The totalitarian Christians lose again.
AF to change instructions for oaths
WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force has instructed force support offices across the service to allow both enlisted members and officers to omit the words “So help me God” from enlistment and officer appointment oaths if an Airman chooses.
In response to concerns raised by Airmen, the Department of the Air Force requested an opinion from the Department of Defense General Counsel addressing the legal parameters of the oath. The resulting opinion concluded that an individual may strike or omit the words “So help me God” from an enlistment or appointment oath if preferred.
The Air Force requested the review following a ceremony at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, in which an enlisted Airman struck out the words, “So help me God” on the Department of Defense Form 4 and did not include them in his verbal oath. The Airman's unit was unable to process his paperwork due to the guidance in Air Force Instruction 36-2606, Reenlistment in the United States Air Force, which prohibited any omissions.
Keep in mind that this is only the Air Force. "So help me God" has always been optional in the Army and Navy.
The fight was lead by Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
His last diary addressed the issue and the circumstances that lead to the showdown;
Today’s Air Force Would Have Rejected Pat Tillman and Jesus
One airman based at Creech Air Force base in Nevada learned about this renewed religious requirement the hard way. He was informed that unless he speaks and signs the religious oath, his days as an airman are through. “So help me God” isn’t optional anymore. It is now a basic condition of Air Force enlistment.
Whatever the USAF core values might be, such reprehensible examples of blatant religious coercion fly in the face of the Constitution of the United States of America and an enormous amount of related Constitutional case law stretching back at least 125 years. Indeed, the bulk of the First Amendment is devoted to our guaranteed freedom of religion (or freedom therefrom, if one so chooses). There is the Establishment Clause, which explicitly prohibits compulsory religious oaths, and then there is the Free Exercise Clause, which prevents a person from having to submit to coerced practices and affirmations of a scathingly sectarian nature. Let us neither forget the “No Religious Test” mandate of Clause 3, Article VI of the Constitution which, by itself, would be wholly dispositive here of the USAF’s vile iniquity. Indeed, the issue of religious oaths has long been settled via bedrock legal precedents fortifying Constitutional equal protection which formidably underscores the already unequivocal guarantees laid out in our Constitution.
My friend Mikey is a committed activist. This article today in Salon can give you an idea of his passion for the cause and the opposition faced by those who understand the issue;
Air Force’s mind-boggling violation: Members forced to swear religious allegiance
This attempt to force service members to swear a prescribed religious oath is the single biggest blunder by Christians since the Salem witch trials. It is an obvious loser, which is what I cannot understand. How can anyone, Christian, Muslim or atheist (or nothing at all), think that any government or private institution other than a church has the right to require religious oaths? I asked Weinstein if there was any way this could hold up. “You don’t even have to be a good lawyer to win this one. You could be an actor playing a lawyer on TV and win this,” he said.
“When you tell someone they lack honor because of your chosen religious faith or lack thereof, it is no different than telling a person that they are stupid because of their skin color or sex,” said Weinstein.
“We have 17 noncommissioned officers who object and 15 of them are practicing Christians. They have always said the oath before but won’t now because it’s mandatory and that’s wrong. Our two non-Christians have never said, ‘so help me god.’ They just haven’t and should not be forced to now,” said Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, founder and president of the MRFF, a civil rights group that protects military members from religious coercion and abuse. “[Service members] come to us because they can’t get help anywhere else and they need anonymity.”
And for those of you interested in the issue, Mikey Weinstein testifies on Friday at the US Congress Armed Forces Committee and you can watch it live.
Religious Accommodations in the Armed Services
STREAMING LIVE
Friday, September 19, 2014
Testimonies begin at 8am ET, click here for schedule & video link
Thu Sep 18, 2014 at 10:38 AM PT: Pat Robertson freaks out!