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
Matthew Hutson at the Huffington Post has an interesting article on the research conducted by the University of Otago in New Zealand which attempted to quantify the effect of the threat of death on supernatural belief. In other words, is it true there are no atheists in foxholes?
The researchers used a “supernatural belief scale” to try to quantify the spiritual beliefs of test subjects:
In their first study, they asked subjects to write about what will happen to them when they die, or what happens when they watch TV. Then Read more
President Obama’s administration has registered its objections to several portions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act passed by the US House (which also includes another attempt to ban NASCAR sponsorships).
The Obama administration “strongly objects” to provisions in [the bill] that would prohibit the use of military property for same-sex “marriage or marriage-like” ceremonies, and protect military chaplains Read more
A recent report out of southern California indicates it will still be “weeks or months” before the US Marines make a decision on the now-controversial Camp Pendleton cross.
“We are thoroughly and deliberately evaluating the issues raised by the existence of the informal memorial in order to assess the impact on the installation,” said the spokeswoman, Capt. Kendra Motz.
The atheist whose complaint started the controversy, Jason Torpy, reiterated his assertion the crosses are illegal.
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
The US Air Force was previously taken to task by Congress when it removed the Latin word for “god” from the Rapid Capabilities Office patch — because an atheist complained. (In fact, Rep Randy Forbes went so far as to say Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz “has been as bad as I have seen…in defending religious liberties.”
It seems the Air Force solved the patch problem: Read more
The as-yet undecided case of the Camp Pendleton cross, a memorial facing complaints by atheists, has actually impacted a second, unrelated cross. LCpl Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire, and members of his platoon had apparently planned to erect a cross on an overlooking hill on Camp Pendleton:
But because of a pending military review of placement of religious symbols, the parents of Lance Cpl. Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt Read more
From Fox News:
From the American Family Association:
“The Air Force and its Secretary, Michael B. Donley, have created the most hostile “anti-religious” environment in the history of the United States military.”
The Air Force’s decision to remove the Bible from the standard checklist for its military lodging facilities continues to get press (much to the chagrin of Michael Weinstein, who wasn’t involved in this story but has been trying to sensationalize another one).
A group of chaplains and chaplain endorsers, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, has expressed its “concern,” saying that the decision has Read more