"Election results told a clear story, however. A Gallup poll released on Monday showed that women in crucial swing states favored Obama over Romney by sixteen points and that nearly 40 percent named abortion as the most important issue for women in the election. Women’s issues that are seen as “fringe” were actually central. And it may be that women who don’t like talking about how personally these issues affect their lives were not afraid to be loud in the voting booth."
To read more, click here.
Showing posts with label church-state separation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church-state separation. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2012
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report
Saturday 30 July 2011
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report
Source: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report [3] published by Truthout earlier this week, has withdrawn materials used in a training session that relied upon Bible passages and a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."
Smith said the ethics training has been in place for "20-plus years" and given to about 150 officers a year. The decision to suspend the ethics course was made on Wednesday after Truthout's report was published. He added that it will now be "given thorough scrutiny" and "folks will be appointed to look at what we have and determine its utility and if they think its useful to continue having an ethics course they will develop a new course."
Listen to Jason Leopold discuss his exclusive report on The Peter B. Collins Show [4]
The course was led by Air Force chaplains and took place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officers who train to be missileers were required to attend the ethics course, which included a PowerPoint presentation [5] on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory [6]" as well as numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament the training materials asserted engaged in warfighting in a "righteous way."
St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way the Air Force characterized it in the 43 PowerPoint slides used in the ethics training, are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)."
One of the PowerPoint slides also contained a passage from the Book of Revelation that claims Jesus Christ, as the "mighty warrior," believed some wars to be just.
At the conclusion of the ethics training session, missile officers were asked to sign a legal document stating they will not hesitate to launch the nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) "if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor."
The use of religious imagery in the slides and the numerous references to the New and Old Testament would appear to constitute a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state and Clause 3, Article 6 of the Constitution, which specifically prohibits a "religious test."
The PowerPoint was included with more than 500 pages of other documents [7] pertaining to a missile officer's first week in training that was released by the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation [8] (MRFF), a civil rights organization.
Another PowerPoint slide quoted Wernher Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer who is regarded as the father of the US space program [9]. Von Braun was not cited in the PowerPoint as a scientific expert, rather, he was specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps, captured French anti-Nazi partisans, civilians, and others [10] to help build the V-2, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.
MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 missile officers contacted his organization over the past week to complain about the Christian imagery and biblical passages in the ethics training. He said the decision by the Air Force to pull the ethics course material is a "great victory for the constitution." [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.]
"We are not going to commend the Air Force for doing something they should have done a quarter-century ago," Weinstein said. "It's an outrage and a deliberate attempt to torture and distort our constitution when the US Air Force mandatorily teaches its nuclear missile launch officers that fundamentalist Christian theology is inextricably intertwined with the 'correct' decision to launch nukes."
Creative Commons License [11]
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License [11].
Jason Leopold [13]
Source URL: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
Links:
[1] http://www.truth-out.org/print/4620
[2] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/4620
[3] http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
[4] http://www.peterbcollins.com/podcast/PBC_20110804p273.mp3
[5] http://truthout.org/files/nuclear_ethics.pdf
[6] http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Just_War_Theory.htm
[7] http://www.scribd.com/doc/61068592/ICBM-Training-Material
[8] http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/
[9] http://www.operationpaperclip.info/wernher-von-braun.php
[10] http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/07/28/air-force-teaching-guide-minimizes-history-of-recruiting-nazis-part-one/
[11] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
[12] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail
[13] http://www.truth-out.org/content/jason-leopold
[14] http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[15] https://members.truth-out.org/donate
[16] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
[17] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=religious-civil-rights-why-have-washington-times-and-air-force-academy-savaged-them/130496146
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report
Source: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report [3] published by Truthout earlier this week, has withdrawn materials used in a training session that relied upon Bible passages and a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."
Smith said the ethics training has been in place for "20-plus years" and given to about 150 officers a year. The decision to suspend the ethics course was made on Wednesday after Truthout's report was published. He added that it will now be "given thorough scrutiny" and "folks will be appointed to look at what we have and determine its utility and if they think its useful to continue having an ethics course they will develop a new course."
Listen to Jason Leopold discuss his exclusive report on The Peter B. Collins Show [4]
The course was led by Air Force chaplains and took place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officers who train to be missileers were required to attend the ethics course, which included a PowerPoint presentation [5] on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory [6]" as well as numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament the training materials asserted engaged in warfighting in a "righteous way."
St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way the Air Force characterized it in the 43 PowerPoint slides used in the ethics training, are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)."
One of the PowerPoint slides also contained a passage from the Book of Revelation that claims Jesus Christ, as the "mighty warrior," believed some wars to be just.
At the conclusion of the ethics training session, missile officers were asked to sign a legal document stating they will not hesitate to launch the nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) "if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor."
The use of religious imagery in the slides and the numerous references to the New and Old Testament would appear to constitute a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state and Clause 3, Article 6 of the Constitution, which specifically prohibits a "religious test."
The PowerPoint was included with more than 500 pages of other documents [7] pertaining to a missile officer's first week in training that was released by the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation [8] (MRFF), a civil rights organization.
Another PowerPoint slide quoted Wernher Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer who is regarded as the father of the US space program [9]. Von Braun was not cited in the PowerPoint as a scientific expert, rather, he was specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps, captured French anti-Nazi partisans, civilians, and others [10] to help build the V-2, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.
MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 missile officers contacted his organization over the past week to complain about the Christian imagery and biblical passages in the ethics training. He said the decision by the Air Force to pull the ethics course material is a "great victory for the constitution." [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.]
"We are not going to commend the Air Force for doing something they should have done a quarter-century ago," Weinstein said. "It's an outrage and a deliberate attempt to torture and distort our constitution when the US Air Force mandatorily teaches its nuclear missile launch officers that fundamentalist Christian theology is inextricably intertwined with the 'correct' decision to launch nukes."
Creative Commons License [11]
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License [11].
Jason Leopold [13]
Source URL: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
Links:
[1] http://www.truth-out.org/print/4620
[2] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/4620
[3] http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
[4] http://www.peterbcollins.com/podcast/PBC_20110804p273.mp3
[5] http://truthout.org/files/nuclear_ethics.pdf
[6] http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Just_War_Theory.htm
[7] http://www.scribd.com/doc/61068592/ICBM-Training-Material
[8] http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/
[9] http://www.operationpaperclip.info/wernher-von-braun.php
[10] http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/07/28/air-force-teaching-guide-minimizes-history-of-recruiting-nazis-part-one/
[11] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
[12] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail
[13] http://www.truth-out.org/content/jason-leopold
[14] http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[15] https://members.truth-out.org/donate
[16] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
[17] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=religious-civil-rights-why-have-washington-times-and-air-force-academy-savaged-them/130496146
Air Force Cites New Testament, Ex-Nazi, to Train Officers on Ethics of Launching Nuclear Weapons
Wednesday 27 July 2011
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report
Source: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
UPDATE: Following the publication of this exclusive report, the Air Force suspended [3] its war ethics training for nuclear missile officers.
The United States Air Force has been training young missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons by citing passages from the New Testament and commentary from a former member of the Nazi Party, according to documents obtained exclusively by Truthout [4].
The mandatory Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare session, which includes a discussion on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory [5]," is led by Air Force chaplains and takes place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way it is cited in a PowerPoint presentation [6], are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)."
The Air Force documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation [7] (MRFF), a civil rights organization. MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 Air Force officers, a majority of whom describe themselves as practicing Protestants and Roman Catholics, have contacted his group over the past week in hopes of enlisting him to work with the Air Force to have the Christian-themed teachings removed from the nuclear weapons ethics training session. [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.]
Included with the PowerPoint presentation, consisting of 43 slides, are more than 500 pages of other documents [8] pertaining to a missile officer's first week of training, which takes place before they are sent to one of three Air Force bases to guard the country's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) arsenal and, if called upon to do so by the president, launch their nuclear-armed Minuteman IIIs.
Listen to Jason Leopold discuss this story on The Nicole Sandler Show [9]
One of the slides quotes Wernher Von Braun [10], a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer. Von Braun, regarded as the father of the US space program [10], is not being cited as a scientific expert, rather he's specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps and captured French anti-Nazi partisans and civilians to help build the V-2 rocket, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.
