In the wake of Donald Trump's election the military is seeing increased targeting of non-Fundamentalist Christians so severe that it is being considered a "national security threat."

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

Donald Trump’s election has led to such a steep rise in fundamentalist Christian evangelizing and religious bigotry in the U.S. armed forces that the matter is reaching the level of a “national security threat,” according to information shared exclusively with Newsweek by an organization that represents and advocates for secular and minority religious views in the military.

The number of complaints from servicemen and -women in the Army, Air Force, Marines and other service branches to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has doubled in number since November 2016, according to lawyer Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, a former Air Force officer who founded the organization.

Many of the recent charges are coming from members of minority religions, including Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims, and from atheists. Among the complaints: military family and marital therapy programs are being infused with Protestant Christianity, which would violate the U.S. Constitution; open anti-Semitism; anti-LGBT statements, posters, symbols and bullying; openly anti-Muslim teachers and Islamophobic attacks; a rise in on-base evangelizing; and increased pressure on recruits or lower-level personnel and service members to convert to fundamentalist Christianity. 

“With the advent of Trump as the commander in chief of our armed forces, MRFF has experienced a massive influx of new military and civilian personnel complaints of religion-based prejudice and bigotry, most of them coming from non-fundamentalist Christians being persecuted by their military superiors for not being ‘Christian enough,’” Weinstein tells Newsweek.

He says noncommissioned officers at one Air Force base reported that their superiors told them Trump would make it USAF policy that in order for “disbelieving Jews” to be allowed into the USAF or deemed fit for promotions, they would have to show via objectively established behavior that they were at least honestly “considering the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” 

At another base, the wife of a combat-decorated Muslim U.S. Naval officer, who was wearing a Muslim headscarf, was surrounded in the commissary and spit upon and cursed as not being a “true American and being a spy and a terrorist.” She was with her children at the time.

Well the Trump supporters wanted him to return the country to "when it was great again."

Well congratulations, it is now America in the 1940's when it was only great if you were a white male Fundamentalist Christian attending a Protestant church.

And the real irony here is that Trump himself is NOT a religious man by any measure.

He simply recognized that the fundamentalist Christians of this country were the easiest voting bloc to manipulate so he did the bare minimum to get their support and the rest is history.

We should be seeing more burning of mosques and synagogues, and a return to public lynchings any day now.

Ray "Banana man" Comfort is rescued from embarrassment after D.C. police bar him from trying to evangelize Atheists at the Reason Rally.

Courtesy of the Christian News Wire:  

Filmmaker and author Ray Comfort has to revise his outreach plans to atheists, according to Washington, D.C. police, or face arrest. At the June 4 Reason Rally in the National Mall, where an estimated 20,000 atheists will gather to hear speakers such as Johnny Depp and Penn Jillette, Comfort had planned to give away 5,000 copies of his new book about atheism, along with $25,000 worth of Subway gift cards to atheists, as a gesture of Christian love. 

After announcing the D.C. outreach, and plans to film open-air preaching for his TV program ("The Way of the Master" -- broadcast in 190 countries) he had over 1,000 Christians officially register to join him. "To the D.C. police," Comfort reported, "that constituted a protest and therefore we needed a permit to gather. We would have to stay at the other end of the National Mall, and they said that if we persisted to approach atheists to speak with them we would be arrested." 

The best-selling author then decided to cancel the outreach event, though they would still be filming at the Washington Monument. 

I mentioned in a previous post that Comfort was apparently helping to train Christians to approach the Atheists attending the Reason Rally and attempt to convince them of the error of their ways.

Now personally I would have enjoyed an exchange like this because I really like seeing superstitious people cry, however I totally understand that it could have proved really annoying to people who were hoping to engage in intelligent conversations.

Later in the article Comfort claims that he has a "good relationships with Atheists." Which is probably fairly accurate as most Atheists see him as a non-threatening buffoon after viewing his now famous "banana argument" against Atheism.

A classic in every sense of the word. 

Sarah Palin walks among the faithful at the Billy Graham Library.

Photo courtesy of Facebook

Courtesy of the Arizona snowbird's Facebook page:  

Meeting old friends! Charlie and his family met the Palins during the ’08 campaign and during the 2009 “Going Rogue” book signing event in The Villages, FL. They met again during a book signing event for Governor Palin’s new book, “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” on Friday, December 6, 2013, at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Look Palin found the one Down Syndrome boy in the crowd to get her picture taken with.

Of course it is the same Down Syndrome boy she had her picture taken with in 2009.

Photo also courtesy of Facebook

This from the Billy Graham website:

Palin visited the Billy Graham Library for a tour and a signing of her recent book release, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. 

“I certainly recognize there is a war on Christmas that’s being waged—it seems—in our culture right now,” she said. “The true meaning of Christmas, of course, is Christ’s birth. I wanted to write this so that people realize that they can proudly and boldly proclaim the true meaning of Christmas.” 

In 2010, Palin and some of her family members travel to Haiti, where they visited a Samaritan’s Purse cholera clinic and help distribute Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. In 2009, Palin visited Billy and Franklin Graham at Mr. Graham’s Montreat home in the North Carolina mountains. 

Today, she finally had the chance to visit the place the bears the name of one of her spiritual heroes. 

“Billy Graham changed the world because he has allowed Christ to shine right through him. People would listen to him and could receive his message,” said Palin, who attended Mr. Graham’s 95th birthday party last month in Asheville, N.C. “He so capitalized—in a good way—on the favor that God gave him to do the Lord’s will and to do the Lord’s work.” 

