{"id":10586,"date":"2011-04-05T03:00:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T08:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=10586"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:15:25","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:15:25","slug":"fort-bragg-atheist-concert-reverses-course-re-announces-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/05\/fort-bragg-atheist-concert-reverses-course-re-announces-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Bragg Atheist Concert Reverses Course, Re-Announces Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

The organizers of Rock Beyond Belief at Fort Bragg have abandoned their plans for a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0and are looking forward to having their event this fall.\u00a0 (Michael Weinstein’s “tell it to the judge<\/a>” was apparently just for effect, as his\u00a0threats so often are.)\u00a0 Coincidentally, it seems their very-public decision to cancel their event — and point fingers at the US Army as the cause — has actually benefited <\/em>their plans<\/a> (emphasis added):\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As a result of media attention <\/strong><\/em>and increased funding <\/strong>since the cancellation<\/em>,\u00a0[they’re] negotiating with a “high-profile booking agent” to recruit a nationally known rock band to perform at Fort Bragg’s Post Parade Field this fall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They are “absolutely” going to re-submit their event application, and are apparently gaining funding and appropriate draws to justify the use of the coveted parade field.<\/p>\n

It would seem they’ve reversed course on their original accusations that Fort Bragg’s decisions on their event were unjust.\u00a0 They now appear to be\u00a0taking the necessary actions to meet the normal requirements and fund their own event…which was what they always had to do.\u00a0 It’s a shame they didn’t do this to begin with, rather than\u00a0play the martyr card, cancel their own event, blame the Army — and then turn right back around and hold their event anyway.\u00a0 (Of course, in so doing, they increased their publicity and funding, as the article above noted.)\u00a0 It appears they may have had\u00a0some helpful\u00a0resources to prevent the drama; for example, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation — which has taken to saying “we” and “us” with respect to Rock Beyond Belief — has its own public relations firm (Haley & Associates) that could probably have provided assistance.\u00a0 Then again, maybe they did<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As likely happens in other similar instances, it appears Rock Beyond Belief was inadequately prepared for their initial foray into major event planning.\u00a0 That’s completely understandable, unlike their foil, the BGEA Rock the Fort, which has had some experience in putting events like this on. \u00a0Now it appears RBB has taken the feedback and guidance from Fort Bragg to heart, and it is\u00a0gathering its own funding and attempting to garner crowd-drawing acts.<\/p>\n

As was said here before<\/a>, it is perfectly acceptable that atheists in the military be permitted to hold an event under the same circumstances as any other group, presuming they follow the same guidelines<\/a>.\u00a0 (That’s also precisely what the Army has consistently told them.)\u00a0 Contrary to\u00a0the assertions of RBB supporters — who feel that Billy Graham’s “Rock the Fort” and<\/em> their own “Rock Beyond Belief” are unConstitutional\u00a0— the opposite is actually true.\u00a0 Both support the right of US troops to their “free exercise” of their respective “religion.”<\/p>\n

In an interesting twist, it appears their event will now be held almost exactly a year after the Rock the Fort concert<\/a> their event was designed to counter.<\/p>\n

Despite apparently now choosing to work within the Army’s guidance (after originally decrying it as unConstitutional), there’s no word yet on whether they’ll apologize to Col Sicinksi or Fort Bragg for the vitriol and personal attacks they previously pointed in the Army’s direction<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The organizers of Rock Beyond Belief at Fort Bragg have abandoned their plans for a lawsuit\u00a0and are looking forward to having their event this fall.\u00a0 (Michael Weinstein’s “tell it to the judge” was apparently just for effect, as his\u00a0threats so often are.)\u00a0 Coincidentally, it seems their very-public decision to cancel their event — and point fingers at the US Army […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[88,20,5284,4,82,1023,2,5218,7,10,171,1126,1056],"class_list":["post-10586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-atheism","tag-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-constitution","tag-fort-bragg","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-rock-beyond-belief","tag-rock-the-fort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}