"We knew that we had created a new means of warfare and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision [emphasis in document] more than anything else," Von Braun said upon surrendering to American forces in May 1945. "We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured." [emphasis in document]
Von Braun was part of a top-secret military program known as "Operation Paperclip [11]," which recruited Nazi scientists after World War II who "were secretly brought to the United States, without State Department review and approval; their service for [Adolf] Hitler's Third Reich, [Nazi Party] and SS memberships as well as the classification of many as war criminals or security threats also disqualified them from officially obtaining visas," according to the Operation Paperclip web site [12].
Von Braun and about 500 other Nazi scientists who were part of the classified program worked on guided missile and ballistic missile technology at military installations in New Mexico, Alabama and Texas.
Ethical Questions and The Bible
The Air Force has been mired in numerous religious scandals [13] over the past decade and has been sued for allowing widespread proselytization at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It has been citing Christian teachings in its missile officer training materials since at least 2001. [UPDATE: The Air Force said [3] the ethics course has been in place for more than two decades.]
One Air Force officer currently on active duty, who spoke to Truthout on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said he was trained as a missile officer in 2001 and vividly recalls how the chaplain leading the training session on the ethics of launching nuclear weapons said, "the American Catholic Church and their leadership says it's ok in their eyes to launch nukes."
Last year, however, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican representative to the United Nations, said [14] in speeches in Washington and New York City that "nuclear weapons are no longer just for deterrence but have become entrenched in the military doctrines of the major powers."
"The conditions that prevailed during the Cold War, which gave a basis for the [Catholic] Church's limited toleration of nuclear deterrence, no longer apply in a consistent and effective manner," the Archbishop said.
The 381st Training Group and 392nd Training Squadron are responsible for training every Air Force Space and Missile Officer. Several emails and phone calls left for spokespeople at Vandenberg Air Force Base, where the squadron is based, were not returned. The PowerPoint identifies Chaplain Capt. Shin Soh of the 381st Training Group as leading the nuclear ethics presentation.
One of the ethical questions contained in the PowerPoint presented to missile officers asks: "Can you imagine a set of circumstances that would warrant a nuclear launch from the US, knowing that it would kill thousands of non-combatants?
Another question trainees are confronted with asks: "Can we train physically, emotionally and spiritually for a job we hope we never have to do?"
To help the missile officers answer these ethical queries, the ethics course begins with numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament fighting what the PowerPoint refers to as "just" wars.
For example, in the Old Testament, "Abraham organized an army to rescue [his nephew] Lot," God motivated "judges (Samson, Deborah, Barak) to fight and deliver Israel from foreign oppressors," and "David is a warrior who is also a 'man after God's own heart.'"
In the New Testament, citing Timothy 2:3, according to the PowerPoint, "Paul chooses three illustrations to show what it means to be a good disciple of Christ":
Farmer--work hard and be patient
Athlete--be self-disciplined, train
Soldier--be willing to put up with hardship
Moreover, in Romans 13:4, the PowerPoint notes, "In spite of personal blemishes, God calls the emperor to be an instrument of justice," [emphasis in document.]
A PowerPoint slide also contains a passage from the Book of Revelation that says "Jesus Christ is the mighty warrior."
The PowerPoint goes on to say that there are "many examples of believers [who] engaged in wars in Old Testament" in a "righteous way" and notes there is "no pacifistic sentiment in mainstream Jewish history."
Constitutional Violation?
The documents' blatant use of religious imagery and its numerous citations of the Bible would appear to be a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state and Clause 3, Article 6 of the Constitution, which specifically prohibits a "religious test."
Weinstein, a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG), said a section of the PowerPoint presentation that has been cited by MRFF clients as being at the top of the list of "unconstitutional outrages" is the one "which wretchedly asserts that war is both ethical and part of 'the natural order' of man's existence on earth."
"Astonishingly, the training presentation grotesquely attempts to justify that unconscionable concept of 'war is good because Jesus says it is' by specifically textually referencing allegedly supportive bible passages from the New Testament Books of Luke, Acts, Hebrews, Timothy and, finally even Revelation," said Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration. "If this repugnant nuclear missile training is not Constitutionally violative of both the 'no religious test' mandate of the Constitution and the First Amendment's No Establishment Clause then those bedrock legal principles simply do not exist."
A senior Air Force Space and Missile officer who reviewed the materials, said the teachings are "an outrage of the highest order."
"No way in hell should this have been presented as a mandatory briefing to ALL in the basic missiles class," the officer, who requested anonymity so he could speak candidly, said in an email. "It presumes ALL missile officers are religious and specifically in need of CHRISTIAN justification for their service.
"If they wanted to help people with their spiritual/religious/secular justification for serving as missile officers, then they should've said something like 'for those of you with religious concerns about missile duty, we've arranged the following times to chat with chaplains from your particular faith group.' For those with secular concerns about the morality of missile duty, we'll have a discussion moderated by a professor [and/or] counselor, a noted ethicist, too. If you're already good with your role and duty as a missile officer, then you're welcome to hit the golf course or gym."
The senior Air Force officer added that the commander of the training squadron "that approved this, along with the Training Group Commander at Vandenberg, should be fired instantly for allowing it."
"Jesus Loves Nukes"
Former Air Force Capt. Damon Bosetti, 27, who attended missile officer training in 2006 and was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, said he and his colleagues used to call the religious section of the ethics training the "Jesus loves nukes speech."
"What I went through in 2006 didn't have that level of inappropriateness in it, but it was still strongly religious," he said of the PowerPoint presentation the Air Force now uses for training missile officers.
Bosetti, who is represented by MRFF, said he believes the intent of quoting Bible passages was to make officers feel "comfortable" about launching nuclear weapons and signing a legal document stating they had "no moral qualms" about "turning the key" if ordered to do so.
The legal document from the Department of the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, which was also released under the FOIA, states, in part, "I will perform duties involving the operation of nuclear-armed ICBMs and will launch them if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor." [emphasis in document]
Bosetti, an officer who left active duty in the Air Force last year and is now working as an engineer, said officers were immediately presented with the three-page document to sign after the end of the training session on nuclear ethics.
"I think the average American would be and should be very disturbed to know that people go through training where the Air Force quotes the Bible," Bosetti said. "This type of teaching sets a dangerous precedent because no one above you is objecting. It shifts the group definition of acceptable behavior more and more off track."
Weinstein said the combination of citing fundamentalist Christianity and a Nazi scientist as a way of explaining to missile officers why launching nuclear weapons is ethical is a new low for the Air Force.
"Leave it to the United States Air Force to find a way to dictate the 'ethical' value of nuclear war and it's inevitable role in the 'natural order' of humanity's existence, to it's missile launch officer trainees by merging unadulterated, fundamentalist Christian end times Armageddon doctrines with the tortured 'people who are guided by the bible endorsements of a former, leading Nazi SS official," Weinstein said.
Creative Commons License [15]
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License [15].
Jason Leopold [17]
Source URL: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
Links:
[1] http://www.truth-out.org/print/4535
[2] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/4535
[3] http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
[4] http://www.truthout.org
[5] http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Just_War_Theory.htm
[6] http://truthout.org/files/nuclear_ethics.pdf
[7] http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org
[8] http://www.scribd.com/doc/61068592/ICBM-Training-Material
[9] http://traffic.libsyn.com/radioornot/7-28-11_Jason_Leopold_-_Jesus_Loves_Nukes.mp3
[10] http://www.operationpaperclip.info/wernher-von-braun.php
[11] http://www.operationpaperclip.info/
[12] http://www.operationpaperclip.info
[13] http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22jason+leopold%22+and+%22air+force+academy%22&pbx=1&oq=%22jason+leopold%22+and+%22air+force+academy%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1797l14016l0l14254l67l40l9l0l0l3l2391l12924l0.6.15.5.3.1.1.0.1.1l33&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d5ef1517b4bad13f&biw=1280&bih=513
[14] http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2010/05/vatican_questions_nuclear_deterrence.html
[15] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
[16] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail
[17] http://www.truth-out.org/content/jason-leopold
[18] http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[19] https://members.truth-out.org/donate
[20] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
[21] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=CoerciveReligionMisplacedinUSArmedForces/1311096375
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report
Source: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
UPDATE: Following the publication of this exclusive report, the Air Force suspended [3] its war ethics training for nuclear missile officers.
The United States Air Force has been training young missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons by citing passages from the New Testament and commentary from a former member of the Nazi Party, according to documents obtained exclusively by Truthout [4].
