Well, I have yet to see Christians persecuted in the military. My 26-year association began with the Naval Academy where we were encouraged to take advantage, as I did, of voluntary participation in over a score of outside religious services, IF we did not want to attend the services held at the USNA Chapel.

When I was in the Navy, there was NO aggressive promotion of a particular brand of Christianity, as we have recently heard about at the Air Force Academy and elsewhere.

Evangelical Christianity appears to be continuing its rapid growth in the US, as opposed to Europe, where the populace was long-ago turned-off by strident promotion of state-sponsored religion. I suggest we leave the practice and promotion of a particular religion to the individuals' conscience, as the founders of this country intended.

Regards,

This is why we're losing this war. Islam has a 5th column deeply imbedded in this country. Actually, it has more than just a 5th column... media, academia, ACLU...

Kudos for the woman for telling them they're wasting everyone's time!

NavyHelo --

Welcome.

First, for what it is worth, I am a conservative Jew.

That said,

I don't see Christianity as being state sponsored, not at all.

My own perception of the strengthening Christian movement, so to speak, is that of a defensive trend -- it all began when the left declared their war on Christianity -- first taking prayer and any mention of G-d out of public schools, then attacking any and all religious artifacts and symbols on government property. I see Christians as defenders here, not as aggressors.

This country was founded on Christian beliefs and principles -- that is why G-d's name appears on our currency, why people are sworn in with a hand on the Bible, etc. Christian fellowship has been the basis for great charities, for our extremely humanitarian laws and for our very liberty.

The ACLU, the frontrunner in the war on Christianity, was founded by a Marxist with a declared communist agenda for the United States. After disarming the masses, the first thing a communist government does is ban religion, as a belief in G-d is seen as an obstacle to total committment to the state.

Europe is not the best example to cite where the concept of being turned off by state sponsored, or any kind of Bible-based religious observance is concerned: because of the lack of polarization by Christian religious beliefs, that entire continent is well on its way to falling under Islamic rule -- Muslims are polarized by their religious beliefs, and their resolve, as well as the fact that unlike natives of Europe, they are having children, will bring that to fruition within the next couple of decades, if not sooner.

You'll also note that such tragic events as Columbine, as well as the deterioration of morality among a large segment of American youth, did not begin to occur until after G-d had been banned from our schools.

I am not a believer in coincidence, but I am a realist.

I suggest we leave the practice and promotion of a particular religion to the individuals' conscience, as the founders of this country intended.

I completely agree. However, there is strong overreaction here -- nobody is forcing anybody to worship as they do. What is notable is that while political correctness makes it acceptable to demean, in the most vulgar manner, Christianity at every turn, it also renders unacceptable any utterance of Christian belief.

Atheling2 --

That is another bi-product of the liberals' war on Christianity. They are so devoted to its destruction that they are willing to support its antithesis, ignorant of the dire consequences this will one day present to their children and grandchildren.

I wonder if they were Imams if they would be considered a threat at the DOD ? No come to think of it they wouldn't because Imams are politically correct now and Christianity is a piriah in the American liberal mind!

Ken --

Exactly.

In this Judeo-Christian nation, while it's open season on Christians, anything that even microscopically interferes with any Islamic agendas is "Islamophobic" and "racist".

Seth,

Excellent response to NavyHelo.

As a non-Christian non-Jew, I'm right there alongside you in supporting our rich Judeo-Christian heritage and traditions. I fear the ACLU more than I fear a Christian takeover of the country.

Wordsmith --

I do, as well. Those people really haven't a clue -- they strive to destroy all that is decent and good in this country, and turn the U.S. into the same kind of atheistic political mess that has failed virtually every time it has been attempted, and will fail again every time it recurs.

The only difference is that this time, its failure would result in a fall to Islam and Sharia law.

