Religious Freedom in the Military

Floor Speech

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I thank the gentlelady from Missouri.

I thank you for your leadership and also, tonight, for having this great time for us to come together to talk about a subject that, I think, is increasingly important.

With great foresight and clarity, the Founding Fathers enshrined religious liberty as our First Amendment right, stating:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

This is an important constitutional right that is for every American, including servicemembers who defend those very liberties with their own lives.

The ability to live one's life informed by one's faith is not just a protected constitutional right; it is also essential for the individual well-being of our soldiers. In the uniquely stressful military environment, Congress must ensure that our men and women in uniform can access religious support and practice their faith without risking career reprisals.

Servicemembers increasingly fear even mentioning their faith in the military because of restrictions, uncertain policies surrounding religious expression, and a general climate of hostility towards those with particular religious or moral viewpoints. This is not your father's military. This is not the military you served in. This is a different military when it comes to respecting religious rights and freedoms.

Last year, the House Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, section 533, that provided protections of sincerely held religious beliefs for servicemembers and chaplains. However, we have yet to see the regulations that should have been issued in accordance with this amendment.

In a March 2013 JAG memorandum, the Air Force clearly showed that it is interpreting section 533 as only protecting the religious beliefs of servicemembers and not the actual expression of those beliefs through actions and free speech. For heaven's sakes, of course the military can't say anything about what you believe because nobody knows what you believe unless you express those beliefs in some way or another.

Just as the First Amendment does not mean just freedom of worship but, rather, the free exercise of religion, servicemembers are not only protected in holding a belief but are free to live their lives in accordance with those beliefs and to give voice to them.

This June, on a bipartisan basis, the House Armed Services Committee adopted my amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to clarify the protections provided for actions and speech that flow from sincerely held religious and moral convictions.

My amendment provides the Department flexibility to ensure the morale and readiness needs of servicemembers are met upon the application of this provision. It clarifies that action and speech, along with the beliefs of a servicemember, are protected by the First Amendment, and it requires that the DOD consult with the faith groups, which already work with the military to endorse military chaplains, when implementing section 533.

While the military context requires good order and discipline to be maintained, ``good order and discipline'' cannot be wielded as a club to stifle the reasonable religious expression of servicemembers.

So what am I really talking about here? Let me give you some examples:

A servicemember received a severe and possibly career-ending reprimand from his commanding officer for respectfully expressing his faith's religious position in a personal religious blog even though the blog included a disclaimer that his views were not official military

policy;

An Air Force officer kept a Bible on his desk, along with other personal items, for 18 years. When he transferred to his latest assignment, he was told by his supervisor that he could not keep his Bible in public view, that it may offend someone if one actually saw his Bible;

Walter Reed Hospital briefly prohibited the distribution of religious materials, i.e., Bibles and scripture of any faith, from being given to wounded servicemembers;

Thousands of Army Reserve soldiers received equal opportunity training, labeling evangelical Christians, Catholics, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and others as ``religious extremists'' who are comparable to the KKK and al Qaeda. This training, which was memorialized in writing, further instructed the servicemembers that they may not support such extremist organizations by attending meetings, fund-raising, recruiting, helping lead or organize or distributing literature. In other words, thousands of soldiers were told that they could not go to church, lead Sunday school, tithe, share their faith or give out Bibles;

Another series of equal opportunity training sessions held for Army active components at Camp Shelby in Alabama and again at Fort Hood in Texas listed a prominent ministry, the American Family Association, as an extremist group alongside the KKK. I am pleased that Secretary McHugh, upon being made aware of these particular types of egregious training materials, canceled all future equal opportunity training until the DOD gets its act together;

There is the case of Sergeant Monk, a fine young man whom I met personally, who was relieved of his position after objecting to his commander's plans to punish an instructor who had expressed religious objections to gay marriage. When asked about his own support of traditional marriage, Sergeant Monk was told that he was in violation of Air Force policy. Yes, because he supported traditional marriage, he was in violation of Air Force policy, and after 19 years--almost 20 years, almost reaching retirement--he was fired;

In performing his official duties, an Air Force chaplain, Lieutenant Colonel Reyes, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, wrote a column on the ``Chaplain's Corner'' Web site, titled ``No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II.'' The column traces the history of the famous phrase used by President Eisenhower, and connects it to the idea that the military is unique in that servicemembers must confront the grim reality of death.

He writes:

Everyone expresses some form of faith every day whether it is religious or secular. Some express faith by believing, when they get up in the morning, they will arrive at work in one piece ..... What is the root or object of your faith? Is it something you can count on in times of plenty or loss? peace or chaos? joy or sorrow? success or failure? What is ``faith'' to you?

Finally, the column did not speak negatively of people of no faith or of people of non-faith, though the commander removed the column from the ``Chaplain's Corner'' Web page. The commander later reposted the column after media attention and congressional inquiries.

I would just like to say in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that we are seeing an assault on religious liberty, not just on religion--not just on Christianity--but on religious liberty in a way this Nation has never seen before. Bear in mind, why did our forefathers--why did our ancestors--come to this Nation? They came for different reasons--economic freedom, freedom of speech and other things--but primarily for religious freedom.

That is the one freedom that appears to be slipping away in the most important venue that we have, and that is in the military, because who pays a heavier price for that freedom than our uniformed members who stand in the gap, who protect us each and every day in our own freedoms?

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