The mandatory Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare session, which includes a discussion on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory [5]," is led by Air Force chaplains and takes place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way it is cited in a PowerPoint presentation [6], are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)."
The Air Force documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation [7] (MRFF), a civil rights organization. MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 Air Force officers, a majority of whom describe themselves as practicing Protestants and Roman Catholics, have contacted his group over the past week in hopes of enlisting him to work with the Air Force to have the Christian-themed teachings removed from the nuclear weapons ethics training session. [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.]
Included with the PowerPoint presentation, consisting of 43 slides, are more than 500 pages of other documents [8] pertaining to a missile officer's first week of training, which takes place before they are sent to one of three Air Force bases to guard the country's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) arsenal and, if called upon to do so by the president, launch their nuclear-armed Minuteman IIIs.
Listen to Jason Leopold discuss this story on The Nicole Sandler Show [9]
One of the slides quotes Wernher Von Braun [10], a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer. Von Braun, regarded as the father of the US space program [10], is not being cited as a scientific expert, rather he's specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps and captured French anti-Nazi partisans and civilians to help build the V-2 rocket, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.
"We knew that we had created a new means of warfare and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision [emphasis in document] more than anything else," Von Braun said upon surrendering to American forces in May 1945. "We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured." [emphasis in document]
Von Braun was part of a top-secret military program known as "Operation Paperclip [11]," which recruited Nazi scientists after World War II who "were secretly brought to the United States, without State Department review and approval; their service for [Adolf] Hitler's Third Reich, [Nazi Party] and SS memberships as well as the classification of many as war criminals or security threats also disqualified them from officially obtaining visas," according to the Operation Paperclip web site [12].
Von Braun and about 500 other Nazi scientists who were part of the classified program worked on guided missile and ballistic missile technology at military installations in New Mexico, Alabama and Texas.
Ethical Questions and The Bible
The Air Force has been mired in numerous religious scandals [13] over the past decade and has been sued for allowing widespread proselytization at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It has been citing Christian teachings in its missile officer training materials since at least 2001. [UPDATE: The Air Force said [3] the ethics course has been in place for more than two decades.]
One Air Force officer currently on active duty, who spoke to Truthout on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media, said he was trained as a missile officer in 2001 and vividly recalls how the chaplain leading the training session on the ethics of launching nuclear weapons said, "the American Catholic Church and their leadership says it's ok in their eyes to launch nukes."
Last year, however, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican representative to the United Nations, said [14] in speeches in Washington and New York City that "nuclear weapons are no longer just for deterrence but have become entrenched in the military doctrines of the major powers."
"The conditions that prevailed during the Cold War, which gave a basis for the [Catholic] Church's limited toleration of nuclear deterrence, no longer apply in a consistent and effective manner," the Archbishop said.
The 381st Training Group and 392nd Training Squadron are responsible for training every Air Force Space and Missile Officer. Several emails and phone calls left for spokespeople at Vandenberg Air Force Base, where the squadron is based, were not returned. The PowerPoint identifies Chaplain Capt. Shin Soh of the 381st Training Group as leading the nuclear ethics presentation.
One of the ethical questions contained in the PowerPoint presented to missile officers asks: "Can you imagine a set of circumstances that would warrant a nuclear launch from the US, knowing that it would kill thousands of non-combatants?
Another question trainees are confronted with asks: "Can we train physically, emotionally and spiritually for a job we hope we never have to do?"
To help the missile officers answer these ethical queries, the ethics course begins with numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament fighting what the PowerPoint refers to as "just" wars.
For example, in the Old Testament, "Abraham organized an army to rescue [his nephew] Lot," God motivated "judges (Samson, Deborah, Barak) to fight and deliver Israel from foreign oppressors," and "David is a warrior who is also a 'man after God's own heart.'"
In the New Testament, citing Timothy 2:3, according to the PowerPoint, "Paul chooses three illustrations to show what it means to be a good disciple of Christ":
Farmer--work hard and be patient
Athlete--be self-disciplined, train
Soldier--be willing to put up with hardship
Moreover, in Romans 13:4, the PowerPoint notes, "In spite of personal blemishes, God calls the emperor to be an instrument of justice," [emphasis in document.]
A PowerPoint slide also contains a passage from the Book of Revelation that says "Jesus Christ is the mighty warrior."
The PowerPoint goes on to say that there are "many examples of believers [who] engaged in wars in Old Testament" in a "righteous way" and notes there is "no pacifistic sentiment in mainstream Jewish history."
Constitutional Violation?
The documents' blatant use of religious imagery and its numerous citations of the Bible would appear to be a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state and Clause 3, Article 6 of the Constitution, which specifically prohibits a "religious test."
Weinstein, a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a former Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG), said a section of the PowerPoint presentation that has been cited by MRFF clients as being at the top of the list of "unconstitutional outrages" is the one "which wretchedly asserts that war is both ethical and part of 'the natural order' of man's existence on earth."
"Astonishingly, the training presentation grotesquely attempts to justify that unconscionable concept of 'war is good because Jesus says it is' by specifically textually referencing allegedly supportive bible passages from the New Testament Books of Luke, Acts, Hebrews, Timothy and, finally even Revelation," said Weinstein, a former White House counsel during the Reagan administration. "If this repugnant nuclear missile training is not Constitutionally violative of both the 'no religious test' mandate of the Constitution and the First Amendment's No Establishment Clause then those bedrock legal principles simply do not exist."
A senior Air Force Space and Missile officer who reviewed the materials, said the teachings are "an outrage of the highest order."
"No way in hell should this have been presented as a mandatory briefing to ALL in the basic missiles class," the officer, who requested anonymity so he could speak candidly, said in an email. "It presumes ALL missile officers are religious and specifically in need of CHRISTIAN justification for their service.
"If they wanted to help people with their spiritual/religious/secular justification for serving as missile officers, then they should've said something like 'for those of you with religious concerns about missile duty, we've arranged the following times to chat with chaplains from your particular faith group.' For those with secular concerns about the morality of missile duty, we'll have a discussion moderated by a professor [and/or] counselor, a noted ethicist, too. If you're already good with your role and duty as a missile officer, then you're welcome to hit the golf course or gym."
The senior Air Force officer added that the commander of the training squadron "that approved this, along with the Training Group Commander at Vandenberg, should be fired instantly for allowing it."
"Jesus Loves Nukes"
Former Air Force Capt. Damon Bosetti, 27, who attended missile officer training in 2006 and was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, said he and his colleagues used to call the religious section of the ethics training the "Jesus loves nukes speech."
"What I went through in 2006 didn't have that level of inappropriateness in it, but it was still strongly religious," he said of the PowerPoint presentation the Air Force now uses for training missile officers.
Bosetti, who is represented by MRFF, said he believes the intent of quoting Bible passages was to make officers feel "comfortable" about launching nuclear weapons and signing a legal document stating they had "no moral qualms" about "turning the key" if ordered to do so.
The legal document from the Department of the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, which was also released under the FOIA, states, in part, "I will perform duties involving the operation of nuclear-armed ICBMs and will launch them if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor." [emphasis in document]
Bosetti, an officer who left active duty in the Air Force last year and is now working as an engineer, said officers were immediately presented with the three-page document to sign after the end of the training session on nuclear ethics.
"I think the average American would be and should be very disturbed to know that people go through training where the Air Force quotes the Bible," Bosetti said. "This type of teaching sets a dangerous precedent because no one above you is objecting. It shifts the group definition of acceptable behavior more and more off track."
Weinstein said the combination of citing fundamentalist Christianity and a Nazi scientist as a way of explaining to missile officers why launching nuclear weapons is ethical is a new low for the Air Force.
"Leave it to the United States Air Force to find a way to dictate the 'ethical' value of nuclear war and it's inevitable role in the 'natural order' of humanity's existence, to it's missile launch officer trainees by merging unadulterated, fundamentalist Christian end times Armageddon doctrines with the tortured 'people who are guided by the bible endorsements of a former, leading Nazi SS official," Weinstein said.
Creative Commons License [15]
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License [15].
