Bryan Fischer Calls For Atheists To Be Banned From Serving In The Armed Forces [View all]
I posted this in GD but it sank like a stone: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025520989
No atheist should be permitted to serve in the U.S. military
From Right Wing Watch
One of the very first posts we ever wrote about the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer highlighted a column he wrote calling for Muslims to be banned from serving in the military. That was nearly five years ago and now Fischer is finally getting around to calling for atheists to be banned from serving in the U.S. armed forces as well.
Responding to a situation in which an airman was denied his request to re-enlist in the Air Force because he refuses to take an oath containing the phrase "so help me God," Fischer asserts that atheists should be prohibited from serving in all braches of the military because "there is no place in the United States military for those who do not believe in the Creator who is the source of every single one of our fundamental human and civil rights":
These rights do not come from government, they do not come from the commander-in-chief, and they most certainly do not come from some activist judge. They come from God himself. We are not evolved, as this wannabe-enlistee believes, but we are "created," and "endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable rights."
This is an absolutely foundational, non-negotiable, bed-rock American principle: there is a Creator - with a capital "C" (you could look it up) - and he and he alone is the source of the very rights the military exists to protect and defend.
An individual who does not understand and believe this has no right to serve in the U.S. military. Military service should rightly be reserved for those who believe in and are willing to die for what America stands for - and what America stands for is a belief in God as the source of our rights.
A man who doesn't believe in the Creator the Founders trusted certainly can live in America without being troubled for being a fool. But he most certainly should not wear the uniform.
The other branches of the military do not require the same oath - yet. But they should. Military service should be reserved for genuine Americans and genuine Americans, like the Founders, believe in God.
In the original column he informs us that
(a) Enlistment Oath.—Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:
“I, XXXXXXXXXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
Serving in the military is a privilege, not a constitutional right. And it should be reserved for those who have America's values engraved on their hearts.
Naturally, the American Humanist Association, which has never seen a constitutional liberty it respects, intends to challenge this decision.
This case should be thrown out of court. The Constitution nowhere gives the federal judiciary any authority to set military policy. That's reserved for Congress and Congress alone.
(The "religious test" referred to in Article VI of the Constitution is a reference to a detailed or specific Christian statement of faith, and refers to elective or appointive office and not to military service. States, under the Constitution written by the Founders, can require any kind of religious test they want, and Article VI was designed to protect that power and reserve it for the States.)
I guess this means that my honorable discharge should be replaced with a dishonorable one and all records of my service scrubbed.
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