{"id":3684,"date":"2011-02-04T11:09:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T11:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/good-news-from-the-land-of-religious-tolerance.html"},"modified":"2011-02-04T11:09:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T11:09:00","slug":"good-news-from-the-land-of-religious-tolerance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/good-news-from-the-land-of-religious-tolerance.html","title":{"rendered":"Good news from the land of religious tolerance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Some fast thinking professors at the Air Force Academy have filed a lawsuit<\/a> to keep a self proclaimed Christian motivational speaker from talking at a voluntary prayer breakfast.\u00a0 Whew.\u00a0 That was close.\u00a0 Hopefully the judges in question will see the light and stop this unprecedented use of religion at a prayer breakfast.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Of course, like most things, the pseudonym that the group aiding the lawsuit goes under is a smoke screen.\u00a0 The Military Religious Freedom Foundation<\/a> is an\u00a0organization that embraces the dogmas of\u00a0 a singular definition of what constitutes \u2018proper\u2019 religious beliefs.\u00a0 In an attempt to garner government support for censoring anyone who doesn\u2019t share their dogmatic views of religion and its place in society, they continue to play the switch-a-roo with the public, making it seem as if they are really out to promote tolerance and religious diversity, when in fact they are out to get the iron gauntlet of government oppression on their side.\u00a0 They do this by using the age old \u2018they\u2019re tunneling under our houses I say!\u00a0 They\u2019re out to conquer the world!\u00a0 We must save ourselves!!\u2019 tactics.\u00a0 You just take an old Nazi propaganda speech c. 1934, scratch out \u2018Jew\u2019, and insert Evangelical Christian.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now, I spent almost 15 years in ministry in an Evangelical setting.\u00a0 I rubbed shoulders with many a fundamentalist and conservative Evangelical who had just as strong beliefs as the MRFF does about what constitutes acceptable religious practice.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t hard to hear the \u2018Scare Quotes\u201d all over this youtube video, as we are treated to the same type of hysterics that many on the Left accuse the Right of using:<\/div>\n

Now, according to MRFF\u2019s own website, this is the standards that they seek to promote:<\/p>\n

Therefore, MRFF holds that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. No religion or religious philosophy may be advanced by the United States Armed Forces over any other religion or religious philosophy.<\/li>\n
  2. No member of the United States Armed Forces may be compelled in any way to conform to a particular religion or religious philosophy.<\/li>\n
  3. No member of the United States Armed Forces may be compelled in any way to witness or engage in any religious exercise.<\/li>\n
  4. No member of the military may be compelled to curtail \u2013 except in the most limited of military circumstances and when it directly impacts military discipline, morale and the successful completion of a specific military goal \u2013 the free exercise of their religious practices or beliefs.<\/li>\n
  5. Students at United States military academies are entitled to the same Constitutional rights pertaining to religious freedoms and the free exercise of those freedoms to which all other members of the United States Armed Forces military are entitled.<\/li>\n
  6. No member of the military may be compelled to endure unwanted religious proselytization, evangelization or persuasion of any sort in a military setting and\/or by a military superior or civilian employee of the military.<\/li>\n
  7. The full exercise of religious freedom includes the right not to subscribe to any particular religion or religious philosophy. The so-called \u201cunchurched\u201d cede no Constitutional rights by want of their separation from organized faith.<\/li>\n
  8. It is the responsibility of the military hierarchy to ensure that the free exercise of religious freedoms of all enlisted personnel are respected and served.<\/li>\n
  9. All military personnel have the right to employ appropriate judicial means to protect their religious rights.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Fair enough.\u00a0 Now, will someone please tell me how inviting a Christian speaker to a voluntary prayer breakfast violates any of these?\u00a0 Which ones?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 Well here is their explanation from the article as it appears on Huffington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \u201cBy making a fundamentalist Christian the keynote speaker at this event, the government has promoted, elevated, endorsed and favored Christianity over all other religions,\u201d they argued.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In other words, simply because of who he is, what he believes, the lawsuit was filed.\u00a0 Because we know that all of those Jews<\/strike> Fundamentalist Christians are out to take over the world, and it\u2019s time we find a final<\/strike> solution to the problem.\u00a0 That solution?\u00a0 Make sure that if folks don\u2019t embrace the dogmatic definitions of religion that are upheld by these fine, enlightened professors and that bastion of tolerance, the MRFF, then they need to be censored and banished for the good of the nation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Some fast thinking professors at the Air Force Academy have filed a lawsuit to keep a self proclaimed Christian motivational speaker from talking at a voluntary prayer breakfast.\u00a0 Whew.\u00a0 That was close.\u00a0 Hopefully the judges in question will see the light and stop this unprecedented use of religion at a prayer breakfast.\u00a0 Of course, like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGood news from the land of religious tolerance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some fast thinking professors at the Air Force Academy have filed a lawsuit to keep a self proclaimed Christian motivational speaker from talking at a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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