Bryan Fischer, the director of Issues Analysis for the fundamentalist American Family Association (AFA), asserted this week that atheists should not be permitted to serve in the U.S. military because they wouldn’t not be willing to die for God.

An attorney for an atheist sergeant at Creech Air Force base in Nevada said on Tuesday that her client had been told that he must take an oath with the phrase “so help me God” or be booted from the military.

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In a column for One News Now, Fischer praised the Air Force for “doing exactly the right thing.”

“This is an absolutely foundational, non-negotiable, bed-rock American principle: there is a Creator – with a capital “C” (you could look it up) – and he and he alone is the source of the very rights the military exists to protect and defend,” he wrote. “Military service should rightly be reserved for those who believe in and are willing to die for what America stands for – and what America stands for is a belief in God as the source of our rights.”

“The other branches of the military do not require the same oath – yet. But they should. Military service should be reserved for genuine Americans and genuine Americans, like the Founders, believe in God.”

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)