Atheist Jason Torpy tilted the irony meter recently when he touted his recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
The event provided the opportunity to remember the service of all those hundreds of thousands at Arlington Cemetery, our nation’s most sacred shrine.
The atheist considers Arlington so “sacred,” in fact, he thinks the government should yank the crosses out of it — something even the ACLU doesn’t advocate.
The Liberty Institute launched a campaign called “Don’t Tear Me Down” aimed at protecting military memorials. (While the push is new, the effort has been ongoing for some time.) The effort is initially focused on the Mount Soledad cross, but they accurately note the attacks on memorials could have a far wider impact:
“The ACLU is so driven to purge religious displays from the public Read more
Jason Torpy, the one-man Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, is an atheist and former Army officer. While his MAAF is ostensibly a “community support network,” he recently revealed the true motivation behind his ideology.
In a recent display of internet frustration, Torpy took fellow atheists to task for not banding together and being “anti-” enough. The context was a comment that people don’t join groups for things they don’t believe in, spoken by Neil deGrasse Tyson, a self-described agnostic (who says he is “often claimed by atheists”):
Do non-golf players gather and strategize? Do non-skiers…come together and talk about the fact that they don’t ski? I can’t do that. I can’t gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn’t believe in God.
This is the same point raised by many people Read more
After being repeatedly called out for decrying one cross and not others, atheist and former Army Captain Jason Torpy, of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, finally addressed the “controversial” issue of Arlington National Cemetery:
Other memorials are biased toward Christianity and ought properly to be removed to private property. The Camp Pendleton cross is just one of many…
The Argonne Cross at Arlington, a 1921 monument erected “In memory of our men in France” also excludes all non-Christians. This cross now memorializes a time when our military had nearly no recognition for anyone not Christian and was segregated by both race and gender…
In deciding to include the Argonne Cross with others “to be removed,” this initially seems like an opportunity to applaud Torpy’s intellectual Read more
Update: FoxNews reports on the “investigation” of the cross. The ACLJ has written a letter to Camp Pendleton explaining the appropriateness — and Constitutionality — of allowing the cross to remain. They, too, highlight the Argonne cross in Arlington mentioned below. In reference to the Utah trooper crosses mentioned below, the Highway Patrol logo has been stripped from the crosses and a disclaimer has been added in a bid to avoid their court-ordered removal.
It didn’t take long: When Jason Torpy of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers saw the LA Times report on the Camp Pendleton cross, he was quick to call it
a “wonderful gesture” in remembrance of the fallen Marines, but said its location on public land “makes us feel like the federal government privileges Christianity over non-Christians like us, makes us feel like second-class citizens…”
[T]heir desire to erect a large cross to honor their memory is perfectly acceptable, so long as it is on church land or their own property, not on federal land.
Further, Torpy claims the Marines’ cross is an intentional effort to by the government to afford preference to Christianity:
Military service is being exploited Read more