Tag Archives: native american

Becket Fund Sides with Military Against Humanist Chaplains

Update: Via The Religion Clause:

[The] Virginia federal district court ultimately allowed Dr. Heap to move ahead with his Establishment Clause and Equal Protection/ Substantive Due Process challenges to the Navy and Department of Defense’s actions.

However the court dismissed challenges brought under other parts of the 1st Amendment, the No Religious Test clause, and RFRA, dismissed The Humanist Society as a plaintiff for lack of standing and on ripeness grounds, and dismissed claims against the individual defendants.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has had what might be considered a banner year in its legal support of religious liberty, winning more than one case at the Supreme Court. Moreover, what separates the Becket Fund from some other stereotypical religious liberty groups is their willingness to not just speak but also act in defense of all religious liberty.

While they represented a Christian family when the Supreme Court Read more

Top 2011 Articles: Happy New Year from ChristianFighterPilot.com

Have a productive and joyful 2012.

The Top 10 articles from God and Country in 2011:

  1. Fort Carson Supports Native American Spiritualism
  2. “Terror Plot” Soldier Naser Abdo Defiant, Weinstein Equivocates
  3. MRFF Petition Garners Signatures for White House
  4. US Army Private Naser Abdo Arrested in Terror Plot
  5. DADT: House Defense Bill, Colonels Punished, Lawsuit and More
  6. Finding a Church, Part 1: The Military Chapel
  7. Atheists Stretch for Something to be Offended By
  8. Navy Blue Angels Commander Resigns over Incident
  9. Women in the Military: Statistics, and the First Female JFACC
  10. Defense Department Highlights Member-Designated Benefits

While those were the top 10 current events articles in 2011, they were not the top-visited pages on the site.  As noted Read more

Native Americans on Warrior Spirit in US Military

A group of Native Americans recently spoke at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.

Joseph Medicine Crow, a 96-year-old World War II veteran who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 by President Barack Obama, is the grandson of White Man Runs Him, one of Custer’s Crow scouts.

The men spoke not only of their contributions to the US military, but also the importance of Native American spirituality, even within the military:  Read more

Colorado Post Hosts Native American “Chapel”

In the wake of the article highlighting the Christian perspective on a neo-pagan congregation site at the Air Force Academy, a local military paper notes the presence of a Native American sweat lodge on Turkey Creek Ranch, an MWR facility of Fort Carson.  (Fort Carson was recently threatened over the cross on its hospital patch.)

Here, Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines, their families and supporters come to pray in a traditional Native American purification ceremony.

The religious site has been at the military facility since the 1990s:

The Turkey Creek Ranch sweat lodge was started in 1994 by two Native American military members who wanted a traditional place to pray. Fort Carson Army Installation gave them a permanent spot inside its Turkey Creek Ranch…

Though the military is sometimes accused of trying to Read more