ADL urges Congress to fight proselytizing in U.S. military
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/816893.html
[excerpt]
Last update - 13:59 23/01/2007
ADL urges Congress to fight proselytizing in U.S. military
By Haaretz Service
The Anti-Defamation League Tuesday called on members of the U.S. Senate and
House Armed Services Committees to hold hearings on what the group termed
"coercive proselytizing and religious activity in the military."
The organization said the effort was aimed at creating specific guidelines
to ensure that the military remains "accessible and welcoming to servicemen
and servicewomen of all faiths, and to those of no faith at all."
The 2007 Department of Defense Authorization bill, approved by the last
session of Congress, directed the Secretary of the Air Force and the
Secretary of the Navy to rescind their existing guidelines on religious
activity, the ADL noted.
"That decision reversed much of the progress that resulted from a series of
meetings between high-ranking Air Force officials and ADL leaders after a
pervasive climate of religious intolerance was exposed at the U.S. Air
Force Academy," the ADL said in a statement.
"Those meetings, and the conclusions of an independent Pentagon inquiry,
led, in August 2005, to the adoption of formal guidelines to protect
against religious intolerance and discrimination in the Air Force Academy
and the Air Force as a whole."
Glen S. Lewy, ADL National Chairman, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National
Director said that government institutions like the United States Air Force
Academy [USAFA] and the Naval Academy "bear a special responsibility to
avoid religious coercion and to respect the rights of religious minorities
guaranteed by the Constitution.
[end excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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