Alexander's Column Obama to DoD: Courts Martial God

“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.” –George Washington (1778)

The DoD’s Frontal Assault on Faith

We observe the National Day of Prayer today, but if you’re active duty or reserve military, you’d better not mention that to any of your fellow compatriots in uniform, or invite them to join in a prayer vigil, lest you may find yourself in front of a military tribunal.

You read that correctly. It is no small irony that the Obama administration is suppressing faith rather than celebrating it this week, but this is the most faith-intolerant regime in the history of our Republic.

The Left is constantly endeavoring to replace Rule of Law with the rule of men. Because the former is predicated on the principle of Liberty “endowed by our Creator,” Obama’s administrators constantly look for ways to undermine Rule of Law by driving wedges between our Liberty and its foundational endowment.

The highest profile and most influential sector of government, where Obama and his cadres can exercise the greatest degree of immediate dictatorial power in order to dislocate that endowment, is the Department of Defense.

In 2010, unable to reverse the Defense of Marriage Act (an affirmation of timeless principles upheld by all faiths), Obama called on his party-controlled House and Senate to force the institutionalization of gender-disorientation pathology in the military ranks – a brazen internal assault on military order.

In a last legislative act on behalf of his most flamboyant constituency, Democrats passed and Obama signed his “do ask – do tell” legislation – just days before the resounding Republican 2010 midterm takeover in the House.

At that time, Obama declared, “This law will strengthen our national security” – this despite the fact that the greatest military breach of national security in history, the release of volumes of classified reports to WikiLeaks info anarchist Julian Assange, had just been allegedly committed by Army PFC Bradley Manning, because he was disgruntled over the breakup with his homosexual partner.

Republicans may now control the House, but that isn’t stopping Obama from a far bolder assault on Liberty and our military – one that requires no legislative approval from Congress: expelling God from the trenches.

Under the pretense of “tolerance” and comporting with the errant assertion of a “Wall of Separation” grossly distorting the First Amendment’s succinct provision that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” Obama has decreed the removal of any expression or manifestation of faith within the ranks of the U.S. military.

From Day One of the Obama regime’s rise to power, there have been numerous instances of incremental implementation of this assault on faith within the ranks, and the Air Force has been the administration’s primary target since it is considered to be the most “faith-saturated” branch of service.

For example, in October of 2011, we discovered that the words “so help me God” have been deleted from the Air Force Academy cadet handbook’s Oath of Allegiance and the officer Oath of Office for Cadets and Officers. When The Patriot Post inquired with the AFA’s public affairs office as to why those words had been removed from the handbook, the PAO dodged the question for two days, and on the third inquiry, tersely responded that we could file a “Freedom of Information Act” request for an answer. In other words: “Take a hike.”

Obama’s latest endeavor to eradicate expressions of faith by military personnel, however, is neither subtle nor incremental.

The loudest indication of this audacious abolition initiative was the directive from Obama’s civilian leadership at the Pentagon last week that ultra-leftist Mikey Weinstein and Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, should vet the Air Force’s new instructional guide on “religious tolerance.”

Weinstein, who graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1977, is now a left-wing lawyer and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, dedicated to freedom from religion, not freedom of religion.

This is the same atheist who, in 2011, demanded and received an apology from the AFA for its cadet support of “Operation Christmas Child,” which assembles and fills millions of shoe boxes with toys, school supplies and other gifts for impoverished children in 130 countries! Weinstein objected because OCC places a Christian tract in those boxes.

Among many other examples of Weinstein’s crusade against Christianity, in 2012 he went after a Marine fighter squadron that changed its name from “Werewolves” to “Crusaders,” with a cross and shield insignia. That squadron was forced to revert to “Werewolves.”

In a vicious treatise on his view of faith and the military, actually entitled “Fundamentalist Christian Monsters,” Weinstein wrote: “Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces. … We must vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose [these] agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do any less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”

Weinstein insists that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution,” and that Christianity is “a national security threat. The Pentagon needs to understand it is sedition and treason. It should be punished. Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior. … It is a version of being spiritually raped and you are being spiritually raped by fundamentalist Christian religious predators.”

Apparently, Weinstein was inculcated with the same “god damn America” doctrine of hate and intolerance that Jeremiah Wright preached to Barack Obama.

According to Wilkerson, an MRFF Board member, “The armed forces are on the verge of falling apart,” because of “sexual assault, suicides, lowering entrance standards and war weariness. They are in trouble, and the … chain of command is compliant. Condoning of sexual assault or proselytizing is an abuse of command.”

So these are the people Obama recommends as gatekeepers for “religious tolerance and diversity” in the military? Of course, the problem is not “condoning faith,” but condemning it.

The 27 page Air Force directive, which notes on its cover, “COMPLIANCE WITH THIS PUBLICATION IS MANDATORY,” is by design, so ambiguous that virtually anyone could be brought up on charges: “Leaders at all levels must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion.”

“Actual or apparent use”?

Responding to an inquiry about whether Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines could be prosecuted for sharing their faith, a DoD statement this week concluded, “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense. … Courts martial and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis.”

According to Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William “Jerry” Boykin: “The very troops who defend our religious freedom are at risk of having their own taken away. … Christians within the military who speak of their faith could now be prosecuted as enemies of the state. It’s a matter of what do they mean by ‘proselytizing.’ … If you’re talking about the free exercise of our faith by individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, especially for the chaplains, then I think the worst thing we can do is stop the ability for a soldier to be able to exercise his faith.”

Of course, the success of the Socialist Democrat Party assault on Liberty is predicated on the success of its efforts to oppress faith, especially in the military.

American Patriots in uniform are the frontline defenders of our nation’s foundation of Liberty. Unlike Obama and his government administrators, military Patriots uphold their oath to “support and defend” our Constitution with their blood, and for most, with the appeal, “so help me God.”

If they are ultimately accountable to a higher authority than Obama, that is a direct threat to his power.

I am left to ponder what would be the fate today of a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if he issued the following directive to all military personnel: “While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”

That is an excerpt from the General Orders issued by George Washington on the 2nd of May 1778, after his Continental Army barely survived the brutal winter at Valley Forge.

A year earlier, just days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Washington decreed, “The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”

Were a modern-day warrior to emulate the example set by the Father of Our Country, Obama and Weinstein would surely haul him before a military tribunal.