The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins has been appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) via Senator Mitch McConnell:
I am grateful to Majority Leader McConnell for appointing me to this prestigious position. From my post at USCIRF, I look forward to doing all that I can to ensure that our government is the single biggest defender of religious freedom internationally…
Tony Perkins and Read more
While the issue of transgenders in the US military has been at a low simmer for more than a year, it continues to be a source of consternation and angst within the military itself, just as any unresolved policy matter would be. While it seems transgenders would ultimately contribute little in the form of military readiness (some public reports indicate actual transgenders in the military number in the high-two digits), the manner in which to address this demographic continues to substantially draw on senior leader time and every troops’ moral conscience.
In an apparent effort to establish their argument as one beyond Donald Trump, the LGBT community Read more
It started with a statement by Michael Berry, a former Marine JAG and now counsel with the Liberty Institute, cited in the Washington Times regarding the prosecution of US Navy Chaplain Wes Modder:
Michael Berry…said recent high-profile cases of military chaplains facing punishment for private counseling sessions that reflected the teachings of their religion could cause devout Americans who are qualified for military service to think twice about joining the military.
That statement has now been paraphrased across the internet to say “Christians are leaving the military” or there is “an exodus of Christians from the military.” The Washington Times article itself says US military “morale [and] retention [have been] devastated.”
To be accurate, that isn’t exactly what Berry said. Further, while the current perception of the US military’s attitude toward religious freedom has certainly impacted both recruitment and retention, support for that conclusion is entirely anecdotal. As has been said here before, the plural of anecdote is not “data.”
Still, Berry’s original statement is not unreasonable. His assessment even found its way into an interview with potential Presidential Read more
Before retiring for the holidays, the US Senate confirmed Obama appointee Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Feldblum is the person quoted in the longer version of the “Christian Military Perspective on DADT,” published at the Journal of Faith and War, saying
when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict…I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win. (The Weekly Standard, May 15, 2006).
Feldblum was a law professor at Georgetown University and Read more