Are U.S. troops being force-fed Christianity? A watchdog group thinks so.

[marmar]

from the Christian Science Monitor, via AlterNet:


Building God's (Christian) Army

By Jane Lampman, Christian Science Monitor. Posted October 19, 2007.


Are U.S. troops being force-fed Christianity? A watchdog group thinks so.


At Speicher base in Iraq, U.S. Army Spec. Jeremy Hall got permission from a chaplain in August to post fliers announcing a meeting for atheists and other nonbelievers. When the group gathered, Specialist Hall alleges, his Army major supervisor disrupted the meeting and threatened to retaliate against him, including blocking his reenlistment in the Army.

Months earlier, Hall charges, he had been publicly berated by a staff sergeant for not agreeing to join in a Thanksgiving Day prayer.

On Sept. 17, the soldier and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) filed suit against Army Maj. Freddy Welborn and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, charging violations of Hall's constitutional rights, including being forced to submit to a religious test to qualify as a soldier.

The MRFF plans more lawsuits in coming weeks, says Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, who founded the military watchdog group in 2005. The aim is "to show there is a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense."

For Mr. Weinstein -- a former Air Force judge advocate and assistant counsel in the Reagan White House -- more is involved than isolated cases of discrimination. He charges that several incidents in recent years -- and more than 5,000 complaints his group has received from active-duty and retired military personnel -- point to a growing willingness inside the military to support a particular brand of Christianity and to permit improper evangelizing in the ranks. More than 95 percent of those complaints come from other Christians, he says.

Others agree on the need for the watchdog group, but question the conspiratorial view and some of its tactics. They say dealing with religious issues is a complex matter, and the military is trying to address them appropriately.

At the Defense Department, spokeswoman Cynthia Smith says the DOD doesn't comment on litigation, but "places a high value on the rights of members of the Armed Forces to observe the tenets of their respective religions." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/65597/

[Sneaky Sailor]

1. I believe this is more prevalent

in the wartime army. I know the Navy is pretty easygoing about such things.

[gratuitous]

2. They're being forced to love their neighbor?

Seems kind of antithetical to a group that exists to blow their neighbors, many of whom can't fight back and can't get away, to Kingdom Come. Are they being forced to beat their weapons into plowshares? Taught to serve one another in love? Forced to turn the other cheek? Hold no accounting of wrongdoing? Forgive others' debts to them? Live simply that others may simply live? Feed the hungry? House the homeless? Visit the sick and imprisoned? Really? The military is forcing its conscripts to do all those things?

"Force-fed Christianity." Don't make me laugh.

[monmouth]

3. They need armour, not religion, the know how to pray on their own...