WASHINGTON FREE BEACON – Battle Continues Over Religious Freedom at Military Base

Selected Article Excerpts:

• A military servicemen advocacy group is requesting more information about a military base’s decision to republish a chaplain’s article on faith that some servicemen found offensive.

  The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which seeks to counter religious influences in the military, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Aug. 15 seeking documents surrounding the base command’s decision. The request is the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute with the base over the proper place of religion in the military.

• Military Religious Freedom Foundation wrote to the base commander, Col. Brian Duffy, complaining about the article on behalf of 42 servicemen at the base soon after its publication.The foundation argued that Reyes had violated military regulations and that it was disrespecting some servicemen.
• The next day, the base removed the article from the website. The foundation hailed the decision as “Yet Another Swift MRFF Victory.” […] However, the base only temporarily removed the piece to review military policy because the foundation had cited military regulations in its complaint, a base spokeswoman said.
• Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s president Mikey Weinstein decried the base’s decision and pledged further action. “This is hardly over. It has just begun,” Weinstein said.
• Weinstein pledged to uncover the discussions behind the decision to repost the article.”We want to see who spoke to whom,” he said. “We clearly want to see everything that’s out there, and we will assess where to go from there.”

  “This was the Air Force caving in to pernicious, fundamentalist Christian pressure,” Weinstein, who himself went to the Air Force Academy, said.

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