myspace.com/freddywelborn

You can see his side of the story…
He’s the “officer” who broke up the meeting of Military Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers (MAAF) that Jeremy was attempting to hold. (Approved by the base Chaplain BTW)

As my posts on the site are decidedly lopsided toward coverage of speech issues on college campuses, I’ve come to realize the extent to which administrators have become oversensitive to *potentially* offensive speech. (See older posts about the closing of a student paper because it included anti-Asian remarks, or the near-firing of a professor because he described the term “wetback” in a class discussion of public viewpoints on immigration).

Gene Policinski, director of the First Amendment Center, summarized the issue nicely when I interviewed him a few weeks ago: “Hate is not tolerated, but I don’t think you can do that by cutting it off in the words; I think you do that by preaching and speaking and demonstrating that those concepts have no validity.”

Thanks for the comment. I tend to agree with you on your point that it seems logical for the commanding officers to deny a promotion because of the lawsuit Hall filed. It’s tricky, though, to tell which part of the process Hall is trying to attack - is he suing directly because the promotion was denied, or is he suing because of the email that was sent out notifying the whole post about his religious beliefs? His attorneys may have a better case if they focus on the latter, as long as they can demonstrate that the intent behind sending the email was to encourage discrimination.

I think the post from the second blogger was trying to reflect upon the military’s potential rationale for what could be seen as promoting Christian beliefs (rather than directly asserting that they do). She goes on to give the flipside that you brought up: “Do they worry that being an atheist leader means you have more of a tendency to rebel against your authorities and, in turn, not give accurate orders to the troops under your command?”

I agree with you that it would be overly simplistic to assume the military’s inherent values foster a Christian environment rather than an areligious one (or one based on other faiths). I do think it’s interesting, however, to think about how many officers share opinions similar to the sergeant quoted in the article, that Christian belief is a common ground for bonding with fellow troops. Perhaps not, but it’s still something to think about.

I’m not sure about the limits of a soldier’s right to congregate. Spc. Hall references the Army chaplain’s manual in supporting his claim that he has a right to practice his atheist beliefs; I’m sure his stance is something along the lines of equating his “discussion” with a Christian prayer service or something of the like, which would almost certainly be allowed among the troops. Interesting case.

1) I can understand if the soldier was not promoted because he filed a lawsuit. That is, it is perfectly within his rights to file a lawsuit, and I hope he wins, but in filing that lawsuit, it indicates a level of insubordination. If you are a commander, would you want to promote the soldier who files a lawsuit when he doesn’t get his way? Promotion isn’t guaranteed and it isn’t a right that can be denied–it’s a promotion in rank. Plus, the person who told him the promotion was blocked because he wouldn’t pray with his troop was a Sergeant, so I am doubtful if that was the real reason he wasn’t promoted.

2) The blogger you quote seems to have both a dismal and stereotypical view of Christians when she says, “do Christians make better soldiers, because they prefer being unquestioning followers of authority?” Besides being uncharitable towards her opponents, it seems to miss an essential part of faith. Faith is not blind, else it is no longer faith but rather zealotry. And zealots are not Christians, they are merely zealots. To paint atheists with a similar brush would be to ask, “Do Atheists make worse soldiers because they prefer to question every authority?”

3) My Question: In the article that you cite, Spc. Hall says that his constitutional rights to congregate have been infringed upon, but as a soldier, does he still possess these rights? Soldiers are frequently denied their right to free speech under secrecy requirements. Moreover, they are required to follow orders–if the order is to disperse, is it a violation of his rights?

Sorry this comment is a little late–a very delayed flight set me back in both work and health. I think you’re doing a great job on the site overall. Very interesting content and good range of topics within your subject area, which isn’t quite as broad as some of the others.

I think one of your best posts has actually been the “Honk for Peace” post - really interesting story, good commentary, lots of good links, and (most importantly for me) nice and short. Which brings me to my first overall suggestion for the blog: keep the length down. Personally, if I’m reading something online (especially if it’s a blog), I want the posts to be short and sweet. If I want to read more, I’ll click the links.

In that vein, I’d have to say one of the posts I think could be improved would be the Oklahoma petitioners post. It just seems long, and so do the block quotes.

One thing you’ve done a couple of times that I’d love to see more of is including images. This really spices things up and entices me to keep reading.

One suggestion: for some of the longer posts, you might want to do a jump. That way, people can click to read more if they want to, and it might be more intriguing, too.

Keep it up!
Anna

Usually, government puts a clamp on ideas to protect their own political power.

But that means the university would have to examine all student group activities being funded. Not only would this take a lot of time, but it could allow the school to discriminate in other ways.

Should the anthropology club (they have those, right?) be allowed to use school funds to visit the Creation Museum? Should the conservative students’ organization be allowed to do the same thing? What about those religious groups?

It’s the same activity. But the different groups might have completely different reasons for doing it. And a religious and a political organization might have the same reason. Why deny funding to one but not the other?

And how is the university to know whether Campus Crusade will do more than paint on their trip to the nursing home?

Very tricky.

But this sounds a lot like faith-based initiatives. People argue that they don’t want the government to give grants or funding to religious organizations’ social programs (like food pantries or homeless shelters) because it’s their tax dollars going to fund religions they don’t necessarily agree with. (However, they can give money to things like womens’ centers that offer abortions and anti-abortion groups can’t do anything about it.)

Tricky subject, but I agree. It should be all or nothing. But that is almost never possible.