{"id":6868,"date":"2010-08-23T00:30:20","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T06:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=6868"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:04","slug":"soldiers-claim-retribution-over-christian-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/23\/soldiers-claim-retribution-over-christian-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldiers Claim Retribution over Christian Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the Army Times<\/em>, the US Army is investigating claims that Soldiers were punished when they declined to attend a concert by a Christian music group in May<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band’s concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, the punishment was reportedly telling the Soldiers to go\u00a0back to their barracks.<\/p>\n

As others have noted elsewhere, this “scandal” may be a result of\u00a0selective semantics.\u00a0 Within military training environments, it is not unusual for those who opt out of voluntary events to be sent back to their rooms.\u00a0 This is most frequently done during religious services conducted non-simultaneously (ie, a Christian service and\u00a0a Jewish service).<\/p>\n

In addition, since those participating in the event, whatever it may be,\u00a0are unable to use their personal items, the same restriction is often (though not always)\u00a0placed on those who do not attend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One former servicemember reported declining to join his unit’s support of a local football bowl game; in return, he stood six hours of guard duty in the cold rain.\u00a0 To those outside the military, it could be viewed as “punishment,” but it was nothing of the sort.\u00a0 True, it may not\u00a0seem “fair” by some standards.\u00a0 Still,\u00a0some even volunteer to sit extra duty during such optional events because it earns them either status or credit for future events.\u00a0 There are probably thousands of such voluntary events in the military every year, though they generally stay well below the radar even when they’re on national TV: like, say,\u00a0a Stephen Colbert taping, as has happened once<\/a> and will happen again<\/a>.\u00a0 It is unlikely anyone was “forced” to go, though those who did not may have ended up doing menial tasks.<\/p>\n

In this particular incident, it is likely the unit was marched to the event — which some reported as “pressuring” — because the unit commander was attempting to demonstrate support for an official military program.\u00a0 The treatment of the Soldiers who chose not to participate does not appear<\/em> to have been anything different than the way they would be treated after opting out of any other<\/em> voluntary event — religious or not.<\/p>\n

The fact that it was a Christian concert is irrelevant to the incident, though it does add a conspiratorial undertone (and thus shock value) to the loud accusations.\u00a0 In fact, this\u00a0may\u00a0even be a good<\/em> example of spiritual neutrality in the military — because the Soldiers were treated exactly the same way<\/em> regardless of any religious content within the voluntary event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In summary, no religious event was mandatory, and the treatment of the Soldiers was not related to the content of the event.\u00a0 Now, who would see a conspiracy of “religious tyranny” in\u00a0an event conducted just like any other non-religious event?\u00a0 As if that had to be asked<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mikey Weinstein claims Christian-themed events are “ubiquitous” throughout the military…<\/p>\n

“Whenever we see this egregious, unconstitutional religious tyranny our job is to fight it,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And further<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Weinstein] said [those] who were pressured into attending the concert – and then punished if they chose otherwise – were “spiritually raped by their commanding officers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Army Times, the US Army is investigating claims that Soldiers were punished when they declined to attend a concert by a Christian music group in May.\u00a0 The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band’s concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks […]<\/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":[88,926,96,1424,928,85,2,5218,7,925,927],"class_list":["post-6868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-barlowgirl","tag-christian","tag-conspiracy","tag-fort-eustis","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-music","tag-punishment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868","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=6868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}