Jason Leopold [17]
Source URL: http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-cites-new-testament-ex-nazi-train-officers-ethics-launching-nuclear-weapons/1311776738
Links:
[1] http://www.truth-out.org/print/4535
[2] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/4535
[3] http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
[4] http://www.truthout.org
[5] http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Just_War_Theory.htm
[6] http://truthout.org/files/nuclear_ethics.pdf
[7] http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org
[8] http://www.scribd.com/doc/61068592/ICBM-Training-Material
[9] http://traffic.libsyn.com/radioornot/7-28-11_Jason_Leopold_-_Jesus_Loves_Nukes.mp3
[10] http://www.operationpaperclip.info/wernher-von-braun.php
[11] http://www.operationpaperclip.info/
[12] http://www.operationpaperclip.info
[13] http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22jason+leopold%22+and+%22air+force+academy%22&pbx=1&oq=%22jason+leopold%22+and+%22air+force+academy%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1797l14016l0l14254l67l40l9l0l0l3l2391l12924l0.6.15.5.3.1.1.0.1.1l33&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d5ef1517b4bad13f&biw=1280&bih=513
[14] http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2010/05/vatican_questions_nuclear_deterrence.html
[15] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
[16] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail
[17] http://www.truth-out.org/content/jason-leopold
[18] http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[19] https://members.truth-out.org/donate
[20] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789
[21] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=CoerciveReligionMisplacedinUSArmedForces/1311096375
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Why U.S. is not a Christian nation
(CNN) -- As America celebrates its birthday on July 4, the timeless words of Thomas Jefferson will surely be invoked to remind us of our founding ideals -- that "All men are created equal" and are "endowed by their Creator" with the right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." These phrases, a cherished part of our history, have rightly been called "American Scripture."
But Jefferson penned another phrase, arguably his most famous after those from the Declaration of Independence. These far more contentious words -- "a wall of separation between church and state" -- lie at the heart of the ongoing debate between those who see America as a "Christian Nation" and those who see it as a secular republic, a debate that is hotter than a Washington Fourth of July.
It is true these words do not appear in any early national document. What may be Jefferson's second most-quoted phrase is found instead in a letter he sent to a Baptist association in Danbury, Connecticut.
While president in 1802, Jefferson wrote: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State ... "
The idea was not Jefferson's. Other 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenment writers had used a variant of it. Earlier still, religious dissident Roger Williams had written in a 1644 letter of a "hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world."
Williams, who founded Rhode Island with a colonial charter that included religious freedom, knew intolerance firsthand. He and other religious dissenters, including Anne Hutchinson, had been banished from neighboring Massachusetts, the "shining city on a hill" where Catholics, Quakers and Baptists were banned under penalty of death.
As president, Jefferson was voicing an idea that was fundamental to his view of religion and government, expressed most significantly in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he drafted in 1777.
Revised by James Madison and passed by Virginia's legislature in January 1786, the bill stated: "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened (sic) in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief ..."
It was this simple -- government could not dictate how to pray, or that you cannot pray, or that you must pray.
Jefferson regarded this law so highly that he had his authorship of the statute made part of his epitaph, along with writing the Declaration and founding the University of Virginia. (Being president wasn't worth a mention.)
Why do Jefferson's "other words" matter today?
First, because knowing history matters -- it can safeguard us from repeating our mistakes and help us value our rights, won at great cost. Yet we are sorely lacking in knowledge about our past, as shown by a recent National Assessment of Educational Progress.
But more to the point, we are witnessing an aggressively promoted version of our history and heritage in which America is called a "Christian Nation."
This "Sunday School" version of our past has gained currency among conservative television commentators, school boards that have rewritten state textbooks and several GOP presidential candidates, some of whom trekked to Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in early June 2011.
No one can argue, as "Christian Nation" proponents correctly state, that the Founding Fathers were not Christian, although some notably doubted Christ's divinity.
More precisely, the founders were, with very few exceptions, mainstream Protestants. Many of them were Episcopalians, the American offshoot of the official Church of England. The status of America's Catholics, both legally and socially, in the colonies and early Republic, was clearly second-class. Other Christian sects, including Baptists, Quakers and Mormons, faced official resistance, discrimination and worse for decades.
But the founders, and more specifically the framers of the Constitution, included men who had fought a war for independence -- the very war celebrated on the "Glorious Fourth" -- against a country in which church and state were essentially one.
They understood the long history of sectarian bloodshed in Europe that brought many pilgrims to America. They knew the dangers of merging government, which was designed to protect individual rights, with religion, which as Jefferson argued, was a matter of individual conscience.
And that is why the U.S. Constitution reads as it does.
The supreme law of the land, written in the summer of 1787, includes no references to religion -- including in the presidential oath of office -- until the conclusion of Article VI, after all that dull stuff about debts and treaties: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (There is a pro forma "Year of the Lord" reference in the date at the Constitution's conclusion.)
Original intent? "No religious Test" seems pretty clear cut.
The primacy of a secular state was solidified when the First Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights. According to Purdue history professor Frank Lambert, that "introduced the radical notion that the state had no voice concerning matters of conscience."
Beyond that, the first House of Representatives, while debating the First Amendment, specifically rejected a Senate proposal calling for the establishment of Christianity as an official religion. As Lambert concludes, "There would be no Church of the United States. Nor would America represent itself as a Christian Republic."
The actions of the first presidents, founders of the first rank, confirmed this "original intent:"
-- In 1790, President George Washington wrote to America's first synagogue, in Rhode Island, that "all possess alike liberty of conscience" and that "toleration" was an "inherent national gift," not the government's to dole out or take away
-- In 1797, with President John Adams in office, the Senate unanimously approved one of America's earliest foreign treaties, which emphatically stated (Article 11): "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, -- as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ..."
-- In 1802, Jefferson added his famous "wall of separation," implicit in the Constitution until he so described it (and cited in several Supreme Court decisions since).
These are, to borrow an admittedly loaded phrase, "inconvenient truths" to those who proclaim that America is a "Christian Nation."
The Constitution and the views of these Founding Fathers trump all arguments about references to God in presidential speeches (permitted under the First Amendment), on money (not introduced until the Civil War), the Pledge of Allegiance ("under God" added in 1954) and in the national motto "In God We Trust" (adopted by law in 1956).
And those contentious monuments to the Ten Commandments found around the country and occasionally challenged in court? Many of them were installed as a publicity stunt for Cecile B. DeMille's 1956 Hollywood spectacle, "The Ten Commandments."
So who are you going to believe? Thomas Jefferson or Hollywood? On second thought: Don't answer.
Links referenced within this article:
National Assessment of Educational Progress
http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/15/perrys-principles-american-fourth-graders-dont-know-much-about-history/
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/04/davis.jefferson.other.words
But Jefferson penned another phrase, arguably his most famous after those from the Declaration of Independence. These far more contentious words -- "a wall of separation between church and state" -- lie at the heart of the ongoing debate between those who see America as a "Christian Nation" and those who see it as a secular republic, a debate that is hotter than a Washington Fourth of July.
It is true these words do not appear in any early national document. What may be Jefferson's second most-quoted phrase is found instead in a letter he sent to a Baptist association in Danbury, Connecticut.
While president in 1802, Jefferson wrote: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State ... "
The idea was not Jefferson's. Other 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenment writers had used a variant of it. Earlier still, religious dissident Roger Williams had written in a 1644 letter of a "hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world."
Williams, who founded Rhode Island with a colonial charter that included religious freedom, knew intolerance firsthand. He and other religious dissenters, including Anne Hutchinson, had been banished from neighboring Massachusetts, the "shining city on a hill" where Catholics, Quakers and Baptists were banned under penalty of death.
As president, Jefferson was voicing an idea that was fundamental to his view of religion and government, expressed most significantly in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he drafted in 1777.
Revised by James Madison and passed by Virginia's legislature in January 1786, the bill stated: "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened (sic) in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief ..."
It was this simple -- government could not dictate how to pray, or that you cannot pray, or that you must pray.
Jefferson regarded this law so highly that he had his authorship of the statute made part of his epitaph, along with writing the Declaration and founding the University of Virginia. (Being president wasn't worth a mention.)
Why do Jefferson's "other words" matter today?
First, because knowing history matters -- it can safeguard us from repeating our mistakes and help us value our rights, won at great cost. Yet we are sorely lacking in knowledge about our past, as shown by a recent National Assessment of Educational Progress.
But more to the point, we are witnessing an aggressively promoted version of our history and heritage in which America is called a "Christian Nation."
This "Sunday School" version of our past has gained currency among conservative television commentators, school boards that have rewritten state textbooks and several GOP presidential candidates, some of whom trekked to Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in early June 2011.
No one can argue, as "Christian Nation" proponents correctly state, that the Founding Fathers were not Christian, although some notably doubted Christ's divinity.
