Tag Archives: Bible

Air Force Seeks DoD Review of Oath

Update: Patrick Vaughn, general counsel for the American Family Association, wrote an article saying “The U.S. Constitution makes it clear: American atheists are not and should not be barred from serving their country through military service.”

Facing scrutiny for its letter-of-the-law requirement that Airmen enlist with “So help me God,” the Air Force has asked the DoD General Counsel to provide an official legal opinion:

The Air Force said Tuesday it was awaiting a legal opinion from the Defense Department’s top lawyer on whether an enlisted airman who’s an atheist can opt out of the phrase “so help me God” in his re-enlistment oath…

“The opinion that we’re seeking will help inform future decisions and the latitude that can be taken with the oath,” Air Force spokeswoman Rose Richeson said Tuesday. “But the Air Force has to comply with law.”

From an objective position, Read more

Mikey Weinstein Threatens Lawsuit over Navy Bibles

Update: A variety of groups signed a letter to the Navy asking them to allow the Bibles to remain in the Navy lodges.

Riding the coattails of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has threatened to sue the US Navy if it fails to remove Bibles from its lodging rooms:

If the Navy refuses to pull the Bibles “out of every single room,” said Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, “we are looking to file a federal lawsuit.”

For the record, Weinstein threatens to sue someone at every turn.  It is likely this threat is as empty as virtually all the others.  (He lost the few lawsuits he filed many years ago, further undermining his threats.)

Weinstein’s apparent paranoia was on full display:  Read more

Navy Bans Bibles after Atheist Complaint

Update: The Navy has reversed the decision of NEXCOM, saying it was made without consultation with Navy leadership.  The Bibles will be returned to the hotel rooms and will not be removed.  Retired Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews had called on the Navy to reverse the policy.  The Navy now joins the Air Force in having been attacked for its lodging facility Bibles — and, for the moment, withstood the attack.  Also at the Christian Post, OneNewsNow, the Washington Times, Religion News Service, the New American, and USA Today.

As first reported by the American Family Association, the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint with the US Navy because there were Gideon Bibles in the nightstands at Navy lodging facilities.

So the Navy decided to remove them.

“The current direction is to remove all religious material from Navy Lodge guest rooms,” read an email to a Navy chaplain from The Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM).

Jason Torpy of the MAAF tried a few years ago to Read more

Atheists Attack Military Bibles, DoD Defends

The American Humanist Association claims it wants to support religious freedom when it demands an atheist chaplain. Simultaneously, it is threatening “legal action” because camouflage Bibles are available at a military inprocessing station for the Missouri National Guard.

The…recruitment center for the National Guard as well as other military offices…exhibited and offered camouflage-covered Bibles free of charge to recruits enlisting in the National Guard…The letter was sent on behalf of an anonymous recruit who felt that the government was impermissibly endorsing the Bibles and coercing recruits to take them…

The letter demands that the government immediately cease its practice of offering Bibles to National Guard recruits and remove any biblical literature from its possession.

The person who complained was a member of Read more

Army War College Publishes Paper on Religious Hostility

The US Army War College published a monograph on the core topic of the US military’s “evolving culture of hostility toward religious presence and expression.”  The authors were Don Snider, a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic (CAPE) at West Point and an Adjunct Research Professor in the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College, and retired US Army Col Alex Shine of the War College.

The paper, entitled “A Soldier’s Morality, Religion, and Our Professional Ethic: Does the Army’s Culture Facilitate Integration, Character Development, and Trust in the Profession?“, is clearly meant to be academic, but at 30 pages makes for a fairly easy – and worthwhile – read.

The authors focus on the influence of changing social values on ethics within the US military, as demonstrated in the increasing secularism in American society that is essentially hostile to religion:  Read more

Petition Calls on USAFA to Protect Religious Freedom

A petition sponsored by the Family Research Council and the Restore Military Religious Freedom coalition garnered more than 100,000 signatures before it was delivered to the US Air Force Academy last week.

The petition seems nobly intended:

The petition calls on the Air Force Academy to protect the First Amendment rights of cadets, after a recent incident in which a cadet was censored for writing a Bible verse on a white board outside of his dorm room.

and its text calls for USAFA to “protect the religious expression” of cadets:

Recently, a handwritten Bible verse on a United States Air Force Academy cadet’s dry-erase board was removed after a complaint by an anti-Christian activist group…As an American, I trust the Air Force Academy to train up the best young men and women our nation has to offer…Part of that trust hinges upon the notion that the Academy would protect the religious freedom Read more

Eglin AFB Allows Civilians to Display Duck Dynasty Stickers

As reported at FoxNews, the union representing civilian employees at Eglin Air Force Base demanded the removal of two “senior management officials” because they displayed “I Support Phil” stickers.

Alan Cooper, the executive vice president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, said one of the officials also displayed the “I Support Phil” decals in his office last month and offered them to subordinates.

“The BUE (bargaining union employee) was clearly offended and disgusted that a senior management official would display Read more

Air Force Article Celebrates Pride, Slights Faith

In what was probably an attempt at clever semantics, Aviano Air Base advertised its homosexual “Pride Month” as “Celebrating ‘Pride,’ condemning prejudice.” Unfortunately, the inarticulate result is a title that implies the Air Force celebrates sexuality and “condemns” the opposing view of its religious Airmen as “prejudice.”

Interestingly, the spokesperson for Aviano’s event cited diversity not only in sexuality, but also in religion [emphasis added]:  Read more

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