“I am happy to be here at the Billy Graham Library today. I had no idea it was this amazing. It reflects the fact that it was not about Billy Graham. His ministry is truly about the Gospel, and this facility reflects that.”

You know I used to joke that someday Palin would walk away from politics altogether and start her own church, and follow in the tradition of the Jerry Falwells, Billy Grahams, and  Jimmy Swaggerts that came before her. And more and more it looks like that may not have been such a joke after all.

At least if she did that she could afford better wigs.

Palin mingling with Samaritan's Purse volunteers

After this disastrous book tour I actually think that Palin has just about run out of options. She can really no longer seriously perform her political prick tease, she can't sell books, and nobody wants to see her on television.

She is a talentless has been, whose looks are rapidly deteriorating, and whose family has come to rely on her to pay their bills. So what options does somebody like her have left?

I sometimes feel sorry for these guys.

My favorite memory of the Mormons, is from when I lived in Hawaii for that year while attending school.

I would see these young men riding their bikes up and down the hills of Hilo, Hawaii, dressed in their black slacks, white shirts, and ties in 80 degree temperatures, and think to myself that for that reason alone it was a religion to be avoided at all cost.

When I lived on the island I could barely wear clothes without being reduced to a puddle of sweat.

While we are on the subject I should probably admit that I have often had a rather adversarial relationship with the Mormon church though in my defense I don't think it was all my fault.

I don't really have any more against them then I do other religions (You know I dislike them all equally.), but it just seems that we have crossed paths more than a few times and I have always been left with a bad taste in my mouth.

And this was BEFORE Mitt Romney.

Hey, maybe it's just me.

Fox News claims that President Obama is engaged in a "Christian cleansing" of the military. WTF?

Courtesy of Media Matters:  

Fox News' Sean Hannity and Todd Starnes portrayed restraints on proselytization as proof of the Obama administration's purported "war on religious liberty in the military," despite the fact that military policy has long prohibited unwanted proselytization. 

On the May 2 edition of his Fox News show, Hannity claimed that a Pentagon statement reiterating the military's longtime policy against proselytizing was proof of Obama's "war on religious liberty." Starnes added that Christians were "under significant attack" by the Obama administration, under which "we have seen a Christian cleansing of the United States military."

As many of you remember we first talked about this claim when Palin sent out her tweet on Wednesday demanding the the President address this paranoid overreaction. (Yeah like he has the time, of desire, to respond to every paranoid overreaction experience by this lunatic.)

At that time I did not know if this Pentagon statement even existed for sure, since hte Breitbart article that quoted it did not cite their source. However Media Matters is much more professional and provided the actual statement, which completely refutes the claims of Fox News and Sarah Palin:

"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)," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman, in an email. 

"If a service member harasses another member on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, or disability, then the commander takes action based on the gravity of the occurrence. Likewise, when religious harassment complaints are reported, commanders take action based on the gravity of the occurrence on a case-by-case basis." 

Christensen said there are no plans to single out evangelical Christians for punishment, despite claims of activists. 

"The U.S. Department of Defense has never and will never single out a particular religious group for persecution or prosecution. The Department makes reasonable accommodations for all religions and celebrates the religious diversity of our service members," he said.

So no court martials for evangelizing and no "cleansing" of Christianity from the military.

These are obviously VERY reasonable guidelines that only serve to protect people in the military from being harassed by religious zealots while they are trying to do their jobs and serve out their military service.

The ONLY people who would see this as an attack on religion are brain damaged morons, Sarah Palin. and Fox News. Assuming there is a difference of course.

Sarah Palin fires off a tweet to take a stand against the separation of church and state. No, really!

President Barack Obama had better clear this up today, right now. Surely he is just allowing his handlers to... fb.me/27q1yo6UE
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) May 1, 2013

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?

Mississippi public high school forces students to sit through Christian assembly while blocking doors to keep them from leaving.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A high school in central Mississippi allegedly forced students to watch a Christian video and listen to church officials preach about Jesus Christ. 

The American Humanist Association’s legal center filed a lawsuit against Northwest Rankin High School in Flowood on Wednesday, accusing the school of violating the student’s First Amendment rights. 

The school has held at least three mandatory assemblies about finding hope in Jesus Christ this month, according to the lawsuit. The assemblies showed a video laced with Christian messages about overcoming personal hardships through Jesus Christ and were allegedly led by local church officials. 

“See, before Jesus came, innocent blood had to be shed for our sins,” one of the church officials allegedly told the students. “There had to be an animal that was sacrificed to atone for our sin. There had to be innocent blood. So Jesus came and he was the innocent blood because he lived a perfect life. He was that innocent blood. See the last few years of Jesus’ life he traveled from region to region and country to country and he had 12 disciples that followed him everywhere. And he talked about the hope he was bringing.” 

The assemblies concluded with a prayer and teachers blocked the exits to prevent students from leaving, the lawsuit claimed. A disillusioned student videotaped one of the assemblies.

Christianity, so wonderful that you have to be forcibly exposed to it while the exits are blocked for the protection of your immortal soul.

Did these people really suggest that animal sacrifice was necessary before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? Yeah nothing superstitious or anti-intellectual about that!

I think these people have a good case for a lawsuit here.  It is one thing for a student to talk about their belief in God and quite another for the school to strap you to your chairs and attempt to forcefully indoctrinate you.