More precisely, the founders were, with very few exceptions, mainstream Protestants. Many of them were Episcopalians, the American offshoot of the official Church of England. The status of America's Catholics, both legally and socially, in the colonies and early Republic, was clearly second-class. Other Christian sects, including Baptists, Quakers and Mormons, faced official resistance, discrimination and worse for decades.
But the founders, and more specifically the framers of the Constitution, included men who had fought a war for independence -- the very war celebrated on the "Glorious Fourth" -- against a country in which church and state were essentially one.
They understood the long history of sectarian bloodshed in Europe that brought many pilgrims to America. They knew the dangers of merging government, which was designed to protect individual rights, with religion, which as Jefferson argued, was a matter of individual conscience.
And that is why the U.S. Constitution reads as it does.
The supreme law of the land, written in the summer of 1787, includes no references to religion -- including in the presidential oath of office -- until the conclusion of Article VI, after all that dull stuff about debts and treaties: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (There is a pro forma "Year of the Lord" reference in the date at the Constitution's conclusion.)
Original intent? "No religious Test" seems pretty clear cut.
The primacy of a secular state was solidified when the First Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights. According to Purdue history professor Frank Lambert, that "introduced the radical notion that the state had no voice concerning matters of conscience."
Beyond that, the first House of Representatives, while debating the First Amendment, specifically rejected a Senate proposal calling for the establishment of Christianity as an official religion. As Lambert concludes, "There would be no Church of the United States. Nor would America represent itself as a Christian Republic."
The actions of the first presidents, founders of the first rank, confirmed this "original intent:"
-- In 1790, President George Washington wrote to America's first synagogue, in Rhode Island, that "all possess alike liberty of conscience" and that "toleration" was an "inherent national gift," not the government's to dole out or take away
-- In 1797, with President John Adams in office, the Senate unanimously approved one of America's earliest foreign treaties, which emphatically stated (Article 11): "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, -- as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ..."
-- In 1802, Jefferson added his famous "wall of separation," implicit in the Constitution until he so described it (and cited in several Supreme Court decisions since).
These are, to borrow an admittedly loaded phrase, "inconvenient truths" to those who proclaim that America is a "Christian Nation."
The Constitution and the views of these Founding Fathers trump all arguments about references to God in presidential speeches (permitted under the First Amendment), on money (not introduced until the Civil War), the Pledge of Allegiance ("under God" added in 1954) and in the national motto "In God We Trust" (adopted by law in 1956).
And those contentious monuments to the Ten Commandments found around the country and occasionally challenged in court? Many of them were installed as a publicity stunt for Cecile B. DeMille's 1956 Hollywood spectacle, "The Ten Commandments."
So who are you going to believe? Thomas Jefferson or Hollywood? On second thought: Don't answer.
Links referenced within this article:
National Assessment of Educational Progress
http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/15/perrys-principles-american-fourth-graders-dont-know-much-about-history/
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/04/davis.jefferson.other.words
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Atheists Seek Chaplain Role in the Military
By JAMES DAO - April 26, 2011
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — In the military, there are more than 3,000 chaplains who minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of active duty troops, regardless of their faiths. The vast majority are Christians, a few are Jews or Muslims, one is a Buddhist. A Hindu, possibly even a Wiccan may join their ranks soon.
But an atheist?
Strange as it sounds, groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing for the appointment of one of their own to the chaplaincy, hoping to give voice to what they say is a large — and largely underground — population of nonbelievers in the military.
Joining the chaplain corps is part of a broader campaign by atheists to win official acceptance in the military. Such recognition would make it easier for them to raise money and meet on military bases. It would help ensure that chaplains, religious or atheist, would distribute their literature, advertise their events and advocate for them with commanders.
But winning the appointment of an atheist chaplain will require support from senior chaplains, a tall order. Many chaplains are skeptical: Do atheists belong to a “faith group,” a requirement for a chaplain candidate? Can they provide support to religious troops of all faiths, a fundamental responsibility for chaplains?
Jason Torpy, a former Army captain who is president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, said humanist chaplains would do everything religious chaplains do, including counsel troops and help them follow their faiths. But just as a Protestant chaplain would not preside over a Catholic service, a humanist might not lead a religious ceremony, though he might help organize it.
“Humanism fills the same role for atheists that Christianity does for Christians and Judaism does for Jews,” Mr. Torpy said in an interview. “It answers questions of ultimate concern; it directs our values.”
Mr. Torpy has asked to meet the chiefs of chaplains for each of the armed forces, which have their own corps, to discuss his proposal. The chiefs have yet to comment.
At the same time, an atheist group at Fort Bragg called Military Atheists and Secular Humanists, or MASH, has asked the Army to appoint an atheist lay leader at the base. A new MASH chapter at Fort Campbell, Ky., is planning to do the same as are atheists at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
Such lay leaders can lead “services” in lieu of chaplains and have access to meeting rooms, including chapels.
Chaplains at Fort Bragg near here have seemed open to the idea, if somewhat perplexed by it.
“You’re not a faith group; you’re a lack-of-faith group,” First Lt. Samantha Nicoll, an active atheist at Fort Bragg, recalled a chaplain friend’s saying about the idea. “But I said, ‘What else is there for us?’ ”
Atheist leaders acknowledge the seeming contradiction of nonbelievers seeking to become chaplains or receive recognition from the chaplain corps. But they say they believe the imprimatur of the chaplaincy will embolden atheists who worry about being ostracized for their worldviews.
Defense Department statistics show that about 9,400 of the nation’s 1.4 million active-duty military personnel identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, making them a larger subpopulation than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists in the military.
But atheist leaders say those numbers are an undercount because, they believe, there are many nonbelievers among the 285,000 service members who claim no religious preference on military surveys. Many chaplains dispute that interpretation, and say that most people in that group are religious, just not strongly so.
Those same statistics show that Christians represent about one million, or 70 percent, of all active-duty troops. They are even more dominant among the chaplain corps: about 90 percent of the 3,045 active duty chaplains are Christians, most of them Protestants.
Military atheist leaders say that although proselytizing by chaplains is forbidden, Christian beliefs pervade military culture, creating subtle pressures on non-Christians to convert.
As an example, they cite the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, created to help soldiers handle stress and prevent suicide. The program requires soldiers to complete surveys assessing emotional, social, family and spiritual well-being. Based on their answers, some soldiers are asked to take “resiliency” training.
Atheists say the survey and training are rife with religious code words that suggest a deity or afterlife. The Army counters that the program is intended to determine whether a soldier has “a strong set of beliefs, principles or values” that can sustain him through adversity — and not to gauge religiosity.
Atheist and secular humanist groups in the military are hardly new. But at some bases, they have become better organized and more vocal in recent years.
Last fall, atheists at Fort Bragg objected to an event by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association called Rock the Fort. The base command, at the urging of its chaplains, provided some money and manpower for the event as well as a choice location on the post’s parade grounds.
A communication sergeant, Justin Griffith, argued that the event was an Army-sponsored platform for the Graham organization to recruit converts. The post commander, Col. Stephen J. Sicinski, denied that, saying soldiers were not pressured to attend. In a recent interview, the colonel said Rock the Fort was intended to boost morale as well as “bolster the faith.”
In response, Sergeant Griffith has recruited a star lineup of atheist musicians and speakers, including the writer Richard Dawkins, to headline a secular event, possibly for the fall. He calls it Rock Beyond Belief and has asked Colonel Sicinski to provide resources similar to what he gave Rock the Fort.
Colonel Sicinski has refused, saying the event will not draw enough people to justify using the parade grounds and that money from religious tithes, which helped finance Rock the Fort, cannot be spent on it. Sergeant Griffith has appealed.
A high school dropout raised near Dallas, Sergeant Griffith, 28, was a passionate Christian and creationist until his teens. Now his dog tags list his religious preference as atheist, and he is pushing to create MASH chapters on as many bases as possible.
He is also giving thought to becoming a chaplain himself, though it would take years: He would have to earn a graduate degree in theology and then be commissioned an officer. He would also need the endorsement of “a qualified religious organization,” a role Mr. Torpy’s organization is seeking to play.
Sergeant Griffith said he believed there were already atheist chaplains in the military — just not open ones.
“I support the idea that religious soldiers need support from religious chaplains,” he said. “But there has to be a line between supporting religious soldiers and promoting religion.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/27atheists.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — In the military, there are more than 3,000 chaplains who minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of active duty troops, regardless of their faiths. The vast majority are Christians, a few are Jews or Muslims, one is a Buddhist. A Hindu, possibly even a Wiccan may join their ranks soon.
