Pentagon unveils new religious liberty policies after pressure from conservative lawmakers
Source: Military Times
Pentagon & Congress
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Diana Stancy Correll
5 hours ago
The Pentagon has issued new guidance on religious liberty within the military — following pressure from Republican lawmakers to “prioritize protecting the rights and freedoms of service members” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While critics of the revised regulation say it will encourage military superiors to push their religious beliefs on subordinates and fellow service members, proponents of the rule have hailed it as a victory for religious liberty.
“Service members don’t lose their religious freedom by virtue of being in the military,” Mike Berry, general counsel for First Liberty Institute, told Military Times.
The revised regulation, DoD Instruction 1300.17, Religious Liberty in the Military Services, was unveiled earlier this month. It establishes Department of Defense policy “in furtherance of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment” and states that DoD components will “accommodate individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” ― provided there are no adverse impacts on military readiness and unit cohesion. Such beliefs can include religious beliefs or moral principles, the guidance says.
Read more: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/09/18/pentagon-unveils-new-religious-liberty-policies-after-pressure-from-conservative-lawmakers/
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Specifically, Weinstein slammed the incorporation of RFRA and argued that it is the “sick epitome of the right-wing Christians' tortured view of the First Amendment’s religion clauses.” He argued those who back RFRA fail to recognize the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause that bars the government from making any law regarding an establishment of religion.
Weinstein takes issue with the policy’s definition of religious practices, which the DoD now characterizes as “an action, behavior, or course of conduct constituting individual expressions of religious beliefs, whether or not compelled by, or central to, the religion concerned.”
Weinstein, an Air Force Academy graduate who served in the service for more than 10 years, argued this would encourage military superiors to proselytize their subordinates and press lower-ranking service members to adopt their superior’s faith or worldview concepts, or suffer career damaging fallout.
Although Weinstein claimed that the majority of his clients are Christians, he said that MRFF would “fight tooth and nail, day and night to stop this new, twisted and perverted version” of the new policy from being implemented.
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reminds me of when the Air Force Academy and what the school administrator was doing ..............