Seth,
Times must be changing. In 1963, a Ft. Leonard
Wood Senior Drill Instructer put his nose on mine and shouted, "Are you eyeballing me, trooper?" I laughed out loud (as I'm sure you would have) and as I did my 50 push-ups, I was treated to a torrent of un-christian verbiage.
Which was typical back then. We had to take care when we went home on leave as our vocabularies had expanded. Weinstein's concerns, if I interpet other sources correctly, is the disparity between the 40% fundamental evangelical
in the ranks vs the 60% fundamental evangelical in the Chaplain's Corps: the swing away from religious parity..and the in-your-face enthusiasm practiced by some evangelicals. As an ex-Army officer (albeit on the low end), I believe the concerns regarding unit cohesivity/morale, espirit, teamwork etc are
more critical in the military, hence anything
remotely divisive (or overtly, as gays) must be viewed in that light. Let's leave Onward Christian Soldiers to the Salvation Army and stick with Caissons Go Rollin..........

BB --

I once had a Marine who was in a position to know tell me that Coast Guard boot camp was second toughest to the Corp's, and it was, so trust me, I know whereof you speak in terms of acquired vocabulary. Except in my boot camp, and I can report this first hand, ouch, that laugh would have earned you 100 push-ups or infinitely worse, 2 hours' high-porting. Prior service Army guys, who didn't have to do any of the physical stuff or take any of the abuse used to shake their heads at what for us were the ingredients of an average day.

Moving right along.... as I said in my reply to NavyHelo, nobody forces religion on our military personnel though, like any American citizens, they are entitled to have faith based groups such as that described in the linked article.

The entire kerfuffle over Christianity, as I said, is a gross overreaction that only exists because the anti-Christian left made it a political issue. Just like in their war on Wal-Mart, which only exists because their union campaign supporters want a piece of the Walton pie, they have made a mountain out of a molehill using spin, innuendo and exaggeration.

I had a friend in Base Security at Roosevelt Roads (many years before it was closed), when I lived in Puerto Rico, who was a born again Christian, highly active in a pretty large evangelical Christian community on the base. He and the others were highly competent and, surprise!, able to discharge their military duties, chew gum and believe in G-d at the same time. :-)

Seth,

Their desire to remove G-d (I'm doing in Rome as Romans!) from this country would result in creating a communist state.

And I agree completely with your observation that in taking G-d out of schools, we have allowed evil into the schools. We didn't start having all this violence and shootings till prayer was taken away from the students.

We're reaping what we're sowing.

Next Christian Chaplains will quit wearing crosses and replace them with what? Smiley Faces?

BTW, Seth,

Has the pedophile creep still been trolling? He's still doing it at my place, though I've turned on comment moderation and automatically delete his comments. Fortunately I don't have to read the comment, I just see his name and click "delete."

Atheling2 --

And as always, liberals will blame this state of affairs on anything but the PC policies they have forced on us, that are the real cause. If they could find a way, they'd probably blame it on Bush's No Child Left Behind program.

Have I ever told you I'm glad I'm already over 50?

Shoprat --

The way things are going, probably little gold crescent moon and star pins.

Atheling2 --

Yeah, it still is, but in less frequency.

Unreal. What's next? Are Chaplin's going to be a threat to National Security next?

Morons

Marie --

That's the whole point of the left's "purge" of religion (except, of course, Islam, those idiots!). They follow the same credo as communists, that if they make it illegal, it will go away.

The Soviets had what they called the "state religion", sort of like a company union, you might say.

I'm sure they'd go along with non-denominational chaplains whose loyalty lay not with G-d, but with the left's political dogmas.

Seth,

I spent 20 years in the Navy. No one would ever feel threatened or intimidated into going to church or otherwise just because some officer did. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

EB --

In boot camp everybody, Jew, Christian and Buddhist used to go to church on Sundays, just to grab a break from the unending daily discipline!

The sermons were awesome, I enjoyed them, they delivered resolve, the joys of life and the love of fellow human beings, which was relevant as I was in a service whose primary purpose was search and rescue.

G-d is and was a principal player in the founding of our great nation, and needs to be lauded as same.

The leftists, having succeeded in getting G-d out of schools and mostly out of government properties, are now looking to get Him out of our defensive structure as well.

