Military May Court Martial Chaplains For Preaching

[3rdnlng]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/01/Breaking-Pentagon-Confirms-Will-Court-Martial-Soldiers-Who-Share-Christian-Faith

 

 

"The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith.

(From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”)

Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under federal military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment and being dishonorably discharged from the military.

So President Barack Obama’s civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a crime--possibly resulting in imprisonment--for those in uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains—military officers who are ordained clergymen of their faith (mostly Christian pastors or priests, or Jewish rabbis)--whose duty since the founding of the U.S. military under George Washington is to teach their faith and minister to the spiritual needs of troops who come to them for counsel, instruction, or comfort."

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains (or any service members, for that matter), to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life. It’s difficult to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in that fashion.

In response to the Pentagon’s plans, retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who is now executive vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC), said on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning:

It’s a matter of what do they mean by "proselytizing." ...I think they’ve got their defintions a little confused. If you’re talking about coercion that’s one thing, but if you’re talking about the free exercise of our faith as individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, especially for the chaplains, they I think the worst thing we can do is stop the ability for a soldier to be able to exercise his faith.”

[/dev/null]

So expressing one's Christianity is a court martialable offense, but gunning down infadels on base while screaming alla akbar is workplace violence

 

Forward!

[Azalin]

spiritual rape? really? I know a few assault victims who would likely enjoy a few minutes alone with Mr Weinstein.

[DC Tom]

Oh, horseshit. No one's taking what's-his-name seriously to the point where they're going to court martial chaplains for being all chaplain-ey. And note the Pentagon themselves don't specify "Christianity," they broadly state "religion" - that's probably more of a problem for Muslims, as a matter of fact, given that if they're devout they usually take two prayer breaks during the work day.

 

This is nothing more than breitbart sensationalizing an otherwise mundane story - substituting "expressing" for "proselytizing" and "Christianity" for "religion," for no reason than to sucker fools into getting upset about something. Hey, look, it worked!

[B-Man]

January 3, 2013

President Obama issued a statement Wednesday rejecting several provisions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including a conscience protection for military chaplains that he called “ill-advised”.

 

“Section 533 is an unnecessary and ill-advised provision, as the military already appropriately protects the freedom of conscience of chaplains and service members,” he said in his signing statement.

 

Obama calls Conscience Clause for Military Chaplains “Ill-Advised ...

[3rdnlng]

Oh, horseshit. No one's taking what's-his-name seriously to the point where they're going to court martial chaplains for being all chaplain-ey. And note the Pentagon themselves don't specify "Christianity," they broadly state "religion" - that's probably more of a problem for Muslims, as a matter of fact, given that if they're devout they usually take two prayer breaks during the work day.

 

This is nothing more than breitbart sensationalizing an otherwise mundane story - substituting "expressing" for "proselytizing" and "Christianity" for "religion," for no reason than to sucker fools into getting upset about something. Hey, look, it worked!

 

Read up on Mikey Weinstein:

 

http://preparingfort...eason-is-death/

 

 

According to Weinstein, “We should as a nation effusively applaud Lt. Col. Rich.” He adds that the nation should “venture further” than Rich’s recommendations, saying, “We MUST vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamaphobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do anything less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”

 

 

Weinstein goes on:

If these fundamentalist Christian monsters of human degradation … and tyranny cannot broker or barter your acceptance of their putrid theology, then they crave for your universal silence in the face of their rapacious reign of theocratic terror. Indeed, they ceaselessly lust, ache, and pine for you to do absolutely nothing to thwart their oppression. Comply, my friends, and you become as monstrously savage as are they. I beg you, do not feed these hideous monsters with your stoic lethargy, callousness and neutrality. Do not lubricate the path of their racism, bigotry, and prejudice. Doing so directly threatens the national security of our beautiful nation.

 

 

Seems like he's gotta real big hard-on for Christians to me.

