRFF.  He also joined Michael Weinstein at his much ballyhooed Pentagon meeting last month.  Wilkerson recently published a tirade against “so-called” Christians who are the target of the MRFF’s wrath:

Another perniciously destructive anomaly threatened good order and discipline in the ranks. And this one came from so-called Christians.

I write “so-called” simply because these people do not believe in the Christ of the Scriptures; they believe in some human-crafted, almost demonic Read more

WSJ Cites Chilling Effect of Air Force Meeting with Weinstein

The Wall Street Journal had a fairly balanced article on the recent dust up over Air Force leaders choosing to meet with religious freedom critic Michael Weinstein at the Pentagon in late April.  Author Mollie Ziegler Hemingway accurately notes that there’s been a bit of sensationalism in recent headlines:

Initial reports on these matters were exaggerated, taken out of context or simply false.

But she also acknowledges that, exaggerated or not, there are still some valid concerns:

For one thing, the Pentagon statement clarifying that military personnel would not be court-martialed if they “evangelize” also said that “proselytization” is considered a [UCMJ] offense. Yet the definitions of those two words are almost identical…

Further, the WSJ piece notes that regardless of any hyperbole in recent claims, there remains concern over the mere fact the Air Force met with Weinstein:  Read more

ACLJ Slams Weinstein as a “Nut,” Legal Hack

Jay Sekulow of The American Center for Law and Justice recently sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel calling on them to “repudiate” any relationship the US military had with Michael Weinstein.  Sekulow, who once debated Weinstein at the US Air Force Academy, previously called Weinstein a bigot.  In a new article, he’s called Weinstein a “nut” and legal hack who’s all bluster and no substance [emphasis added]:

“The rhetoric and language [Weinstein] uses is hateful; it is violent. He threatens physical violence on people. He’ll beat them up and he’ll fight to the death,” he tells American Family News. “[Weinstein] is a nut – and I don’t use that word lightly…”

“Look at [Weinstein’s] casework – oh wait, it’s very tough to find. You know why? He never won a case in court,” notes Read more

USCIRF: Afghans Need More Religious Freedom

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said Afghanistan has improved, but it still suffers from poor religious freedom:

Afghans still can’t debate religion or question prevailing Islamic orthodoxies without fear of being punished, a U.S. commission said in a new report on Tuesday…

The environment for exercising religious freedom remains “exceedingly poor” for dissenting members of Afghanistan’s Sunni Muslim majority and for minorities, such as Shiite Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs Read more

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