I only hope they don't succeed. They claim to care about religious freedom, but what they really seek is the abolishment of religious freedom.

Seth,

I was RPO for my company and guys would go on Sunday just to catch up on their sleep. Nobody forced them and nobody forced them to stay awake.

EB --

I did some of that, too, LOL. After the services, I used to play a lot of chess. The rest of the week was 100% focus on boot camp stuff, nothing non-issue except the stash we used to keep of contraband for shining shoes and keeping rust from accumulating on the operating rods of our rifles. :-)

I love the fact that Elaine Donnelly is simply ignoring them; that's probably really pissing them off. LOL!

Danged asshats anyway! They can believe anything they want to but they need to give us the right to do the same. There is a Christian backlash in this country, and it will grow stronger and stronger if these people continue to rant and rave against our religious choices.

Gayle --

That's the part too many people don't get -- that the source of the Christian resurgence in this country is not "fanatical evangelism", it is a defensive polarization against the leftists who are attacking Christianity.

It is also well needed -- I've been reading Mark Steyn's new book, America Alone, in which he rightly points out that Europeans' failure to do the same has left the spiritual void that is now being filled by Islam, and he is spot-on.

If anything is endangering our national security, it is the liberals' battle to emulate this same void in the U.S.

The very fact that they think officers wield that much power is totally laughable. We had an 0-5 who grabbed a guy by the jacket one day and told him not to lean on the life rail while we were underway and at man overboard stations. As soon as the drill was over the guy went down and filed assault charges against him with all of us as witnesses. And these people think that someone is going to join a religion because some officer SAYS SO??? Shows total ignorance of the military structure and respect we have for one another.

EB --

This demonstrates what happens when civilians who have obviously never served are put in positions to "watchdog" the military.

They are not only not on the same page, but in a different book, altogether.

Do these liberals ever actually listen to the idiocy that emerges when they open their mouths?

I think they're deaf. They don't listen to any kind of reasoned discussion either.

AOW --

Reasoned discussion to a liberal is generally condensed to the point that it can be neatly centered on a bumper sticker. Reasoned discussion to a liberal does not include anything that makes sense to anybody with any sense of reality.

I guess we could say that liberals are deaf to anything that even remotely resembles reality. However, if you start singing Kumbaya they'll hear you crystal clear and start singing along.

Seth, et. al.
"This demonstrates what happens when civilians who have obviously never served are put in positions to "watchdog" the military."
"I think they're deaf. They don't listen to any kind of reasoned discussion either."
I would suggest you read up on Mr. Weinstein
http://www.greatertalent.com/biography.php?id=541
..or if not, his father was an Annapolis grad, he was USAF Academy grad as is his son. He served the Reagan admin for three years. Recall
a Lutheran chaplin got caught up in the AF Academy mess and got a ruined career for standing up (the Academy is pretty close to
Ted Haggard's huge NewLife Church)to the strident evangelical movement. That is what
started him on his campaign of 'freedom from
religion'. It appears your argument may be
with Weinstein on this issue. BTW, Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker are a fascinating sidelight to the phenomenon. :)

"I think they're deaf. They don't listen to any kind of reasoned discussion either"

and there's nothing you can do to stop us.

nothing.

KEvron

BB --

Okay -- Weinstein was an Annapolis grad, I stand corrected, but -- but once a lawyer graduates from the academy he is -- a lawyer.

After reading the linked profile, I Googled "Weinstein vs Air Force Academy" and learned that his lawsuit was thrown out, among other reasons because he could produce no evidence nor even victims to support his case.

Sounds like spoiled kid, bothered by a couple of bigots, runs to Dad with the problem rather than fight his own battles, and Dad lashes out at the institution in which it happened for not adequately mollycoddling his little boy, protecting him from the evils of the wicked world.

And things progress from there....

They think because they pick a name like "Military Religious Freedom Foundation" it's going to legitimize their existence? ... NOT .. if you dig deep enough, you probably find a muslim and a french dude in partnership with him. That is just totally beyond stupid.

