Military Chaplains and Religious Discrimination

The religious right and their minions in the Republican Party seem hell-bent on denying rights and respect to the growing numbers of non-believers in the United States and in the U.S. military.  In so doing, they are not only showing contempt for the First Amendment, but also for our democratic society and the military, And, to top things off, they are undermining the chaplaincy which they claim to revere.

Stars and Stripes reports

Jason Heap wants to be a Navy chaplain. But he doesn’t believe in God.

Belief in a higher power, the 38-year-old humanist argues, has nothing to do with that work.

“I am aware there are many who would be reticent or militant against that,” he said. “But at the end of the day, my job is not to inculcate my viewpoints onto other people. My job as a chaplain is to be a facilitator, someone who cares for people, someone who is a sounding board.”

Heap submitted his application to the Armed Forces Chaplains Board earlier this month, in an effort to become the first humanist chaplain in military history.

He holds master’s degrees from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University and Oxford University, and has almost finished a doctorate too. He has been teaching religious studies to teenagers in Britain for the last five years and has been conducting scholarly research on 17th century Baptist literature for longer than that.  ...

Supporters argue he would be a shoo-in to serve as a chaplain if he were a practicing Christian.

Until the Reagan years,  military chaplains, as a matter of policy were appointed from a cross section of Protestant and Catholic to roughly reflect the religious views of the nation. Since then they have been recruited disproportionately from conservative denominations which have active programs to train and place chaplains.

As a result

While just 3 percent of the military’s enlisted personnel and officers call themselves Southern Baptist, Pentecostal or a member of a denomination that’s part of the National Association of Evangelicals, 33 percent of chaplains in the military are members of one of those groups, according to Pentagon statistics.

Source: stltoday.com

 Jason Torby,  President of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers notes that

“There are more atheists than any other single non-Christian group in the military. We deserve to be represented too.”

About 11,000 active duty military personnel identify themselves as atheist (military officials don’t include the term “humanist” on their forms) About 277,000 have no religious preference.

The MAAF has an instructive graphic and an insightful page on military religious demographics.

After an amendment to require the Secretary of Defense to appoint non-theistic chaplains was defeated in the House Defense Committee, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) tried to get the amendment through without the support of the Committee.  It failed on June 14 by a vote of 274-150. Every Republican and 44 Democrats voted against it.

Not only did Tim Huelskamp of Kansas's First District, author of a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage, vote against the amendment, he gave one of his typical bigoted speeches.

Huelskamp shows his contempt for  non-believers by referring to those "who claim to have no faith." He says that(so-called?) non-believers don't need chaplains; if they are having problems, they can go to a military counselor,  Only problem is that seeing a counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist, rather than a chaplain, will get recorded on the service person's records and could be a negative factor is seeking promotions and even being retained at the end of a tour.  It is a way of institutionalizing discrimination against "nones," "atheists," "agnostics," and the like.

Even worse, Huelskamp invokes the memory of Emil Kapaun, who has killed by the North Korean regime which imposed a state-mandated atheism, in order to impose a state-imposed anti-atheist policy.

The fact is that non-believers, atheists, and agnostics make up  a significant and growing percentage of the American population and, even more so, among young people who are the dominant age cohort among military personal.  On  purely pragmatic grounds, the military should accommodate these soldiers. Enlightened miltaries and societies recognize this.  The Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian militaries already have humanist chaplains.* The Israeli "government employs civilian non-Jewish clergy as chaplains at military burials when a non-Jewish soldier dies in service. The MOI provides imams to conduct funerals according to Muslim customs. "** If military personnel are not treated with respect and sensitivity, their efficiency will suffer.

But military efficiency is not the sole criteria. Even more weight should be placed on democratic values.   If there are to be military chaplains, they should reflect and serve the diversity of society. An entirely Catholic chaplaincy would not be acceptable.  Nor a purely Protestant chaplaincy.  Nor a chaplaincy which excluded Rabbis.   Nor one that excluded Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, or Buddhists.  And, by the same measure, a US chaplaincy which excludes atheists or humanists is undemocratic and unAmerican--and anti-military.

Huelskamp and his allies seem to assume that there are no Constitutional  problems with military chaplains and oblivious to that fact that their barring of non-theists from serving as chaplains could undermine the  constitutionality of this service.

