Thursday, March 19, 2009

Specialist Dustin Chalker says he was made to attend a ceremony in the military featuring Christian prayers, which he says violated his first amendment rights.

Chalker sued Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on these grounds in September of last year, alongside the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization dedicated to scrutinizing the role of religion in the US military. Now, both plaintiffs are waiting for the Department of Defense to file a response, which they are required to do by the end of March.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), said Chalker’s experience is a common and very serious issue.

“When you’re basically told by your military superior, that you lack integrity, character and courage and truthfulness because of your particular religious affiliation, not being a fundamentalist Christian, that’s the same thing as telling somebody that they’re stupid because of the color of their skin,” Weinstein said.

Jason Torpy, now president of the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers (MAAF), described a similar feeling he had as an atheist in the military.

“I had commanders and administrators push me to go to church and suggest that atheists couldn’t
be good soldiers,” Torpy said. “I was simply looking for the same morale and community support a soldier of any religion seeks, only the military wasn’t providing it to me. They were using my beliefs to ostracize me.”

Both the MRFF and the MAAF work with soldiers like Chalker who feel that the military has discriminated against them on the basis of religion. The predominance of fundamentalist Christianity, they say, is both stifling and intimidating for soldiers who do not hold the same beliefs.

Weinstein described the atmosphere his clients experienced.

“It’s just like gravity; that’s how pervasive fundamentalist Christianity is in the US military,” Weinstein said. “Fish that are swimming in an aquarium never see the water, and that is how omnipresent it is, how ubiquitous it is. It’s everywhere.”