I would like to express my profound disappointment in your organization. How dare your organization attack our freedom, and our militaries freedom, to practice religion. “nor prohibit the practice thereof” What are you people thinking??
(name withheld)
Hi (name withheld),
I’m sorry about your disappointment, but it’s misplaced. I suggest you contact the U.S. Air Force about their Instruction 1-1, Section 2.12 if you have a problem with limitations on the speech of military officers when dealing with religion.
Our concern has to do with ensuring that the rights of our women and men in the military are protected and that the separation of church and state is maintained.
As regards your question, “How dare your organization attack our freedom, and our militaries (sic) freedom, to practice religion,” our military, like the rest of our government, has no religion. Individuals within them are welcome to their personal beliefs, of course, but they – and especially officers and those in authority over others – may not proselytize or propagandize on behalf of one belief system over another.
I trust you have the capacity to understand that.
Best,
Mike Farrell
(MRFF Board of Advisors)
Thank you for your response Mike:
You say you want to protect the rights of our men and women in the military, but my disappointment is that you are failing to do this. What are constitution says is, Congress shall pass no law to establish a religion, nor prohibit the practice there of. Today many seem to forget to read beyond the comma, your group being included. Nowhere in our Constitution does it say that religion and state must be so completely separated as to the very existence or mention of a religion by a government or military official has to be banned. It does say though, that no law can be past to prohibit the practice of religion. As you said to protect the rights of the men and women in our military, especially their right to practice religion. People like yourselves have forgotten what it is to be American, it’s a real shame.
I do thank you for a response.
Thank you.
(name withheld)
Hi (name withheld),
Thank you for your courteous response.
The Founders’ reason for the First Amendment… which reads:
Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
… was to ensure that no one in America should be compelled to follow a particular belief system. It is well understood in law and history that the Founders themselves had many different beliefs and knew from experience and scholarship that forcing adherence to a particular religious belief was contrary to the very concept of freedom they intended for the country.
Though he was not the first to do so, Thomas Jefferson called for a wall of separation between church and state at the federal level, and that concept has flowed into our legal understanding down through the ages.
In fact, contrary to your statement, the MRFF is very successfully protecting the right of the women and men in our military to make their own choices regarding a form of belief or non-belief.However, because of a certain defensiveness in the Christian community, the dominant faith in this country, the fact that we have the temerity to insist that the separation must apply to them as well seems to touch a sore spot, which is a shame. The problem is that we are very aware of the intention of those involved with a certain fundamentalist Christian sect to infiltrate and control the military out of their belief that it is God’s wish to do so. It is hard sometimes to get Christians to understand that we are not opposed to them; in fact over 95% of our members and supporters are Christians. But we believe very strongly that proselytizing by someone in uniform who is presented as one who speaks for the government is a violation of both the law and Air Force regulations.
In the case of Major General Olson, if he chose to take part in a legitimate religious event and speak of his personal faith, but had done so in civilian clothing, we would have had no objection.
If you don’t know of the fundamentalist sect to which I refer, I suggest you look up Dominionism and see for yourself what they are about. If you already know of them, I need say no more.
Thank you for your interest.
Mike Farrell
(MRFF Board of Advisors)
