The House Armed Services Committee is considering a religious liberty amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act Wednesday over fears the military is punishing soldiers for expressing their religious faith.
“The men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our freedoms should not have their own religious freedom jeopardized during their military service,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), who authored the amendment.
Fleming said steps taken in last year’s NDAA only focused on protecting beliefs of service members – and not the exercise or expression of those beliefs.
“My amendment is necessary to ensure that men and women of faith will not be discriminated against in the Armed Forces, and will be free to exercise their religious beliefs,” he said. “Military service members, particularly chaplains, feel like their ability to execute their duties are being greatly limited by some of the policies and actions in the Pentagon.”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about the congressman’s amendment.
Fleming told Fox News it appears that in some cases members of the U.S. military have been punished because of their religious faith.
“There have been reports,” he said. “We don’t know how widespread it is.”
Among the incidents:
- A service member received a “severe and possibly career-ending reprimand” for expressing his faith’s religious position about homosexuality in a personal religious blog.
- An enlisted service member received a career-ending punishment for sending personal invitations to his promotion party which mentioned that he would be providing Chick-fil-A sandwiches due to his respect for the Defense of Marriage Act.
- A senior military official at Fort Campbell sent out a lengthy email officially instructing officers to recognize “the religious right in America” as a “domestic hate group” akin to the KKK and Neo-Nazis because of its opposition to homosexual behavior.
- An Air Force officer was told to remove a Bible from his desk because it might offend someone. The officer had kept the Bible on the desk for 18 years;
- A chaplain was relieved of his command over a military chapel because, consistent with DOMA’s definition of marriage, he could not allow same-sex weddings to take place in the chapel.
- An enlisted service member was threatened and denied promotion by a senior NCO for expressing – during a personal conversation – his religious belief in support of traditional marriage.
- Last month Rear Admiral William Lee told a National Day of Prayer audience that religious liberty was being threatened by Pentagon lawyers and service members are being told to hide their faith in Christ.“Leaders like myself are feeling the constraints of rules and regulations and guidance issued by lawyers that put us in a tighter and tighter box regarding our constitutional right to express our religious faith,” he said.
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