KEvron --

Your Proxy's somewhere on the bay side of Industrial Way. What a creepy area, especially at night. It was kinda drizzly over there earlier, according to some buds of mine. Soon, my friend, one email at a time....

Keep it up. :-)

ABF --

The name does sound more pro-religion than one would think, judging by Weinstein's actions. I wonder what he would say about an aggressive Islamic clique starting up at a military academy. Probably nothing, because such people only concern themselves with Christians. Muslims are untouchables, only "racists" and "Islamophobes" question anything they do.

John Kerry went to Vietnam in a naval combat unit, and look at his downright treasonous, given his political position, attacks on the U.S. military and the War on Terror. So, Weinstein merely being a lawyer and all....

Seth,
The USAFA suffered quite a problem that is best summarized here
http://www.religioustolerance.org/relintolafa.htm
Jewish War Veterans org also became involved, and although as you note, the suit failed, the
scope of the reaction led to significant changes in policy and staff at USAF. Unsettling, and one would hope coincidental, rape & sexual abuse
rose proportionally with overt evangelical activity. Apparently USAFA has settled down.

This is the shortest comment I've ever made on any post. In response to your question "Do these liberals ever actually listen to the idiocy that emerges when they open their mouths?"

Answer:
"No."

Seth:

Happy Hannukah to you!

May His face shine upon you always.

BB --

Sorry for the delay in addressing your comment, but the link led to a rather lengthy and involved article with more links within, and I had to balance my time between getting through it and some homefront and work venues.

I find it difficult to believe that the extent to which the article portrays the officers at the USAFA as having gone (I will exclude the cadets, as they have absolutely no link to any official policies or command decisions) could have been entirely on the money.

When enough organizations and individuals pile on one issue, as that article seems to compile all in one place, and I note the ADL, a hyper-left org, and other of the usual suspects are there in full force, the smallest drizzle of a problem can be blown up into a veritable maelstrom of events.

I'll also observe that while great emphasis is placed on the few persons connected who were named, there are more unnamed references and numbers. Where have we seen that before? Perhaps in the presentation of Mikey Weinstein's tossed-out case vs the AFA, where it was one reason cited by the judge for rejecting said case.

While some excesses obviously did occur, I think that much of the uproar was exaggeration augmented by the highly inventive alarmism of the anti-Christian left -- and you'll note that the Air Force did look into it and curb whatever excesses may have existed, in a mature manner sans the pandemonium among those in the accusatory position.

The fact that Weinstein still pursues what is now a dead issue, trying to weed out every vestige of Christian expression from the Academy, speaks a whole lot more about the man than about the Academy, I should think, and the fact that he refers to this expression as an internal national security issue every bit as great as the one we're fighting outwardly, no matter what he was doing for which President twenty years ago, makes him sound like a drooling liberal fanatic in a basement someplace, in the first stages of composing a new bumper sticker slogan. :-)

Gayle --

Brief, but accurate.

Atheling2 --

Thank you!

My grandfather used to love his electric menorah, a point of amusement among us younger family members, so in his honor, said menorah having been passed down to me, I am using it for this Hannukah. :-)

I think Mikey Weinstein hit the nail on the head when he referred to [Evangelical Christians] as "cocksuckers". 'Cause there's nothing more evil than a bunch of self-righteous Christians breaking all the rules in the name of the Lord.

That's their modus operandi, isn't it? Thou shalt not this, thou shalt not that... unless you're a CHRISTIAN. Well, then no holds barred, right? Pedophilia, murder, torture, bigotry, theft, infidelity, etc., it's all okay as long as you show up at EVANGELISTS-R-US on Sunday morning.

Doggo --

By your comment, I must assume that you are not yourself an evangelical Christian, and that you are, in all probability, not terribly fond of same.

I will admit that there are a few bad apples in every persuation, but the lengths to which you go are, at best, preposterous.

I have personally known scores of Bible believing Christians, and not one of them has been an advocate of Pedophilia, murder, torture, bigotry, theft, infidelity, etc.,

I think you have some issues it might behoove you to get a handle on.