Category Archives: Government and Religion

US Sailor Attacks North Carolina Bathroom Bill

willing2Last week the North Carolina legislature passed a fairly common sense bill (PDF) that, among other things, required municipalities and schools to designate bathrooms by gender — that is, a person’s biological gender, not the gender they may say they are.  The State also specifically limited protected class status to biological gender.

As with other efforts in this vein, a smattering of companies have implied they may take their business elsewhere in response to this “bathroom bill” that would segregate boys from girls during their private endeavors.  (The San Francisco mayor said the same, though why he in particular is notable is unclear.)

This law also generated an open letter on Facebook by US Navy LT(JG) Megan Joan Willingham, who describes herself as a Sailor stationed in Okinawa, Japan:  Read more

Boone County War Memorial with Hidden Ichthus Finally Moved

A war memorial dedicated to two Boone County Soldiers killed 25 years ago in Operation Desert Storm irked the American Atheists and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State because it originally had an ichthus at the base.

The monument was in a park with similar monuments dedicated to county residents who had died in previous wars.

The County eventually covered the ichthus with a plaque. The families of the two men ultimately agreed to leave the symbol covered, but even that wasn’t good enough for the atheist opposition.  After Read more

Aviano Hosts Mighty in the Land National Prayer Breakfast

On Monday the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base, Italy, hosted their National Prayer Breakfast. Their invited speaker was Robert Rogers of Mighty in the Land Ministry. Rogers’ story is at once tragic and inspiring:

In August 2003, Robert experienced a tragedy of Biblical proportions when his precious wife and all four children died in a flash flood in Kansas…Robert’s life completely changed on their way home from a wedding in Wichita when a six-foot wall of water inundated their van, sweeping them off the highway in the darkness and into the deluge.

Soon after, Robert resigned from his engineering career and answered the call to minister and share God’s amazing grace and faith that brought him through that horrific ordeal. Now he teaches others to KNOW GOD and Live a Life of No Regrets with his words and original music at the piano.

Read more

ADF, Chaplain Alliance, Ten States, More File Support for Court-Martialed Marine

The Alliance Defending Freedom and the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty have filed an amicus brief on behalf of court-martialed Marine Monifa Sterling. Among other things, Sterling was convicted of disobeying orders for refusing to remove references to a Bible verse from her desk.

In short, the brief (PDF) calls on the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to overturn the lower court ruling that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not apply, which essentially negated Sterling’s defense on that point. The effect, said the ADF’s Daniel Briggs, could be a chilling of religious Read more

Sort-of Transgender Army Reservist Threatens Suit over Haircut

The Washington Post reported that Kendall Oliver, a US Army Reservist, was turned away from a barber because the barber wouldn’t cut women’s hair:

Oliver is transgender. And with that, the Army reservist in the Los Angeles area became the latest citizen at the center of a recurring American debate: Where does freedom of religion end and discrimination begin?

That sentence just about summarizes the twisted world this has become.

Oliver is a woman who has decided she identifies “mostly as a man.” According to the article, she uses the pronoun “they” rather than he/she.

“They” is plural, for those who are losing track.

Oliver watched the barber turn another woman Read more

Christians and Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils

Update: While Russell Moore (discussed below) appeared to advocate abstaining rather than voting for an immoral candidate, Franklin Graham went on record for the opposite point of view, saying Christians may have to vote for the “less[er] of two heathens.”

Writing at Christianity Today, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, discussed the moral situation some Christians may find themselves in at the ballot box — feeling as though they are having to decide between the “lesser of two evils.”

Moore essentially says that Christians cannot justifiably support either “evil.” The most notable part of Moore’s article was his use of the US military as an analogy to this Christian conundrum [emphasis added]:

Think of military service, another office of public responsibility, as an example. Members of the military don’t need to approve of everything a general decides to be faithful to their duty to the country.

But if they’re commanded to either slaughter innocent non-combatants or desert and sign up with the enemies of one’s country, a Christian can’t merely choose the least bad of these options. He would have to conclude that both are wrong and he could not be implicated in either.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat ill-fitting, analogy.

Yes, Christians (and every Read more

US Navy Relaxes Long-Held Discrimination

navyptThe US Navy took a broad step toward progress in January when it reconsidered a long held discriminatory policy, according to the Associated Press [emphasis added]:

The service branch loosened its body fat restrictions in January and is allowing those who failed their exams three or more times to get one more opportunity to be tested this spring under the more lenient guidelines.

This discrimination had reportedly begun to affect national security:  Read more

Former Muslim US Airman Convicted on Terrorism Charges

A former US Air Force Airman — and apparently a member of the Honor Guard — flew to Turkey in an attempt to join ISIS in 2015.  Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh was arrested upon his return to the United States and was convicted last week on terrorism-related charges.

Pugh joins a long list of Americans who have either attempted to or successfully attacked US troops while motivated by their Islamic faith — five of whom were members of the US military:

Besides Pugh, at least eleven other incidents have been recorded in which Read more

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