No less a Constitustional icon than James Madison (:"the father of the Constitution") thought that chaplains (legislative and military) were unconstitutional.

The issue  is likely to come before the Courts.

Wikipedia notes

Two Harvard law students brought a suit in 1979 arguing that military chaplains should be replaced with non-combat volunteers or contractors. In Katcoff v. Marsh (1985),^[14] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit and upheld the right of the military to employ chaplains. According to one analysis of the case, the court analysis described the First Amendment's free exercise clause and establishment clause as separate issues. It noted that only the wealthiest religious sects could provide chaplains for their adherents, effectively denying to other military personnel the "free exercise" of their religion.^[15] The court also established guidelines for the military's chaplaincy programs, emphasizing the constitutional boundaries governing the program's administration and operations, including accommodating the rights and beliefs of each service member, and the avoidance of evangelizing and involuntary participation in religious observances. (emphasis added)

Looks to me like the GOP-Huelskamp chaplaincy might be in some danger.  It chaplains are ruled unconstitutional blame them, not the ACLU.



*Wikipedia, Military Chaplain
**US State Department, 2012 Report on International Religious Freedom: Israel and The Occupied Territories

Beck and Robertson Show Contempt for Southerners

Here's a little secret; there are big-time conservatives who want the votes or money of white Southerners, but don't really like them. In fact, the big time cons may view white Southerners with disdain or contempt--at least the 47 percent among them. Two instances recently came to light: Glenn Beck and Pat Robertson.

Radio and television host Glenn Beck  doesn't much like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who he regards not merely as a "Rino," but.even worse, as a "progressive". That's fine, if a little demented. What is not okay is Beck's dreadful impersonation of Graham. Not only is Beck no Vaughn Meader, but it hard to express just how dreadful. It is not really an impersonation of Graham, but a generic Southern slack jaw yokel voice, something between Gomer Pyle and the Simpson's Cletus Spuckler and Hee-Haw. A hallmark of this voice is that this is a low-intelligence, uniformed person. (It is a Caucasian version of the Amos-and-Andy dialect, and nearly as offensive)  In the second clip, Beck uses the same voice for an upset gas consumer.  This is likely the way Beck thinks about Southerners.

By the way, in the second video Beck states that "eighty  percent of  the world's oil flows Egypt and the Suez canal." But, in reality, as the National Geographic notes  "Egypt serves as a passage for just a fraction of the 15 million to 17 million barrels per day of oil shipped out of the Persian Gulf. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) notes that volumes in both the canal and the pipeline have been declining."







On his 700 Club, evangelist Pat Robertson recently said, “That's the big problem, especially in Appalachia. They don't know about birth control. They just keep having babies.” “You see a string of all these little ragamuffins, and not enough food to eat and so on,” he said, “and it's desperate poverty.”

Notice that Robertson blames poverty on poor people beings ignorant and having too many children.  This is an old right-wing theme.

But already by1986, public health researchers had found that in a central Appalachian country

professional family planning services are, in fact, widely available and easily accessible to the vast majority of county residents. Interviews with a random sample of 407 currently married women of childbearing age, 15-45 years, revealed that 87 per cent of contraceptors were using either sterilization, the pill, or the IUD, with sterilization used by close to half of all couples practicing family planning. Moreover, this widespread use of modern contraceptives and sterilization was found among all educational and income groups.

(Here are two posts with informed analysis of poverty  in Appalachia: Cynthia Duncan and the Appalachian Poverty  Project, which, incidentally, describes a poor county with an average of 2.4 children per family.)

I don't these are isolated cases, but express a viewpoint common among elite conservatives. they don't much like working class or poor whites, though they may pretend otherwise.  Progressives ought to be prepared to call them out on this.  And, should be  more intentional about including working class and poor whites in electoral and community coalitions.

Libertarian Anti-Semitism

I just came across a very interesting mini-essay "Documenting Anti-Semitism Within the Libertarian Movement" by an unidentified Jewish libertarian. It certainly rings true from what I know of the libertarian movement. But the extent of anti-Semitism appears to be greater than I had thought.

He writes

In recent years, as the libertarian movement has grown, so has the anti-Jewish movement within this clan of activists supposedly concerned with promoting liberty and freedom for all of humanity.

