{"id":13686,"date":"2011-10-20T01:30:05","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T06:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=13686"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:32","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:32","slug":"atheist-soldier-refuses-to-bow-head-at-graduation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/20\/atheist-soldier-refuses-to-bow-head-at-graduation\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheist Soldier Refuses to Bow Head at Graduation"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to a CNN blog<\/a>, an atheist US Army Private First Class graduating from Advanced Individual Training at Fort Jackson, SC, was expected to “bow his head and clasp his hands” during the prayer portion of his unit’s graduation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After almost being pulled from a graduation ceremony for refusal to lower the head during a benediction, a soldier is now allowed to attend but must instead stand at attention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rehearsal occurred yesterday, the graduation itself is today.\u00a0 Notably, the CNN article was written only on the basis of information from the Soldier and Michael Weinstein; there was no comment from Fort Jackson.<\/p>\n

It appears the Soldier was at least partially in the right.\u00a0 As noted previously (in an incident that received far less fanfare but was far more explicit<\/a>), the required participation in a religious act of contrition could potentially violate the religious freedom of those involved.<\/p>\n

The Soldier wasn’t entirely <\/em>right, however, and he may have caused some of his own grief.\u00a0 He said:<\/p>\n

I immediately pointed out that…prayer at a public ceremony [is] unconstitutional…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s wrong.\u00a0 Prayer at a public ceremony is not unconstitutional.\u00a0 In addition, making such a politically charged — as well as inaccurate and outlandish — complaint in a public military setting (where most others are just trying to get something over with) will often\u00a0generate exactly the response he got:<\/p>\n

Instantly the rest of my platoon groaned and said to suck it up, stop complaining, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regardless of the reactions of his peers, it seems his supervision was giving him incorrect direction.\u00a0 Naturally, his first reaction was to use the chain of command…or not:<\/p>\n

When I sat down, I immediately e-mailed Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After pontificating in front of his peers, making a complaint to an activist organization that makes a living off criticizing religious freedom in the military\u00a0likely did little to further endear himself to those around him.<\/p>\n

The only other public information, as reported by the Soldier, was that his commander ultimately found him again and said he was not required to bow his head, but was still required to stand at attention in the formation.<\/p>\n

It is likely, though it cannot be confirmed, that a leader of the formation was simply overzealous in his desire for “uniformity” in the AIT graduation formation. There is no reason, for example, to believe there was any desire to impose religion on any individual.<\/p>\n

It is also likely, but unconfirmed, that the way in which the Soldier expressed himself distracted from an otherwise (partially) valid complaint.\u00a0 If he exited the formation and sat down, for example, when he was being ordered to participate in the rehearsal formation, his conduct may have been\u00a0considered insubordinate.\u00a0 Military policies specifically say<\/p>\n

the dictates of a person\u2019s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Participation in the ceremony or formation is not an unlawful order, despite the Soldier’s feelings about the constitutionality of “public prayer,” so bucking direction to participate in the ceremony rehearsal could have resulted in official sanction independent of any religious accusation.<\/p>\n

Again, many of the details are unknown, but hopefully the parties on both sides learned from the situation.\u00a0 A military member should not be made to physically mimic an act of religious contrition; a military member should also continue to act with respect and use the chain of command.<\/p>\n

Most situations are resolved “at the lowest level” with a simple clarification of communication.\u00a0 As has been noted here before, military members are people, too, and can\u00a0make mistakes — on both <\/em>sides of these “scandals.”\u00a0 Such incidents are proof of neither an institutional religious discrimination nor an atheist mutiny in the military.<\/p>\n

For his part, Michael Weinstein used the incident to highlight some\u00a0of his more common PR tactics:\u00a0\u00a0He claimed “victory” in a situation over which he had no influence, and it appears he solicited an impassioned email “plea” from the Soldier — after <\/em>the fact, and solely for the purpose of public consumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a CNN blog, an atheist US Army Private First Class graduating from Advanced Individual Training at Fort Jackson, SC, was expected to “bow his head and clasp his hands” during the prayer portion of his unit’s graduation.\u00a0 After almost being pulled from a graduation ceremony for refusal to lower the head during a benediction, a soldier is now […]<\/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":[88,20,4,82,434,85,2,5218,7,11,10,171],"class_list":["post-13686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-atheism","tag-churchandstate","tag-constitution","tag-fort-jackson","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-prayer","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13686","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=13686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}