{"id":34233,"date":"2016-01-06T00:45:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T03:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=34233"},"modified":"2016-11-24T22:18:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T01:18:44","slug":"us-military-faithful-not-the-country-they-swore-to-defend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/06\/us-military-faithful-not-the-country-they-swore-to-defend\/","title":{"rendered":"US Military Faithful: &#8216;Not the Country They Swore to Defend&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/checkpoint\/wp\/2015\/12\/09\/for-muslims-in-the-u-s-military-a-different-u-s-than-the-one-they-swore-to-defend\/\">covered the stories<\/a> of some current and former US military members who are Muslim, and who are &#8220;disturbed by the rising anti-Muslim sentiment&#8221; in the United States [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Many American Muslims say they are living through a difficult time in this country. For the <strong>Muslims who are former and current service members<\/strong>, the prejudice and anti-Muslim rhetoric is particularly painful. Those interviewed for this story said that hateful comments have <strong>driven a wedge between them and the country they swore to defend<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Commenters were quick to point out that one could just as easily say anti-<em>Christian<\/em> sentiment within society and the US military has made America a &#8220;different US than the one <em>they<\/em> swore to defend.&#8221; In fact, so many brought up this diverging\u00a0culture in 2011 &#8212; regarding the acceptance of open homosexuality within <!--more-->the US military &#8212; that then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Mike Mullen told those morally opposed to the practice to &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2010\/03\/26\/chairman-officers-who-support-dadt-can-resign\/\">vote with [their] feet<\/a>.&#8221; While a pithy rejoinder, most troops couldn&#8217;t do so &#8212; they were obligated to serve out their terms of service, which the military under Mullen <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2010\/07\/20\/military-christians-wonder-about-voting-with-their-feet\/\">declined to waive<\/a> for those with moral objections to the policy changes.<\/p>\n<p>Muslims in the US and within the US military certainly are experiencing a &#8220;new&#8221; environment in the years following attacks by Islamic terrorists against America. When America&#8217;s adversaries lay claim to a religion and then kill American troops and civilians in the name of that religion, it may tend to have that effect.<\/p>\n<p>Still, military leadership has gone out of its way make sure Muslims retain their religious liberty and are respected.<\/p>\n<p>By way of comparison, Christians in the US and within the US military are <em>also<\/em> experiencing a &#8220;new&#8221; culture. This isn&#8217;t because Christians have killed Americans en masse. Rather, Christians have declined to decorate wedding cakes or arrange flowers to celebrate homosexuality, or have had the gall to call homosexuality a &#8220;sin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In response, some military leaders have threatened punishment &#8212; including kicking Christians out of the military &#8212; for\u00a0doing nothing more than <em>expressing<\/em> their constitutionally-protected religious beliefs in their\u00a0private capacities, or even in response to direct questions.<\/p>\n<p>Interesting contrast, that.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Also at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/us\/for-muslims-in-the-us-military-a-different-america-than-the-one-they-swore-to-defend-1.382970\">Stars and Stripes<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post covered the stories of some current and former US military members who are Muslim, and who are &#8220;disturbed by the rising anti-Muslim sentiment&#8221; in the United States [emphasis added]: Many American Muslims say they are living through a difficult time in this country. For the Muslims who are former and current service members, the prejudice and anti-Muslim [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,82,219,442,44,280,2,10,171,3806,4106,4204],"class_list":["post-34233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-christian","tag-constitution","tag-dadt","tag-homosexual","tag-islam","tag-mike-mullen","tag-military","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-sin","tag-terrorism","tag-wedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34233","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=34233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}