THE ADVOCATE – Fleming and Perkins claim religious threats in military

Published On: July 10, 2013|Categories: News|0 Comments|

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  • WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. John Fleming and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins joined others Tuesday in releasing “A Clear and Present Danger” report on the
    “threat to religious liberty in the military.”The coalition is pushing language by Fleming, R-Minden, that already has been approved in the U.S. House in the National Defense Authorization Act. It would protect the religious “actions and speech” of members of the military.Critics, including the Obama administration, contend the language is unnecessary and that Christians are not being punished for their beliefs. They argue the Fleming language could lead to negative impacts on military discipline and morale, in part, by potentially giving members of the military the ability to discriminate against others for their beliefs.
  • The non-partisan, fact-checking website Politifact.com deemed the concerns “mostly false.” Defense Department spokesman Nate Christensen stated, “Service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one’s beliefs (proselytization) … If a service member harasses another member on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, or disability, then the commander takes action based on the gravity of the occurrence.”As Politifact summarized, “Conservative religious groups argue this means ‘sharing the gospel’ would become a crime. But no policy we saw suggests that the Pentagon would court-martial soldiers ‘who hold Christian faith.’ Quite the opposite — much of the language from the Defense Department reinforces the right of military members to practice their religion, as long as it’s in a way that respects others’ belief systems. Chaplains already follow such rules.
    “Still, there’s a sliver of truth — if you believe your Christian faith compels you to try to convert others in a way people find harassing, it’s possible you could face court-martial, though such a thing has yet to happen.”
  • Blake Page addressed the issue in a recent column that discussed a meeting at the Pentagon with Military Religious Freedom Foundation President Mikey Weinstein, who had previously sued the U.S. Air Force for alleged instances of non-Christians being discriminated against. Page is Weinstein’s assistant.“The rumor of ‘anti-Christian’ regulations began after the Pentagon held a meeting with MRFF President Mikey Weinstein about the problems experienced by our clients,” Page wrote. “These problems include religious harassment that gets swept under the rug, routine prayer ceremonies that service members are forced to attend, and mandatory ‘spiritual fitness’ training which assess the resiliency of service members based, in part, on their degree of faith to name the most common. That is what we are against. Not free exercise of religion, but a politically active forceful abuse of authority for religious purposes.”

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