[DC Tom]

Read up on Mikey Weinstein:

 

http://preparingfort...eason-is-death/

 

 

According to Weinstein, “We should as a nation effusively applaud Lt. Col. Rich.” He adds that the nation should “venture further” than Rich’s recommendations, saying, “We MUST vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamaphobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do anything less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”

 

 

Weinstein goes on:

If these fundamentalist Christian monsters of human degradation … and tyranny cannot broker or barter your acceptance of their putrid theology, then they crave for your universal silence in the face of their rapacious reign of theocratic terror. Indeed, they ceaselessly lust, ache, and pine for you to do absolutely nothing to thwart their oppression. Comply, my friends, and you become as monstrously savage as are they. I beg you, do not feed these hideous monsters with your stoic lethargy, callousness and neutrality. Do not lubricate the path of their racism, bigotry, and prejudice. Doing so directly threatens the national security of our beautiful nation.

 

 

Seems like he's gotta real big hard-on for Christians to me.

 

Yes, I know. He's not going to be making policy. He's probably not even going to be advising on policy. He's most likely going to be stuck in a corner and be asked not to make a nuisance of himself.

 

Because there's a title for people who take this **** seriously in the Pentagon. They're called "retired Lt. Colonels."

[B-Man]

Are Military Leaders and the MSM Embracing an Anti-Christian Extremist?

 

While I’m not aware of any immediate or pending change in Pentagon policies regarding religious liberty, I am extremely troubled that it is apparently consulting with an anti-Christian extremist, Mikey Weinstein.

 

Over at the Washington Post, Sally Quinn penned a rather remarkable piece — taking Weinstein’s claims about the alleged pro-Christian bias in the military at face value — while describing how “several generals and a chaplain” recently opened the Pentagon’s doors to Weinstein and his group.

 

In describing Weinstein, I don’t use the word “extremist” lightly. In fact, I hate how the word is over-used — often to dismiss truly mainstream opposing views as a means of avoiding argument. But how else can one describe a person who would make statements like this:

 

Our Pentagon has been turned into a Pentacostalgon, and our DOD has been turned into an imperialist, fascistic contagion of unconstitutional triumphalism by people that want to kill us – or have their version of Jesus kill us if we don’t accept their Biblical world view.

or this:

The dominionist Christian will say, “Nothing can constrain me from proselytizing my version of Christianity.” And these people we find have several particular malodorous stenches about them. It’s like walking into a stench in my native state of New Mexico here on a hot August afternoon and having your nostrils assaulted by the stenches of 10,000 rotting swine it’s so bad.

The first stench is viral misogyny. The fact that women should be consigned to selecting food, preparing food, cleaning up after meals, spreading their legs, getting pregnant and raising children. The next [stench] is virulent anti-Semitism. The next is virulent Islamophobia.

or this:

We’re fighting al-Qaeda. We’re fighting the Taliban, and we’re turning our own military in the exact same thing.

 

or this [speaking of Jerry Falwell]:

The dead guy – Jerry Falwell, and I’m sorry but I’m very glad he’s dead. [applause] I’m very sorry if anyone is upset about that.

 

or this:

Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.

 

I’m sorry, but these are just ravings. And he met with generals? And the Washington Post, CNN, ABC News and others treats him as a serious commentator on faith in the military? Substitute “Muslim” for “Christian” in any of these comments and the brass wouldn’t let him darken the Pentagon’s doors. Sally Quinn might write about him, but only as a Terry Jones–like threat to peace, as the fanatical equivalent of a Koran-burner.

 

Sadly, because he meets with generals – because the likes of the Washington Post take him seriously — he may very well exercise influence over the military’s religious policy. I have no problem with the Pentagon meeting with a wide vareity of credible voices as it formulates and refines religious policies, but this is a man who literally demands courts-martial for speech he dislikes, a man who declares that servicemembers exposed to Christian ideas are “spiritual rape victims.”

 

Even more troubling, this news comes hard on the heels of training slides that labeled “Evangelical Chrsitianity” and “Catholicism” as examples of “religious extremism” literally alongside al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. An isolated example, yes, but intolerable nonetheless.

 

Mikey Weinstein meets with generals because the media give him power. Blinded by their own fear, ignorance, and hate, they give voice to an extremist they would condemn in virtually any another context. It’s pathetic and embarrassing.

.

Edited May 3, 2013 by B-Man