Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

By Jason Leopold
Tuesday 18 September 2007

A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court
Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a
US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit
charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by
allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical
Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused.

The complaint, filed in US District
Court in Kansas City, by the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom
Foundation (MRFF), on behalf of Jeremy Hall, an Army specialist
currently on active duty in Speicher, Iraq, alleges that Hall's First
Amendment rights were violated beginning last Thanksgiving when,
because of his atheist beliefs, he declined to participate in a
Christian prayer ceremony commemorating the holiday.

"Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join
hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military
personnel, by the senior ranking ... staff sergeant who asked plaintiff
why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he
is an atheist," says the lawsuit, a copy of which was provided to
Truthout. "The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and
plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in
God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he
would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. Nonetheless,
plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal."

Moreover, the complaint alleges that on August 7, when Hall
received permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other
soldiers who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major
Paul Welborne, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate
against the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. The complaint also alleges that Welborne vowed to
block Hall's reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to
meet - a violation of Hall's First Amendment rights under the
Constitution. Welborne is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

"During the course of the meeting, defendant Welborne confronted
the attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with plaintiff
Hall's and the other attendees' rights to discuss topics of their
interests," the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley,
Kansas, has been forced to "submit to a religious test as a
qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army," a
violation of Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said Defense Secretary
Robert Gates is named as a defendant in the lawsuit because he has
allowed the military to engage in "a pattern and practice of
constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within
the Department of Defense and the United States military."

The lawsuit seeks an injunction against Welborne from further
engaging in behavior "that has the effect of establishing compulsory
religious practices" and asks that Gates prevent Welborne from
interfering with Hall's free speech rights.

Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom
Foundation, an organization that seeks to enforce the law mandating the
separation between church and state in the US military, said the
lawsuit would be the first of many his group intends to file against
the Pentagon.

"This landmark federal litigation is just the first of a galaxy
of new lawsuits that will be expeditiously filed against the Pentagon
in a concentrated effort to preserve the precious religious liberties
guaranteed by our beautiful United States Constitution," Weinstein said
Monday. "Today, we are boldly stabbing back against an unconstitutional
heart of darkness, a contagion of fundamentalist religious supremacy
and triumphalism noxiously dominating the command and control of the
technologically most lethal organization ever created by humankind: our
honorable and noble United States armed forces."

A Pentagon spokesman said he could not comment on the lawsuit because he has not yet seen it.

Weinstein, a former White House attorney under Ronald Reagan,
general counsel H. Ross Perot and an Air Force Judge Advocate (JAG),
has been waging a one-man war against the Department of Defense for its
blatant disregard of the Constitution. He published a book on his
fight: "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup
in America's Military." Weinstein is also an Air Force veteran and a
graduate of the Air Force Academy. Three generations of his family have
attended US military academies.

Since he launched his watchdog organization nearly two years ago
months ago, Weinstein said he has been contacted by more than 5,000
active duty and retired soldiers, many of whom served or serve in Iraq,
who told Weinstein that they were pressured by their commanding
officers to convert to Christianity.

The lawsuit also includes examples of other alleged constitutional abuses by Pentagon officials.

Last month, the Pentagon's Inspector General responded to a
complaint filed last year by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation
alleging that Defense Department officials violated military
regulations by appearing in a video promoting a fundamental Christian
organization.

The Inspector General agreed and issued a 47-page report that
was highly critical of senior Army and Air Force personnel for
participating in the video while in uniform and on active duty.

The report recommended that Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Catton,
Army Brig. Gen. Bob Caslen, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Maj. Gen. Peter
Sutton, and a colonel and lieutenant colonel whose names were redacted
in the inspector general's report, "improperly endorsed and
participated with a non-Federal entity while in uniform" and the men
should be disciplined for misconduct. Caslen was formerly the deputy
director for political-military affairs for the war on terrorism,
directorate for strategic plans and policy, joint staff. He now
oversees the 4,200 cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point.
Caslen told DOD investigators he agreed to appear in the video upon
learning other senior Pentagon officials had been interviewed for the
promotional video.

The inspector general's report recommended the "Secretary of the
Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Army take appropriate
corrective action with respect to the military officers concerned."

The Army generals who appeared in the video appeared to be
speaking on behalf of the military, but they did not obtain prior
permission to appear in the video. They defended their actions,
according to the inspector general's report, saying the "Christian
Embassy had become a 'quasi-Federal entity,' since the DOD had endorsed
the organization to General Officers for over 25 years."