But an atheist?
Strange as it sounds, groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing for the appointment of one of their own to the chaplaincy, hoping to give voice to what they say is a large — and largely underground — population of nonbelievers in the military.
Joining the chaplain corps is part of a broader campaign by atheists to win official acceptance in the military. Such recognition would make it easier for them to raise money and meet on military bases. It would help ensure that chaplains, religious or atheist, would distribute their literature, advertise their events and advocate for them with commanders.
But winning the appointment of an atheist chaplain will require support from senior chaplains, a tall order. Many chaplains are skeptical: Do atheists belong to a “faith group,” a requirement for a chaplain candidate? Can they provide support to religious troops of all faiths, a fundamental responsibility for chaplains?
Jason Torpy, a former Army captain who is president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, said humanist chaplains would do everything religious chaplains do, including counsel troops and help them follow their faiths. But just as a Protestant chaplain would not preside over a Catholic service, a humanist might not lead a religious ceremony, though he might help organize it.
“Humanism fills the same role for atheists that Christianity does for Christians and Judaism does for Jews,” Mr. Torpy said in an interview. “It answers questions of ultimate concern; it directs our values.”
Mr. Torpy has asked to meet the chiefs of chaplains for each of the armed forces, which have their own corps, to discuss his proposal. The chiefs have yet to comment.
At the same time, an atheist group at Fort Bragg called Military Atheists and Secular Humanists, or MASH, has asked the Army to appoint an atheist lay leader at the base. A new MASH chapter at Fort Campbell, Ky., is planning to do the same as are atheists at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
Such lay leaders can lead “services” in lieu of chaplains and have access to meeting rooms, including chapels.
Chaplains at Fort Bragg near here have seemed open to the idea, if somewhat perplexed by it.
“You’re not a faith group; you’re a lack-of-faith group,” First Lt. Samantha Nicoll, an active atheist at Fort Bragg, recalled a chaplain friend’s saying about the idea. “But I said, ‘What else is there for us?’ ”
Atheist leaders acknowledge the seeming contradiction of nonbelievers seeking to become chaplains or receive recognition from the chaplain corps. But they say they believe the imprimatur of the chaplaincy will embolden atheists who worry about being ostracized for their worldviews.
Defense Department statistics show that about 9,400 of the nation’s 1.4 million active-duty military personnel identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, making them a larger subpopulation than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists in the military.
But atheist leaders say those numbers are an undercount because, they believe, there are many nonbelievers among the 285,000 service members who claim no religious preference on military surveys. Many chaplains dispute that interpretation, and say that most people in that group are religious, just not strongly so.
Those same statistics show that Christians represent about one million, or 70 percent, of all active-duty troops. They are even more dominant among the chaplain corps: about 90 percent of the 3,045 active duty chaplains are Christians, most of them Protestants.
Military atheist leaders say that although proselytizing by chaplains is forbidden, Christian beliefs pervade military culture, creating subtle pressures on non-Christians to convert.
As an example, they cite the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, created to help soldiers handle stress and prevent suicide. The program requires soldiers to complete surveys assessing emotional, social, family and spiritual well-being. Based on their answers, some soldiers are asked to take “resiliency” training.
Atheists say the survey and training are rife with religious code words that suggest a deity or afterlife. The Army counters that the program is intended to determine whether a soldier has “a strong set of beliefs, principles or values” that can sustain him through adversity — and not to gauge religiosity.
Atheist and secular humanist groups in the military are hardly new. But at some bases, they have become better organized and more vocal in recent years.
Last fall, atheists at Fort Bragg objected to an event by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association called Rock the Fort. The base command, at the urging of its chaplains, provided some money and manpower for the event as well as a choice location on the post’s parade grounds.
A communication sergeant, Justin Griffith, argued that the event was an Army-sponsored platform for the Graham organization to recruit converts. The post commander, Col. Stephen J. Sicinski, denied that, saying soldiers were not pressured to attend. In a recent interview, the colonel said Rock the Fort was intended to boost morale as well as “bolster the faith.”
In response, Sergeant Griffith has recruited a star lineup of atheist musicians and speakers, including the writer Richard Dawkins, to headline a secular event, possibly for the fall. He calls it Rock Beyond Belief and has asked Colonel Sicinski to provide resources similar to what he gave Rock the Fort.
Colonel Sicinski has refused, saying the event will not draw enough people to justify using the parade grounds and that money from religious tithes, which helped finance Rock the Fort, cannot be spent on it. Sergeant Griffith has appealed.
A high school dropout raised near Dallas, Sergeant Griffith, 28, was a passionate Christian and creationist until his teens. Now his dog tags list his religious preference as atheist, and he is pushing to create MASH chapters on as many bases as possible.
He is also giving thought to becoming a chaplain himself, though it would take years: He would have to earn a graduate degree in theology and then be commissioned an officer. He would also need the endorsement of “a qualified religious organization,” a role Mr. Torpy’s organization is seeking to play.
Sergeant Griffith said he believed there were already atheist chaplains in the military — just not open ones.
“I support the idea that religious soldiers need support from religious chaplains,” he said. “But there has to be a line between supporting religious soldiers and promoting religion.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/27atheists.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Ataturk Was a Secular Nationalist Who Implemented Massacres and Ethnic Cleansing of Millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Other Christian Minorities in Turkey.
In an article called “Saving Aqsa Parvez” in The Humanist magazine (the official magazine of the American Humanist Association) of October 2010, the author Luis Granados said that Kemal Ataturk had brought the humanist revolution to Turkey, implying that Ataturk was a humanist. Granados is wrong about Ataturk, as Ataturk was no humanist.
Rouben Paul Adalian[i] , the Director of the Armenian National Institute in Washington, D.C., and the author of From Humanism to Rationalism: Armenian Scholarship in the Nineteenth Century, the editor of Armenia and Karabagh Factbook, and associate editor of Encyclopedia of Genocide, writes[ii]:
“Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and the consummator of the Armenian Genocide. Kemal was an officer in the Turkish army whose defense of Gallipoli in 1915-1916 defeated the Allied campaign to breach the Dardanelles and quickly eliminate the Ottoman Empire from World War I. … he stayed out of politics until 1919 when he organized the Turkish Nationalist Movement ….
…. The attack by Kemalist units against the city of Marash in January 1920, which was accompanied by large-scale slaughtering of the Armenians, spelled the beginning of the end for the remnant Armenian population. ….
The final chapter of the Armenians in Anatolia was written in Smyrna (Izmir) [by Kemalist forces] … in September 1922. … Mustafa Kemal completed what Talaat and Enver had started in 1915, the eradication of the Armenian population of Anatolia and the termination of Armenian political aspirations in the Caucasus.
In 1936 Kemal began to pressure France to yield the Sanjak of Alexandretta, or Iskenderun, a district on the Mediterranean under French administrative rule whose inhabitants included 23,000 Armenians. Preoccupied with the deteriorating situation in Europe, France yielded when Turkey send in its troops in 1938. Kemal died that year having prepared the annexation of the district. His action precipitated the final exodus of Armenians from Turkey in 1939 as most opted for the French offer of evacuation to Syria and Lebanon rather than risk mistreatment yet again.”
[Important aside: In April 1915 the Ottoman government embarked upon the systematic decimation of its civilian Armenian population. The persecutions continued with varying intensity until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey. The Armenian population of the Ottoman state was reported at about two million in 1915. An estimated one million had perished by 1918, while hundreds of thousands had become homeless and stateless refugees. By 1923 virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolian Turkey had disappeared.[iii] Ataturk’s involvement in the Armenian genocide took place prior to him being designated President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Turkey in 1923, as described above.]
George J. Dariotis, the Supreme President of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association writes[iv]:
“While Ataturk did shape Turkey into a secular Turkish state, as Turkey's first dictator he did so by committing widespread human rights violations against his own people and by implementing the large-scale massacre and ethnic cleansing of millions of Turkey's Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and other Christian minorities.
After his forces had already routed the Greek army out of Asia Minor in 1922, Ataturk's troops perpetrated one of the most infamous and widely reported war crimes against an urban civilian population prior to WWII. According to reports by U.S. Consul George Horton, Ataturk's troops massacred 200,000 Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna (now Izmir), burning this cosmopolitan New Testament city to the ground while Western warships passively watched from its quay.”
