According to Fox News Radio, Pentagon spokesman LCDR Nate Christensen said in a written statement that, “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense….Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome in specific cases.”
Firstly, I would like to inquire which article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice commanders and judge advocates general would bring against an offending service member. Some suppose that Article 92 – failure to obey a lawful general order or regulation — could be used in the Air Force on the grounds that proselytization by service members violates section 2.11 of Air Force instruction 1-1 of 7 August 2012 (Air Force Culture: Air Force Standards), to wit,
2.11. Government Neutrality Regarding Religion. Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for an individual’s free exercise of religion or other personal beliefs and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. For example, they must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion. Commanders or supervisors who engage in such behavior may cause members to doubt their impartiality and objectivity. The potential result is a degradation of the unit’s morale, good order, and discipline. Airmen, especially commanders and supervisors, must ensure that in exercising their right of religious free expression, they do not degrade morale, good order, and discipline in the Air Force or degrade the trust and confidence that the public has in the United States Air Force.
This general order, given by the Secretary of the Air Force, can be construed to constrain all service members in the practice of their belief. It needs only one dissenting voice to complain to the chain of command about seeing a fellow airman read his Bible in the common areas of a barracks or workspace in order to justify the prohibition of such acts for the “good order and discipline of the unit” — the catch-all offense which is too-often used to justify punishing behavior not specified elsewhere.
Imagine a commander who displays his Bible (or Qu’ran) in his office. A service member, based on this order, could reasonably argue that the mere display of religious scripture makes him feel like to gain favor he must mimic the Commanding Officer’s religious behavior — or, conversely, fear that behavior contrary to the religion on display (like homosexuality) would incur disfavor from his command.
It does NOT, however, provide for the potential degradation of morale and discipline because commanders and subordinates are not allowed the freedom to express their beliefs.
However, this order, is, in its strictest sense neither lawful nor Constitutional. The right of peaceful free expression being conditional upon the response of others is no right at all, but merely a privilege provisional to another’s offense. Service members of all ranks ought not be constrained by such ambiguities and subjectivities such as “good order and discipline” and “actual or apparent use of their position” in a proclamation of their faith.
Secondly, we may all agree that commanders ought not coerce their subordinates to convert, for this is not rightly a simple “free expression” of belief. However, there is an ocean of difference between coercive conversion and proselytization. The mere mentioning of a supreme God may be deemed proselytization because it causes an observer to think about that idea when the absence of divine recognition would not.
Yet LCDR Christensen’s reported remarks make no distinction between the two, which could cause many commanders throughout the services to rethink and second-guess their every word and command – especially those commanders whose leadership and command philosophies are, like Gen. George Washington’s, rooted in a deference of soldiery to proper religion.
In Washington’s own general orders, he proscribes that
“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”[1]
To disarm commanders of the transcendental determinants of morality, such as those of religious faith, is to disarm ultimately those whom he commands of all morale. There being no authority higher than man to determine the morality of war, then war for its own sake becomes moral, and there are no grounds for obedience and discipline.
Thirdly, while this order might cause a philosophical dissolution of security within the armed forces, there is a more immediate danger to the security of our country if our military leaders are precluded from the simplest expression of their faith: Thousands upon tens of thousands who value God over man will resign their commission or refuse a reenlistment, and hundreds of millions more will resist any enlistment or commission into a service that asks them to enter an afterlife for their country, but prohibits them from encouraging the belief of eternity.
An order such as this will hollow out our forces and make the nation vulnerable, not only to the active invasion of our international foes, but to the passive apathy of those who might otherwise defend our Constitutional ideals and political boundaries.
Elected leaders at the federal level MUST BE URGED with the most vehemence you can convey to seek absolute clarification on the Pentagon’s position in regards to any expression of religious faith by its military members, to determine what our Department of Defense considers proselytization, and to ensure that we as a country are not confining any citizen merely to a “freedom of belief,” while restricting their freedom to express peacefully that belief as commanded by their God and their conscience.
UPDATE: According to Todd Starnes at Fox News Radio, the Pentagon issued a statement yesterday saying, “service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one’s beliefs (proselytization).”
This adds clarification to the word, but the Air Force seems to contradict the sentiment in their own statement by Lt. Col. Laurel Tingley, who said “When on duty or in an official capacity, Air Force members are free to express their personal religious beliefs as long as it does not make others uncomfortable.”
Making others uncomfortable, and forcing unwanted attempts to convert are undeniably different categories.
Ron Crews, Executive Director for the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, noted that an Air Force officer was required to remove the passive display of a Bible from his desk because superiors were worried it might be condoning a particular religion.
If the Pentagon does indeed mean coercive conversion by the term proselytization (a definition that I must say is at odds with its etymology and denotation), then it had better get the Air Force on board and tell Mikey Weinstein to pound sand next time he tries to get the military to force an officer to remove a bumper sticker from his own car.
[1] George Washington, General Orders, Head Quarters, V. Forge, Saturday May 2, 1778 in The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, DC: 1931-44), 11:342-343. The general order begins with the command, “The Commander in Chief directs that divine Service be performed every Sunday at 11 oClock in those Brigades to which there are Chaplains; those which have none to attend the places of worship nearest to them. It is expected that Officers of all Ranks will by their attendance set an Example to their Men.”
