Here is an update courtesy of
Palin's Facebook page:
President Barack Obama had better clear this up today, right now. Surely he is just allowing his handlers to throw up this kind of ridiculous, amoral, un-American trial balloon. I call on Obama to address this immediately with the American public, clear it up, and renounce these reports as the nonsense they surely in God's name must be.
- Sarah Palin
It looks like Palin is embracing her new career as a non-broadcast televangelist by jumping on this newest Evangelical band wagon to nowhere.
I have been looking and cannot yet find the actual Pentagon
statement that has these paint chip eaters so worked up. (All of the
Right Wing and Evangelical websites seem to be getting their panties in a
twist over the same
Breitbart article that Palin is referring to.), but what the article claims is that soldiers in the military could be prosecuted for proselytizing.
Taking evangelism out of the military?
Keeping church and state separate?
Following the Constitution?
Why how could patriotic Americans stand for it?
Like I said I have not seen the actual report, however I will say that I do know quite a lot about the attempts of
Mikey Weinstein to rid the military of the incredibly aggressive Evangelism which now permeates it, and which often results in bullying behaviors and a feeling of isolation for those not interested in participating in religious activities.
This is what the
Washington Post reported about a meeting between Chuck Hagel and a group of sergeants and petty officers:
“The armed forces are on the verge of falling apart,” Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told me in an interview. Aside from proselytizing, he said, other problems include “sexual assault, suicides, lowering entrance standards and war weariness. They are in trouble, and the leadership is oblivious.” Sexual assault and proselytizing, according to Wilkerson, “are absolutely destructive of the bonds that keep soldiers together.”
Wilkerson was speaking to me in an interview with former ambassador Joe Wilson and the head of the private Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Mikey Weinstein. They were on their way to a meeting at the Pentagon on April 23 where they would discuss religious issues in a group that included several generals and a military chaplain.
The chaplain’s role, according to Wilson, “is to minister to spiritual needs. You don’t proselytize. It’s a workplace violation.”
Weinstein told me after the Pentagon meeting that military leaders need to understand that “there is systematic misogyny, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the military.” He said it is all part of the same culture.
“This is a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.”
“The chain of command is compliant,” said Wilkerson. “Abuse of power is inimical to all military. Condoning of sexual assault or proselytizing is an abuse of command.” The idea of “zero tolerance,” he said, is “the most mocked phrase in the military. It camouflages a lot.”
"Spiritual rape?" Oh you know THAT is not going to go over very well!
But if the Pentagon DID respond to the concerns of these soldiers and ARE going after commanders and soldiers attempting to bully their fellow military members into joining their faith, they would be well within their rights to do so according to “
Air Force Culture, Air Force Standards,” published on Aug. 7, 2012:
Section 2.11 requires “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,” the regulation states.
So if the Pentagon decides to enforce this regulation, that might piss off the religious nuts who treat the military as a recruitment center for Jesus, but they have every right to do exactly that.
However I can see why the Fundamentalists, and their attack dog Sarah Palin, are all in a panic. After all if you miss the chance to indoctrinate someone as a totally trusting child, the next best time to get them is as a soldier trained to respond to every directive given by a superior without question.
Can I get an OO-RAH?