P. D. Spyropoulos, Executive Director of the American Hellenic Media Project writes[v]:
"Arguments advocating the collective guilt of Asia Minor's indigenous Greek population and the fact that the mass slaughters of populations and other horrors perpetrated under Ataturk's command were effected during a time of war, should make any decent-minded person recoil in horror: both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust were perpetrated under cover of war, and these very same arguments have been used by apologists of these and other horrors to alternatively justify or excuse them."
He also writes, “Given Ataturk's pivotal role in the massacre of tens of thousands of Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians in Smyrna during Kemal's 1922 invasion and destruction of that once-cosmopolitan city; given the fact that Kemal was a high-ranking officer in the Young Turk government when it perpetrated the Armenian and Pontian Greek genocides and that his dictatorship established the Turkish state's official doctrine of denying and covering up these genocides; given that his regime's ethnic cleansing of over a million Greeks extinguished Asia Minor's indigenous Hellenic civilization from an area that it had flourished in for two millennia (see http://www.ahmp.org/1922NYT.html for reports of the 1922 holocaust by The New York Times); given Ataturk's brutal repression of practicing Muslims; and given the fact that Kemal Ataturk is directly responsible for creating the authoritarian militocracy that continues to rank as among the worst human rights violators on earth and as Europe's worst postwar transnational aggressor -- in effect the only nationalist-fascist government to have survived the WWII era to this day -- ….”
In summary, Ataturk was a secular nationalist who implemented massacres and ethnic cleansing of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other Christian minorities in Turkey.
Ataturk’s belief that Islam was holding Turkey back from being able to have the power that the Western nations had is why Ataturk chose to follow a dictatorial secular path. It was a desire for power, not humanistic concerns, that motivated Ataturk. Secularism (separation of religion and government) is what all humanists and many religious groups support; but secularism in itself is not humanism.
Ataturk is also responsible for the various laws in today’s Turkey, one of which forbids people in Turkey from criticizing Ataturk. According to human rights organizations, Turkey has some of the worst records for torture, unjust arrests and disappearances, and "unsolved" murders mostly committed by state-sponsored nationalist groups that call themselves "Kemalist", after Kemal Ataturk.
Ataturk’s legacy is secularism, combined with ruthless nationalism, realized with conscious use of fatal force against innocent human beings. For Granados, the author of the article in The Humanist, describing Ataturk as a humanist and omitting mention of the atrocities he committed is much like calling Hitler a great leader and omitting mention of the holocaust. For humanism to flourish, all of us, particularly the American Humanist Association in its magazine, must be careful not to make such harmful associations.
Armineh Noravian
------------------------
[Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).]
[i] http://www.abrilbooks.com/artists/2492.html (retrieved 1/5/2011)
[ii] http://www.armenian-genocide.org/kemal.html (retrieved 1/17/2011)
[iii] http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html (retrieved 1/7/2011)
[iv] http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.greek/msg/48ffd33b4bd555b0? (retrieved 12/8/2010)
[v] http://www.ahmp.org/AtatStat.html (retrieved 12/7/2010)
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Working together for secularism: A joint declaration by IHEU’s French member organizations
The National Federation of Free Thought (Fédération nationale de la Libre Pensée - FNLP), the National League for Popular Education (Ligue de l’Enseignement et pour l’Éducation populaire - LDE), the Rationalist Union (Union rationaliste - UR), the Movement Europe and Secularism (Mouvement Europe et Laïcité - CAEDEL), French Member Organizations of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (Union Internationale Humaniste et Laïque - IHEU) have published the following join declaration (en français):
Working together for secularism: A joint declaration by IHEU’s French member organizations
Our organizations have different backgrounds and different goals. Past and present struggles have shown the diversity of our approaches on present topics, and yet our organizations are willing to emphasize their deep agreement on essential questions that the secularist movement is facing.
The 1905 law is constitutional
Confronted with the findings of the Machelon Report, to insinuations and questions from the Government and to different mistakes made by local authorities, CAEDEL, LDE, UR and FNLP are willing to state clearly that they consider the Law of December 9th, 1905 on Separation of the Churches and the State as a constitutional safeguard of the freedom of conscience. Along with all the regulations on freedom of trade unions, political liberties and freedom of association and meeting, freedom of the press, this law makes up an indissoluble unit of Constitutional Law. It guarantees a strict republican equality in the field of opinions.
By enacting the principle of separation between religions and the State, i.e. by separating what is the realm of ideological and metaphysical concept from political, social and cultural reality, an essential liberty of the rights of individuals has been established. The absolute freedom of conscience is the affirmation of the rights of individuals against communitarian duties. Our organizations reject the idea that the multicultural nature of society should be made institutional by establishing rules allowing delays in natural evolutions in modern society.
There is no genuine democracy without the guarantee of the absolute freedom of conscience.
There should not be any challenging of this inalienable right, the foundation of human liberty. Everyone should be free to follow his/her path as he/she likes.
Secularism is emancipating
In the effort of liberating the individual, the establishment of public, secular and compulsory education has been an essential step forward to promote a knowledge freed from obscurantism. That is why the secularist movement has always supported all public funds being allocated to education for all (schools and universities). Our steady and resolute opposition to the Debré Law of December 31st, 1959 is the public landmark of this opinion.
But the forces of reaction, in the political, religious and social fields, have made every effort to get their revenge.
In an immense effort to build the Republic, public education has educated whole generations not to fight against opinions submitted to a free debate but to refuse dogmas imposed on human conscience. The establishment of the principle of state monopoly to deliver university degrees gives the tool to guarantee this provision everywhere. We would like to remind that the state monopoly to deliver university degrees (established in 1880) relatively protects our country against obscurantism circulated by neo-creationists concerning the theory of Evolution, against religious dogmas concerning social behaviours condemning the fight against AIDS, etc., in public education.
The recent move of the Government to demolish that principle for the benefit, to date, of Catholic and Protestant schools is a major concern for our Organizations. That is why, with different forms, those Organizations have publicly marked their opposition to the Kouchner-Pope Benedict Agreement. The ruling given by the Council of State does not invalidate the fundamental question of our legal actions; it limits the claims of the Vatican but the danger is still there.
Today, the growing recognition of the role played by the private sector of education can be seen in the increase of public funds allocated to it under different forms and the weakening of Public Education through cuts in its resources, more cuts in the allocated number of jobs and the implementation of standards of the private sector.
The Minister of Public Education plans to cut 16,000 teaching jobs for school year 2011, including 5,000 jobs in secondary schools, 8,000 jobs in primary schools, 2,000 “Full Time Equivalent” students in Education currently being trained in schools. More than 50,000 teaching positions have been abolished since 2007. From 1996 to 2010, the number of teachers’ positions opened in competitive examinations has been downsized by 45% to 89%, depending on the branch of learning.
From pre-school/ nursery school to university, including IUFM [training colleges] and CNRS [Research Institutes], secondary schools and Graduate Schools, there is a will to transfer the responsibility and the duty of the state and government institutions to the market-oriented private sector, whether religious or profit-making.
The “Education Voucher” would be directed at the same object. Parents are given an “Education Voucher” by the government, which is money for school fees; parents choose the school and the form of education they like for their children. Education is subsidized - no longer schools that become “free”: fees, pedagogy…and therefore schools are made competitive economically as well as in the field of education! This system is partially implemented in a series of countries: USA, Great Britain, etc. This is a preparation for privatization of education, dismantling a public service for the purpose of exploitation by religious and corporate business groups.
The increasing number of private schools being used as examination venues for national degrees (Secondary school exam, university degrees, etc…) is a real violation of the absolute freedom of conscience of teachers, their civil servant status as well as the families’ and students’ philosophical and/or religious beliefs
LDE, UR, FNLP, CAEDEL want to express their formal opposition to this process, under any circumstances, and are willing to launch a series of initiatives to lead in common the necessary actions, confronted to the multiplication of onslaughts of different kinds which endanger the finality of the aim of public education in the service of the emancipation for all.
Trackback URL for this post: http://www.iheu.org/trackback/4081
Source: http://www.iheu.org/working-together-secularism-joint-declaration-iheu%E2%80%99s-french-member-organizations
Working together for secularism: A joint declaration by IHEU’s French member organizations
Our organizations have different backgrounds and different goals. Past and present struggles have shown the diversity of our approaches on present topics, and yet our organizations are willing to emphasize their deep agreement on essential questions that the secularist movement is facing.