 ...In the U.S., the libertarian movement, broadly speaking, consists of think-tanks, Ron Paul activists and organizations, and those affiliated with the Libertarian Party.

The anti-Semitism in the libertarian movement has manifested itself in all three categories at alarmingly high levels. It's difficult to imagine how any libertarian activist or scholar can envision success for their movement with such anti-libertarian sentiment and malicious bigotry in its midst.

The essay concludes with this observation:

Jewish libertarians or classical liberals -- or others who are pro-equal rights (pro-decency, really) should refrain from further participation in the libertarian movement

 The author of the document has also written a useful essay on Ron Paul's Disdain for Jews and Israel.

Rachel Maddow says Paul Ryan is a Ayn Randist, not a fiscal conserviate

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UN Take Over of Internet? :Congressman Mike Pompeo vs. New York Times

Mike Pompeo (R-KS4)

...there is an effort to manipulate the International Telecommunications Union—a treaty originally created in 1865 to address telegraph service—to provide the United Nations jurisdiction over the Internet.  The showdown over whether the UN will seize control will happen at the December 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai.

 Pompeo  boasts that he has written a House resolution opposing the UN takeover of the internet.

New York Times

Documents prepared for the December meeting, which leaked out last week — yes, on the Internet — show that there are no proposals to hand governance of the Net to the I.T.U. The union insists that it has no desire to play such a role. And even if some governments would like to give the agency increased regulatory powers, the United States and other like-minded countries could easily block them.

Ron Paul

Are the Koch Bros Denying Your Vote

Mitt Romney's America

Brownback wants to save your marriage--unless you're gay

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has already used his administration to make Kansas one of the most social conservative in the nation. Kansas has become the first state to end public funding of the arts and has narrowly missed being the first state to do end abortions. Now, Brownback is developing a plan to promote marriage. To head up this effort, Brownback has hired Robert Siedlecki. Ironically, Siedlicki is divorced, but he is an advocate of “faith-based” solutions and an opponent of gay marriage. And, he's from Florida, as if Kansas has a shortage of religious right activists.

Tim Carpenter reported recently some juicy details about a secret April meeting to design Brownback's marriage agenda. The Topeka Capital-Journal uncovered some through a Kansas Open Records request. The Kansas government spent $13,000 to bring together 20 mostly far-right marriage “experts” for the closed door meeting. Thanks to the reporting of Tim Carpenter and other public information we know something of what Brownback has in mind, even though the details of the meeting remain confidential.

Organizations represented included the Heritage Foundation, Institute for American Values, Georgia Family Council, National Center for Fathering, Stronger Families, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Marriage Savers, Kansas Healthy Marriage Institute, and National Center for African American Marriages and Parenting.

Governor Sam, according to Carpenter, “urged invitees to think in terms of 'Hail Mary' approaches to boosting marriage rates and slashing divorce rates in Kansas.” According to SRS secretary Robert Siedlecki, a Brownback import from Florida "The governor wants us to create a national model." Perhaps because he is not the best model as a divorced father and to begin the work on this national model, Seidlecki has hired a minister—from Florida! Carpenter also reported that Joyce Webb of Catholic Charities' Kansas Healthy Marriage Institute, recommended that SRS fund a new marriage with $1 million from federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Ethics of Brownback's Experts

Carpenter points out that one invitee Wade Horn “departed the Bush administration amid reports of cronyism in awarding federal grants to the National Fatherhood Initiative he founded. According to OMB Watch, NFI received a five-year, no-bid contract for $12 million.”

But, Horn is not the only invitee with shaky ethics.

Michael McMannus, according to wikipedia

On January 28, 2005, it was discovered that McManus was one of three media figures to accept money from the George W. Bush administration for targeted public endorsements of government policy.

McManus was the third person to be implicated in an article by Tom Hamburger of The Los Angeles Times. It was revealed that McManus, who is a self-described "marriage advocate", was paid through a subcontractor of the Department of Health and Human Services to endorse a Bush-approved initiative defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. The payments were said to be $4,000 plus travel expenses, with an additional $49,000 paid to his organization, "Marriage Savers". McManus did not disclose this payment to his readers

Maggie Gallagher, again according to wikipedia

received tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services during 2002 and 2003 for helping the George W. Bush administration promote the President's Healthy Marriage Initiative. During this time, Gallagher testified before Congress in favor of "healthy marriage" programs, but never disclosed the payments. When asked about that situation, she replied "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me. ...frankly, it never occurred to me".

