Thanks

Dear Mikey,

Mikey, thanks so much for joining us yesterday. I was quite taken with your passion for helping hold the abuse of power at bay. I have been thinking about the First Amendment since your presentation. The two clauses work in an interesting way on this matter. On the one hand the free exercise gives religious adherents, even adherents that do things I personally abhor, great freedom to proceed with vigor, zeal, persistence. On the other hand the establishment clause, prohibits them from using the instrumentality of the government to carry out their zeal. Your JAG corps experience helped me see even more clearly the way the particularly legal apparatus of the military is even more dangerous on the “establishment clause” side. I find the “roughshod” overrun of the religion of others that is so often done in the name of the “Great Commission,” abhorrent, ethically wrong, offensive—however, I think under the free exercise clause and the “Great Commandment,” it is tolerable(in the real sense of that word). I do not, however, as I think you make the point well, believe it is to be tolerated, accepted or allowed as a part of the machinations of the military.

Thanks for your vigilance on these matters.

(name withheld)