{"id":1213,"date":"2009-09-21T00:30:26","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T04:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:32","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:32","slug":"critics-silent-during-medal-of-honor-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/21\/critics-silent-during-medal-of-honor-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics Silent during Medal of Honor Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Barack Obama presented the parents<\/a> of Sergeant First Class Jared Monti with his posthumous Medal of Honor last Thursday.\u00a0 The official ceremony was attended by government officials, civilians, and military members, including the surviving members of the patrol that engaged in the firefight that took Monti\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

The sacrifice that SFC Monti made reflected the greatness of character that embodies the American spirit.\u00a0 Unfortunately, much of the coverage of Monti\u2019s award focused on the fact that no living military member<\/a> has received the Medal of Honor during the long-running wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, it was interesting to note where very little<\/em> attention was given, despite the display of allegedly controversial conduct that occurred–not once, but twice–during the ceremony.\u00a0 The President, members of Congress, military Generals and leaders, all on national television, were led by a uniformed officer in an overtly religious act.<\/p>\n

They prayed.<\/p>\n

It was tradition.\u00a0 It was fitting.\u00a0 It was right<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you believe some people, though, it was also illegal.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In this official government ceremony for military members, with military members of all ranks in attendance, the US Army Chief of Chaplains, Chaplain Douglas Carver\u2014a Major General wearing two Christian crosses on his military lapels\u2014opened the ceremony with a prayer that cited the New Testament and included \u201cin Your Most Holy Name.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the ceremony concluded, the prayer included a request that \u201cYour divine favor and wisdom rest upon our President,\u201d and also closed \u201cin Your Holy Name.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the same Chaplain for whom one group\u2014Michael Weinstein\u2019s Military Religious Freedom Foundation\u2014has demanded court-martial<\/a>, calling him a \u201cchild of wretched, unconstitutional religious supremacy and fundamentalist Christian promotion.\u201d\u00a0 Besides the multiple enlisted members of the military, the attendees included Secretary of the Army Pete Geren and his incoming replacement, John McHugh\u2014both of whom have been loudly criticized by the MRFF for their associations with Christian ministries and church\/state issues.\u00a0 (McHugh was called<\/a> a \u201cChristian supremacist tarantula on the American Constitutional wedding cake.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Currently, the MRFF is the co-plaintiff in a lawsuit<\/a> against the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (who was also at the ceremony) that functionally demands an end to prayer at military ceremonies (see the prior discussion<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Because the President is not bound by Department of Defense regulations (even though he is the Commander in Chief), it is unlikely that Weinstein\u2019s lawsuit would directly<\/em> impact similar ceremonies in the future, though it would impact the actions of Chaplains.<\/p>\n

Still, the conduct in the ceremony itself\u2014ranking military members delivering prayers at public military functions with subordinates\u2014is precisely<\/em> that which Weinstein aims to eliminate.<\/p>\n

Is the MRFF likely to complain about this ceremony?\u00a0 Hardly.\u00a0 It would be political suicide for Weinstein to decry the inclusion of prayers (even by a \u201cwretched\u2026fundamentalist\u201d) that occurred during the widely publicized posthumous awarding of our nation\u2019s highest military honor.<\/p>\n

The MRFF knows it is unlikely that any reasonable person in America would object to the act of prayer in that ceremony.<\/p>\n

What those reasonable people don\u2019t know, though, is that despite the MRFF\u2019s silence after this ceremony, their explicit purpose is to eliminate prayers in the military just like those ones.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake: It is entirely inappropriate for people of power and authority to use their power and authority to coerce others into ideological beliefs.\u00a0 That does not mean that those people cannot have<\/em> ideological beliefs, nor that they cannot express<\/em> those beliefs.<\/p>\n

The mere association<\/em> of, in this case, military members with religion is neither inappropriate nor prohibited.\u00a0 It is a natural result of religious liberty, a freedom repeated in our Constitution–the same Constitution SFC Monti gave his life defending.<\/p>\n

SFC Jared Monti\u2019s Medal of Honor information can be seen on the dedicated US Army website<\/a>.\u00a0 Video of the entire 20 minute ceremony can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Barack Obama presented the parents of Sergeant First Class Jared Monti with his posthumous Medal of Honor last Thursday.\u00a0 The official ceremony was attended by government officials, civilians, and military members, including the surviving members of the patrol that engaged in the firefight that took Monti\u2019s life. The sacrifice that SFC Monti made reflected the greatness of character that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,23,4,19,75,2,5218,7,43,63,45,11,17,10,40],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-bible","tag-churchandstate","tag-government","tag-invocation","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-obama","tag-pentagon","tag-politics","tag-prayer","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","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=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}