Your cowardice.

You people are so ignorant. Do you not realize that freedom of religion is not to keep the Church in check. It is to keep the state from trampling on the Church. Your little bitch move of whining about the military Bibles is but one small piece of the plan that you and your little Marxist buddies are up too. Don’t think that for one second you are going to go unnoticed. The good Christian people of this country are watching you, and you will not go unchecked.

(name withheld)

Sadly, you continue to miss the point. It doesn’t matter who approached whom, the fact is it is wrong for the government to ally itself with a religious faith – any religious faith. If the government had been approached by an Islamic group asking to put a U.S. military insignia on The Koran there is no chance it would have agreed, nor should it have. The same goes for such an approach from the KKK, the Lutherans, the Catholics, the Gnostics, the Theosophists, the Jews, the Scientologists or the adherents of any other belief system.

Our country was founded on the humane values of liberty, equality and justice that underlie most religious and philosophical belief systems. The tenets of a particular religious belief are the business of religious organizations and those who choose to accept them. The freedom to choose one – or none – is fundamental to being an American. The way we protect that freedom is by separating our government, its institutions and its manifestations from an actual or implied endorsement of one over another.

Your wish to elevate Christianity over everything else by entwining it with our government institutions and functions is exactly contrary to both the beliefs and the wishes of the founders.

You are welcome to your beliefs. You are not allowed to shove them down the throat of the men and women of our military.

You misunderstand. The military did not approach the people with the Bible’s and ask them to use the insignia. It was the other way around. The military only said yes you can seeing as how it is government and therefore public property being used by U.S. citizens. So thusly the military was not promoting a religion, the religion was promoting the military. Had a person asked to use the insignia on a Koran they would have had the same rights.

You wish total separation of Church and state. Unfortunately for you the U.S.A. was founded on Judeo-Christian values. And we are thus intertwined with having religion as part of every facet of society.

(name withheld)

Hi (name withheld),

You misunderstand. Freedom of religion is what every American has by birthright. And I know it bothers some
people, but freedom from religion is part of that. No one here is interested in “trampling on the Church,” as you
put it. See, where you’re confused is that what we’re talking about is the separation of church and state. Our military
is part of the government, so it can’t be promoting one religion over another. That’s all.

You’re free to believe anything you want, and “the good Christian people of this country” are free to believe anything
they want. They just can’t be involved in forcing their religion on others who don’t believe the same way they do,
and if they’re in the military they can’t use their authority to proselytize.

It’s actually all pretty simple.

As regards what you call our “little bitch move” (not a Christian phrase, I think), I suspect if the government was involved
in putting the military insignia on the Book of Mormon or the Koran and telling our troops they must go out and convert the
locals, wherever they are, to those belief systems, you’d be unhappy about that. And I wouldn’t blame you.

So see, the thing is the government (and that includes the military) has to simply stay out of the business of promoting
a religion – any religion. That way people can decide for themselves.

As far as your comment about “Marxist buddies is concerned, you’re getting your politics mixed up with your religion. Not
a good idea.

Hope this helps.

Mike Farrell