Michael Weinstein, a veteran from the U.S. Air Force, has recently published a book titled With God on our Side: One Man's war Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military. In this book he presents compelling arguments on a considerable problem emerging in the US military.
During the course of his research, over 5,000 people contacted the organisation he is a member of, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, providing details of coercion, harassment and guilt tripping.
Quoting Independent Weekly:
An army private ... contacted me when he was going through basic training. When he signed up, they asked him his religious denomination and he said Christian, but they identified him as not being fundamentalist enough Christian, and they punished him by putting 'none' on his dog tags. When he got to Afghanistan, the commander said that the blessings of the Lord Jesus would not be on the unit unless everyone was evangelical, and since he would not convert, this 20-year-old private would be responsible for the deaths and injuries the unit might suffer.As noted by Michael Weinstein, were this level of religious abuse conducted in the private sector, it would not last very long before a large lawsuit were to be taken out. However, these sorts of constitutional freedoms do not appear to be available to those in the armed forces, making them ripe for abuse.
References:
- Independent Weekly News: "On evangelicals in the military"
- Military Religious Freedom
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