The 1905 law is constitutional
Confronted with the findings of the Machelon Report, to insinuations and questions from the Government and to different mistakes made by local authorities, CAEDEL, LDE, UR and FNLP are willing to state clearly that they consider the Law of December 9th, 1905 on Separation of the Churches and the State as a constitutional safeguard of the freedom of conscience. Along with all the regulations on freedom of trade unions, political liberties and freedom of association and meeting, freedom of the press, this law makes up an indissoluble unit of Constitutional Law. It guarantees a strict republican equality in the field of opinions.
By enacting the principle of separation between religions and the State, i.e. by separating what is the realm of ideological and metaphysical concept from political, social and cultural reality, an essential liberty of the rights of individuals has been established. The absolute freedom of conscience is the affirmation of the rights of individuals against communitarian duties. Our organizations reject the idea that the multicultural nature of society should be made institutional by establishing rules allowing delays in natural evolutions in modern society.
There is no genuine democracy without the guarantee of the absolute freedom of conscience.
There should not be any challenging of this inalienable right, the foundation of human liberty. Everyone should be free to follow his/her path as he/she likes.
Secularism is emancipating
In the effort of liberating the individual, the establishment of public, secular and compulsory education has been an essential step forward to promote a knowledge freed from obscurantism. That is why the secularist movement has always supported all public funds being allocated to education for all (schools and universities). Our steady and resolute opposition to the Debré Law of December 31st, 1959 is the public landmark of this opinion.
But the forces of reaction, in the political, religious and social fields, have made every effort to get their revenge.
In an immense effort to build the Republic, public education has educated whole generations not to fight against opinions submitted to a free debate but to refuse dogmas imposed on human conscience. The establishment of the principle of state monopoly to deliver university degrees gives the tool to guarantee this provision everywhere. We would like to remind that the state monopoly to deliver university degrees (established in 1880) relatively protects our country against obscurantism circulated by neo-creationists concerning the theory of Evolution, against religious dogmas concerning social behaviours condemning the fight against AIDS, etc., in public education.
The recent move of the Government to demolish that principle for the benefit, to date, of Catholic and Protestant schools is a major concern for our Organizations. That is why, with different forms, those Organizations have publicly marked their opposition to the Kouchner-Pope Benedict Agreement. The ruling given by the Council of State does not invalidate the fundamental question of our legal actions; it limits the claims of the Vatican but the danger is still there.
Today, the growing recognition of the role played by the private sector of education can be seen in the increase of public funds allocated to it under different forms and the weakening of Public Education through cuts in its resources, more cuts in the allocated number of jobs and the implementation of standards of the private sector.
The Minister of Public Education plans to cut 16,000 teaching jobs for school year 2011, including 5,000 jobs in secondary schools, 8,000 jobs in primary schools, 2,000 “Full Time Equivalent” students in Education currently being trained in schools. More than 50,000 teaching positions have been abolished since 2007. From 1996 to 2010, the number of teachers’ positions opened in competitive examinations has been downsized by 45% to 89%, depending on the branch of learning.
From pre-school/ nursery school to university, including IUFM [training colleges] and CNRS [Research Institutes], secondary schools and Graduate Schools, there is a will to transfer the responsibility and the duty of the state and government institutions to the market-oriented private sector, whether religious or profit-making.
The “Education Voucher” would be directed at the same object. Parents are given an “Education Voucher” by the government, which is money for school fees; parents choose the school and the form of education they like for their children. Education is subsidized - no longer schools that become “free”: fees, pedagogy…and therefore schools are made competitive economically as well as in the field of education! This system is partially implemented in a series of countries: USA, Great Britain, etc. This is a preparation for privatization of education, dismantling a public service for the purpose of exploitation by religious and corporate business groups.
The increasing number of private schools being used as examination venues for national degrees (Secondary school exam, university degrees, etc…) is a real violation of the absolute freedom of conscience of teachers, their civil servant status as well as the families’ and students’ philosophical and/or religious beliefs
LDE, UR, FNLP, CAEDEL want to express their formal opposition to this process, under any circumstances, and are willing to launch a series of initiatives to lead in common the necessary actions, confronted to the multiplication of onslaughts of different kinds which endanger the finality of the aim of public education in the service of the emancipation for all.
Trackback URL for this post: http://www.iheu.org/trackback/4081
Source: http://www.iheu.org/working-together-secularism-joint-declaration-iheu%E2%80%99s-french-member-organizations
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Election Turned On Economic Issues, But Constitution May Suffer Collateral Damage, Says Americans United
Religious Right Forces Are Certain to Demand Action in Congress on Divisive Culture-War Concerns, Says AU’s Lynn
WASHINGTON - November 3 - Voters want Congress to focus on fixing the economy, but Religious Right groups are sure to demand that attention be paid to their divisive agenda, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Exit polls show that more than 60 percent of voters cited the economy as their top concern in yesterday's voting. The figure was even higher in states hard hit by the financial setbacks.
But the changes in Congress, says Americans United, will empower Religious Right leaders who will insist on action on controversial social issues.
"Voters sent a strong message that they want Congress to focus on fixing the economy," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, "but the election results may inflict collateral damage on the Constitution. I think the Religious Right will seize this opportunity to advance its agenda in Congress."
Lynn said he expects the Religious Right to push for religious school vouchers, publicly funded "faith-based" hiring bias, creationism in the public schools, laws allowing electioneering by churches, "Christian nation" resolutions and other measures that undercut church-state separation.
Lynn noted that likely House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have long records of working with the Religious Right on a wide variety of social issues.
"Americans did not vote to stoke the fires of the culture war," said Lynn, "but they may have done so inadvertently."
Lynn noted that many candidates who openly attacked church-state separation were defeated.
Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, Delaware House candidate Glen Urquhart and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle all lost. (Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck was trailing in his race, but a vote count was still under way.)
Lynn noted, however, that the Religious Right remains a potent political force in some situations. In Iowa, for example, a concentrated campaign by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and their allies resulted in the ousting of three state Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.
"Church-state separation is going to be under sustained fire for the next two years in Congress and in many state legislatures," said Lynn. "Religious Right leaders are re-energized by the election results, and they are going to want action. Those of us who believe in individual freedom and equality are going to have our hands full."
###
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
WASHINGTON - November 3 - Voters want Congress to focus on fixing the economy, but Religious Right groups are sure to demand that attention be paid to their divisive agenda, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Exit polls show that more than 60 percent of voters cited the economy as their top concern in yesterday's voting. The figure was even higher in states hard hit by the financial setbacks.
But the changes in Congress, says Americans United, will empower Religious Right leaders who will insist on action on controversial social issues.
"Voters sent a strong message that they want Congress to focus on fixing the economy," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, "but the election results may inflict collateral damage on the Constitution. I think the Religious Right will seize this opportunity to advance its agenda in Congress."
Lynn said he expects the Religious Right to push for religious school vouchers, publicly funded "faith-based" hiring bias, creationism in the public schools, laws allowing electioneering by churches, "Christian nation" resolutions and other measures that undercut church-state separation.
Lynn noted that likely House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have long records of working with the Religious Right on a wide variety of social issues.
"Americans did not vote to stoke the fires of the culture war," said Lynn, "but they may have done so inadvertently."
Lynn noted that many candidates who openly attacked church-state separation were defeated.
Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, Delaware House candidate Glen Urquhart and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle all lost. (Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck was trailing in his race, but a vote count was still under way.)
Lynn noted, however, that the Religious Right remains a potent political force in some situations. In Iowa, for example, a concentrated campaign by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and their allies resulted in the ousting of three state Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.
"Church-state separation is going to be under sustained fire for the next two years in Congress and in many state legislatures," said Lynn. "Religious Right leaders are re-energized by the election results, and they are going to want action. Those of us who believe in individual freedom and equality are going to have our hands full."
###
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Americans United Applauds Court Ruling Against Proposition 8
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today applauded a federal district court decision striking down California’s Proposition 8, a measure that withdrew the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples in the state.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the state constitutional amendment imposes a private moral viewpoint without a legitimate governmental interest and tramples on the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples.
Proposition 8 was lavishly funded political front groups representing the Roman Catholic bishops, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and fundamentalist Protestant churches.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the state constitutional amendment imposes a private moral viewpoint without a legitimate governmental interest and tramples on the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples.
Proposition 8 was lavishly funded political front groups representing the Roman Catholic bishops, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and fundamentalist Protestant churches.
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