But does the government have to provide a religious service for soldiers? I say no. Not sure what the law surrounding this subject says, but I find it hard to believe that constitutionally the government is required to provide religious services for anyone, no matter what job they are currently employed in.
The government isn’t required to provide religious services to just anyone. Generally, you’re able to go out and get your own religious services. What the Constitution says is the government isn’t allowed to prevent you from getting your own religious services.
And that’s where chaplains come in. If the government is making you live someplace where you can’t go out and get your own religious services (and that can be an aircraft carrier or a prison) then they have to bring religious services to you.
Note that this only applies when it’s the government that’s stopping you from going to religious services. The government is not obligated to do anything for you if you can’t go to services because you’re handicapped or you live in a remote location or your boss makes you work on weekends.
I’m sure you don’t remember that far back–but membership in the military has not always been voluntary. Chaplains bless troops headed into battle, pray with the wounded & dying, conduct funerals–and counsel even those who do not share their faith. Or any faith. At least one veteran has told here us why he thinks chaplains are of use.
However, the title of this thread has nothing to do with the article in the OP. And the article has nothing to do with the work of Mikey Weinstein. Weinstein (Jewish, not an Atheist) has been fighting active proselytization within the military–most specifically at the Air Force Academy. Mostly by superior officers–not chaplains. He’s a colorful character and has made some rabid enemies among the Religious Right. They lie. A lot. Let him speak for himself:
I’m hoping our OP is merely mistaken, but his use of the meaningless phrase “secular Puritanism” makes me fear he may be disingenuous…
So does this mean that, no matter what other services a chaplain might perform for other services, the chaplain for Catholic services has to be Catholic?
But does this mean that the government is obligated to provide me with a religious leader/services that I recognize? If the government ships me out to a combat zone in the middle of nowhere and provides a rabbi how does that allow me as a Catholic to practice my religion? I don’t recognize the religious authority of a rabbi. From my perspective the military might as well have provided me a bartender for all of the good it does my ability to practice my religion.
Can you be more specific regarding what religion is other than detailing your responsibilities to God and how to fulfil them? If the tenets of the religion are specific in that if you find yourself in position x and take action y all is kosher (hehe), in what way is the government required to ensure that you are not placed into position x as long as they allow you action y?
For example, let’s say my religion requires me to kiss the hand of a new age meister every day. It also specifies that if the meister is not available I can recite a nursery rhyme to fulfil the requirement. As long as the military allows me to recite a nursery rhyme, what obligation do they have to ensure I have access to a meister?
The sort of favoritism of which these posts, especially Czarcasm’s s[eal. is unfortunately apparently all too common in the services. In addition to these data points, Daniel R. Kirk Jr. of Equality California is on record, including a personal e-mail to me, that this sort of BS was common on the Navy ships on which he sailed. A USAF Acadeemy graduate indicaed that success at the Academy correlated strongly with membeership in the nondenominational megachurch near its main gate which was in the news a couple of years ago when its senior pastor was caught with a male prostitute. Having argued upthread about the value of the chaplain program to free exercise, it’s only appropriate for me also to speak up endorsing the evil inherent in its cpp[topm fpr evamge;os, by a segment of the Religious Right. I think bDrCube** has a gppd handle on the problem.
Don’t you remember the episode of MASH* where Father Mulcahy performed a bris with the assistance of a rabbi who transmitted the instructions over the radio?
You know, I find it hard to believe that *you of all people are asking these questions. If you can’t hear the exact same tone as "I don’t have anything against you [i[personally. but we don’t want you tryin’ any of that queer stuff around here!" in the tone of them, I can assure you that others can.
Hope you’re OK. It looks like you were trying to type this on an iPad while riding over cobblestones!
Seriously, though, proselytizing is out of line, no matter who is doing it or why. If my CO was preaching the benefits of Amway and told me I’d get a weekend pass for attending a meeting I’d be pissed. I would probably go to the IG. Similarly, favoritism is wrong. I did see some sergeants giving guys a break on messed up rooms or sloppy uniforms because they were drinking buddies, just like you see that kind of stuff in the office. I never saw any disproportional treatment of people depending on whether or not they went to a religious service (I’m not religious and so never attended and was not penalized for it).
Let me see if I can forensically reconstruct Poly’s post:
That about it, Poly?
ETA: Something still doesn’t seem quite right, though. I’d have thought that instead of endorsing the evil, you’d be condemning it. That would seem more in character for you.
Yep, you got it. I am slowly losing my eyesight in my left eye; my right eye is cataracted to the point of near-uselessness. So proofing is very difficult for me. And yes, I did mean to endorse the condemnation, or something like that, when I went back to fix typoes and lost track of the sentence. :o
Polycarp said the same thing. I say bull. They can have a private fellowship among themselves on their free time. Sit in an empty hall, read their own private Bibles, sing and celebrate, and one of them can even officiate at a Mass. (It doesn’t require a priest if a priest isn’t available. Ditto for Judaism: if you don’t have the full ten men for a ceremony, you’re allowed to get by with fewer. Islam is likewise: if you don’t have a prayer-mat, you pray on the ground.)
It is a constitutional violation for the taxpayers to fund all the extra unnecessary trappings of their ceremonies. I’d be okay with an absolutely bare “chapel” which the attendees could then decorate at their own expense.
Yes. Actually, I suppose a Catholic could make do with an Orthodox priest, or a Maronite, I guess, but it would have to be in the Catholic ballpark, i.e., a Eucharistic faith that has maintained the apostolic succession.
