Tag Archives: Religion

Baptists Help the National Guard Stay Clean

A few months ago, a DoD article highlighted the service of the North Carolina Baptist Men, a disaster relief group that also volunteers to assist local military exercises:

[The Baptist Men] call themselves the “disaster junkies”, assisting the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross by setting up mobile hospitals, showers, laundry services, child care facilities, and cooking stations that are capable of feeding 50,000 or more people a day.

For the National Guard’s Operation Panther exercise, the group was washing the troops’ laundry, as many as 120 loads per day.  The group is composed largely of retired military, and they even structure themselves like a military unit:  Read more

Court Overturns Decision, Chaplains Continue Lawsuit against Navy

In one of the least-reported military religious lawsuits-that-never-ends, In re Navy Chaplaincy (DC Cir., Nov. 2, 2012), a US Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court ruling and said Navy Chaplains do have standing to continue their decades-old lawsuit against the Navy.

The long-running case centers on the allegation the Navy Chaplaincy discriminated against non-liturgical faith groups, resulting in favorable treatment of certain religious beliefs that affected promotion rates and the proportion of chaplains in the US Navy.

As reported by the Religion Clause.

USAFA Building Secret Underground Bunker for Christians

Seriously.

Rick Baker, representing Michael Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation, recently expressed incredulity that the $40 million dollar “Center for Character and Leadership Development” being constructed at the US Air Force Academy was really for the stated purpose.  He thinks it is really for the forcible promotion of Christianity:

The 40,000 or so square foot subterranean building soon to be under construction  near the AFA Chapel…seems a bit over-sized for the project and more likely a place where Chrisitan  Dominionist Catachism Read more

Join the Military, See the World

A group of Soldiers got to visit Japan after their deployed exercise to the nation ended.

“It’s a good time for Soldiers because the Japanese culture is very different from the USA,” said Sgt. 1st Class Kiyome Yoshida…

As many Americans find out when they travel to foreign lands, exposure to foreign culture is often, by definition, exposure to that culture’s religion:

While in Kyoto they were given the opportunity to Read more

Atheists Broaden Attacks on Military Memorials

An atheist thinks this is an illegal “Christian shrine.”

Multiple military war memorials are now under attack by atheists who consider the presence of a Christian cross offensive.

Former soldier and current atheist Jason Torpy, the one-man association of military atheists (MAAF), has previously lodged complaints with the US Marines over the Camp Pendleton cross (which has yet to be resolved).  He is opposed to the cross in Arlington National Cemetery for the same reason.

This follows the national trend of several activist organizations that have been threatening cities and towns with lawsuits if they fail to remove memorials which contain Read more

Wiccan Service Packed at Air Force Basic Training

 Cauldrons, spell books, brooms, and swords in a military witchcraft ceremony.
Photo credit: Katrina Gutierrez

A local paper — in an article briefly titled “No Hocus Pocus” — noted that “hundreds” of basic trainees have attended Wiccan services at Lackland AFB, Texas:

[There is] a curious multiplication of Wiccans at Lackland. Hundreds of basic military trainees have chosen to study witchcraft at the base.
 
“When we come over here on a Sunday, often times, there are 300 to 400 (trainees),” Tony Gatlin said.
 
Gatlin is the coven’s high priest. His wife Read more

Hindu National Guard Soldier Elected to Congress

Tulsi Gabbard was recently elected to the US House of Representatives as a Democrat from Hawaii.  Gabbard is a Hindu and a Captain in the Army National Guard.

Her faith was apparently made an issue during the campaign, at which point she made an interesting reply:

When I volunteered to put my life on the line in defense of our country, no one asked me what my religion was.

Actually, when she inprocessed they probably did ask Read more

Mojave Cross Returns to Hilltop, Critics Stew

As previously noted, about 100 people attended a dedication of the new memorial cross in the Mojave National Preserve, erected after a decade-long battle led by the ACLU failed to have it permanently torn down.

“Judges and lawyers may have played their roles, but it was the veterans who earned this memorial, and it is for them it rises once more,” The Associated Press quoted attorney Hiram Sasser of the Texas-based Liberty Institute as saying.

Don Byrd, writing for the Baptist Joint Committee (whose purpose is ostensibly to “defend[] the first freedom of the First Amendment”) said allowing religious symbols to remain on public display was “disturbing.”  He also Read more

1 … 213 214 215 216 217 … 378