Wingnut Persecution Complex of the Day: The Military Is Threatening to Court Martial Christians!
Meanwhile, breitbart.com just keeps churning out the outrage fodder for the conservative religionists, with this ridiculous distorted article entitled: PENTAGON MAY COURT MARTIAL SOLDIERS WHO SHARE CHRISTIAN FAITH!!!
We notice that this silly piece of agit-prop is credited to a certain Ken Klukowski, whose name we haven’t noticed at Breitbart “News” before. But they should have put his bio section at the top of the article instead of the bottom, so we’d have known up front that we were dealing with a religious right fanatic and professional persecuted victim:
Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is senior fellow for religious liberty with the Family Research Council and on faculty at Liberty University School of Law.
The premise of this article is a crusty shell of falsehoods and phony victimhood wrapped around a tiny kernel of truth, which you probably already knew because Breitbart. And that kernel of truth is not controversial, unless you’re a fanatic who believes it’s your natural right to promote your religion to everyone around you; the Department of Defense is simply reiterating that proselytizing in uniform is not permitted, for ANY faith.
This is nothing new, and they’re not threatening to “court martial Christians.” And there’s a reason this rule might need to be stressed occasionally — because of incidents like this:
In Aug. 2011, in a victory for trying to extricate religion from military business, the Air Force suspended a course called “Christian Just War Theory” — which had been required for missile officers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The PowerPoint for the class drew heavily upon Bible passages and Christian imagery to teach morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons. In the class students were taught based on a passage in the Book of Revelations that Jesus Christ is a “mighty warrior” who believed some wars to be just, according to Truthout.com which broke the story.
The separation of church and state is one of the most vital principles of American democracy, and the religious right is constantly trying to subvert it. Their outrage over this fake story is a good sign — it means they’re losing. As they should.