After the Washington Post revealed this information on January 26, 2005, Gallagher claimed significant differences between her situation and that of conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, going on to add that "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."]

Gallagher received an additional $20,000 from the Bush administration for writing a report, titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?", for the National Fatherhood Initiative...

Gays No, Polygamists Maybe

It should surprise no one that Sedlieki made it clear to the TCJ that there would be “ no room in the state's program for gays and lesbians interested in marriage or parenting.” What is surprising is that some of Brownback experts think polygamy isn't so bad.

Gallagher has said that gay marriage is worse than polygamy, which, "for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children".

Another invitee founder of the Institute for American Values Daniel Blankenhorn

was presented to the court as an expert witness in Perry v. Schwarzenegger by the proponents of California Proposition 8 (2008), a constitutional amendment stripping same-sex couples of the right to marry. On cross-examination by David Boies, Blankenhorn stated that marriage's "rule of two people" is not violated by polygamy, because "Even in instances of a man engaging in polygamous marriage, each marriage is separate. He — one man marries one woman." (source)

The Agenda?

We can't know what the Brownback marriage  agenda will  look like, but there here are some possibilities.

Mike McManus of Marriage Savers wants to get rid of no-fault divorce, limiting it to only cases of physical abuse or adultery. Gallagher not only want to end no-fault divorce, she want to prosecute spouses for adultery.

 And, a definite--no room in the state's programs m for gays or lesbians interested in marriage or parenting.

Jon Stewart on Fox bias

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Chip Berlet on the false equivalence of right and left

Chip Berlet with Political Research Association joins Thom Hartmann to talk about Right Wing Populism in America.

James Loewen on confederate and neo-confederate myths

 James Loewen, co-editor of The Confederate and Neo-confederate Reader demolishes the myth that the cause of the Civil War was "states rights."  It was, in fact, slavery that was the cause of the Civil War and the motivation of the Southern states was the maintenance and defense of slavery.


A talk with James W. Loewen from University Press of Mississippi on Vimeo.

James Elon White on Haley Barbour and racism

The Young Guns

Wanted David and Charles Koch, Climate Criminals

A humorous look at the Koch's. I'd like to see a more serious report. Let me know if there is one around that you are aware of.


Wanted: David and Charles Koch, Climate Criminals from Greenpeace USA on Vimeo.

The vestigal trait of neo-conservatism

from The New Republic Politics by Jonathan Chait

 

Neoconservatism long ago ceased to have any meaningful ideological difference with just plain old conservatism. Perhaps the one remaining vestigial trait of the ideological tendency is a mania for forming committees and stuffing them with progenies (of both the ideological and the literal sort). The glory days of neoconservatism in the 1970s revolved around such committees as the Committee on the Present Danger and the Coalition for a Democratic Majority.

Founding Fathers Supported Obama Care

Paul J. O'Rourke has a dynamite column showing that the Republican claim that the Obama Health Care Reform is unprecedented and unconstitutional can't stand scrutiny. In 1789, the Congress passed and President John Adams signed a law mandating medical insurance for seamen. (ht: Jeff Weintraub)

Officials from 14 states have gone to court to block the historic overhaul of the U.S. health care system that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, arguing the law's requirement that individuals buy health insurance violates the Constitution.

Thirteen of those officials filed suit in a federal court in Pensacola, Florida, minutes after Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The complaint calls the act an "unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of the states" and asks a judge to block its enforcement.

"The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage," the lawsuit states.

The history lesson

In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance,

This legislation also created America’s first payroll tax, as a ship’s owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor’s monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship's captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.

This historical fact demolishes claims of “unprecedented” and "The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty...”

NAACP on so-called "health freedom" amendment

Kansas NAACP Pres Kevin Myles discussing the proposed Kansas "Health Care Freedom" Amendment

Climate Change--those hacked e-mails

The right-wing nuts think they've discovered a vast conspiracy, but here's a video that puts things in perspective.



Check out more videos here.

New Blog Follows Roeder Case

A new blog offers facts and information about Scott Roeder, who is accused of the murder of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

Roederwatch likes like a blog worth following.