US Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) sent a letter to Camp Pendleton’s commanding officer Colonel Nicholas Marano indicating his support for allowing the now-controversial memorial cross to remain standing in order to honor four US Marines who fell in Iraq:
Majs. Douglas Zembiec and Ramon Mendoza, and Lance Cpls. Robert Zurheide and Aaron Austin..
What makes Hunter’s call unique, besides his status as a member of Congress?
He was there. Read more
Around the nation and around the world, US military bases are hosting tree lighting ceremonies as the Christmas celebration approaches.
Not unlike the controversy in Rhode Island, some bases choose to avoid the word “Christmas,” instead using the term “holiday tree” (even as they have Jewish Menorahs, as opposed to a holiday candelabrum, erected nearby). Some recent events Read more
Yesterday the American Center for Law and Justice’s David French wrote a scathing (and accurate) critique of Michael Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation (though it never mentions Weinstein by name). The piece is entitled “The Campaign Against the Cross is Not About “Freedom,”” and its genesis is the current controversy over the cross at a memorial on Camp Pendleton.
French minces no words:
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is perhaps the most deceptively-named organization in the United States. Its tone is hysterical (it actually calls those who complain about religious influence “spiritual rape victims/tormentees”) and its methods Orwellian.
French also noted an example of the MRFF’s practice of publishing letters from those who claim to be active servicemembers, with their names redacted. Chris Rodda published a letter from a Marine senior NCO that French called “incredibly profane and unprofessional.” The redacted writer even said would probably be “kicked out” of the Read more
Ian Smith of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has written a letter to Camp Pendleton’s commander joining Jason Torpy in his calls to have the memorial cross removed.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has written to base commander Col. Nick Marano, saying the cross’s establishment on government property represents an unconstitutional endorsement of the Christian religion.
Ironically, or ignorantly, Smith undermines his own message: Read more
Some in American society today seem to think resurgent zealots are trying to push Christianity on society through their use of crosses, even within the US military.
Facts, however, show the long tradition of use of crosses as military memorials.
THIS SIMPLE CROSS WAS ERECTED at the western tip of Betio as a monument in memory of the 2nd Division Marines who were killed in the battle for Tarawa.
Crosses have been raised on Read more
The US House Committee on Natural Resources has forwarded HR 2070 to the floor. The bill would add a plaque with a D-Day prayer by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the World War II memorial in Washington, DC.
By unanimous consent, the Committee ordered the bill-H.R. 2070, known as the World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011, to be reported to the full House on Thursday to the displeasure of the Obama administration, which has criticized and opposed the bill.
The Bureau of Land Management’s director Robert Abbey expressed opposition, claiming such additions would
“dilute” the memorial’s central message and Read more
President Obama’s decision to avoid the word “God” in his weekly address “On Thanksgiving” has raised the ire of critics who say Thanksgiving was intended for that very purpose: thanking God.
For the record, President Obama did reference God in the annual Presidential Proclamation of Thanksgiving, though he did so only once in the first person: 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