{"id":1620,"date":"2009-10-26T00:15:47","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T07:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=1620"},"modified":"2009-11-21T21:19:07","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T05:19:07","slug":"us-army-sikh-granted-religious-exemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/26\/us-army-sikh-granted-religious-exemption\/","title":{"rendered":"US Army Sikh Granted Religious Exemption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update:<\/strong> A letter to the editor of the Stars and Stripes<\/a> calls this a “bad decision,” saying other officers will have to “pick up the slack” when the Sikh soldier cannot be deployed due to his religious gear being incompatible with the chemical defense ensemble.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier this year two Sikh medical students who had joined the US Army appealed the Army regulation that prevents them from wearing their articles of faith<\/a>, including their beard, turban, and kirpan.\u00a0 As discussed previously, a US appeals court had upheld the Army regulation.<\/p>\n

The Sikh Coalition now reports<\/a> that one of the physicians has been granted an exception<\/a> to the uniform policy.\u00a0 Notably, this is not the change in policy that the Coalition sought; instead, it is merely an individual exemption.<\/p>\n

The Stars and Stripes<\/em> reported<\/a> that\u00a0Capt. Kamajleet Singh Kalsi<\/p>\n

applied for a \u201crequest for religious accommodation\u201d through his chain of command, and he learned Friday it had been granted by the Army, said his attorney Amandeep Sidhu.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The letter granting the exemption<\/a> notes that it is based on his individual circumstances and may be revoked at anytime based on changing conditions.<\/p>\n

The regulatory guidance that governs the accommodation request is the same for every other service member who seeks an exception based on beliefs.\u00a0 The Department of Defense instituted this internal review process to address the right of its members to free exercise of their faith, while acknowledging the balance of military necessity.\u00a0 Not every request is granted, nor\u00a0does the granting of\u00a0an exemption\u00a0result in a\u00a0change in policy.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press reported that a decision on the second Sikh officer<\/a>, a dentist, would be made after his board exams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: A letter to the editor of the Stars and Stripes calls this a “bad decision,” saying other officers will have to “pick up the slack” when the Sikh soldier cannot be deployed due to his religious gear being incompatible with the chemical defense ensemble. Earlier this year two Sikh medical students who had joined the US Army appealed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[4,19,2,45,17,10,59],"class_list":["post-1620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-regulations","tag-churchandstate","tag-government","tag-military","tag-politics","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-sikh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620","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=1620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}