Let me be quite blunt: one of the reasons that the Bush Administration can even contemplate attacking Iran, a move that many think might set the entire region ablaze and put US forces in Iraq at extreme risk, concerns the fact that the Administration has sufficient support  in the US military - the support of fundamentalist Christians, especially in the military's leadership, who believe the US needs to engage in an apocalyptic conflict with Islam - to propose such a course of action.

The Pentagon's active promotion of apocalyptic Christianity, demonstrated recently in MRFF research, supports the Bush Administration's desire to implement the NeoConservative game plan (if one can give the honor of calling it a "plan") of toppling the current government of Iran and setting the entire Mideast on fire.

*

What is largely powering the lawsuit I'm describing in this post, and the "galaxy" of lawsuits that Military Religious Freedom Foundation head Mikey Weinstein has promised will ensue, are the research findings Chris Rodda and I have uncovered in the last 5 months of doing research for MRFF.

Raising Up A 'Godly Military'

The Officer's Christian Fellowship motto is: Christian officers exercising Biblical leadership to raise up a godly military. The OCF has roughly 15,000 members in the officer corps of the US military, on around 200 US bases worldwide. Christian Embassy evangelizes in the Pentagon, on Capital Hill, and among foreign diplomats. One top Pentagon official claims that there are more than 350 Christian Embassy affiliated Bible study classes, using Christian Embassy Bible study curriculum, held regularly among the 25 to 30 thousand members of the Pentagon. Military Ministries targets enlisted members of the military. The three ministries are subsidiaries of the Campus Crusade For Christ, which promotes fundamentalist, apocalyptic  Christianity and whose founder, Bill Bright, promoted the formation of "cell groups" (originally a communist tactic) and said in the 1970's that Campus Crusade was a "conspiracy to overthrow the world" .

Campus Crusade For Christ ministries are not the only fundamentalist, apocalyptic Christian ministries evangelizing in the United States military, and the yearly operating budgets of these nonprofit ministries may range, in aggregate, up to 100 million dollars or more. Some of these ministries also receive US government contracts and target the children of military families.

Recent MRFF research has demonstrated that the agendas of such evangelical, fundamentalist ministries, which target the US military, have now become instituted, through top Pentagon leadership, as de-facto policy. The Pentagon itself has become co-opted and now functions itself, to an extent, as an evangelizing agency.

WHAT WE'RE DOING ABOUT IT

Let's start here: MRFF's last lawsuit challenge concerned the "Christian Embassy" video. That legal challenge, to the appearance of top Pentagon officials in a promotional, fundraising video made by a fundamentalist, sectarian religious group and filmed in the Pentagon, was denied legal "standing" because MRFF didn't have a plaintiff who had been directly harmed by the church-state separation violations represented by the video. So, MRFF has learned that lesson and found plaintiffs who have been directly harmed by the pervasive and coercive atmosphere of fundamentalist Christianity found in the US military.

(click on image to watch video. Video will launch in a new window)

Now, on to the story at hand, officially broken by Truthout.org:

"A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying to force the soldier to embrace evangelical Christianity and then retaliating against him when he refused....

The complaint, filed in US District Court in Kansas City, by the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), on behalf of Jeremy Hall, an Army specialist currently on active duty in Speicher, Iraq, alleges that Hall's First Amendment rights were violated beginning last Thanksgiving when, because of his atheist beliefs, he declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony commemorating the holiday...

...the complaint [also] alleges that on August 7, when Hall received permission by an Army chaplain to organize a meeting of other soldiers who shared his atheist beliefs, his supervisor, Army Major Paul Welborne, broke up the gathering and threatened to retaliate against the soldier by charging him with violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice

[ note: an important correction to the paragraph above. Specialist Hall has indicated that Major Welborne is on his base but that Hall is not in Welborne's chain of command - Bruce Wilson (Troutfishing) ]

.... The complaint also alleges that Welborne vowed to block Hall's reenlistment in the Army if the atheist group continued to meet - a violation of Hall's First Amendment rights under the Constitution. Welborne is named as a defendant in the lawsuit....

The complaint charges that Hall, who is based at Fort Riley, Kansas, has been forced to "submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army," a violation of Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

MRFF, in effect, has thrown down the gauntlet: does article VI, clause 3 of the Constitution apply here ? Or will the US courts proclaim that religious tests for office, in the US military, are Constitutional ? Article VI had better apply. It's foundational to the health our democracy - the ban on religious tests for office was embedded in the US Constitution, in part, to prevent the sort of terrible religious wars that wracked Europe following the Catholic/Protestant split of the Reformation.

In its setup of its new wave of legal cases, to break this fall, MRFF has avoided the legal excuse used previously to deny its last lawsuit ( re the "Christian Embassy" video scandal ) standing - this time around MRFF has found real live, flesh and blood humans who damn well have "standing" and legitimate complaint.

This first case is just the beginning:

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said Defense Secretary Robert Gates is named as a defendant in the lawsuit because he has allowed the military to engage in "a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense and the United States military."...

    Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that seeks to enforce the law mandating the separation between church and state in the US military, said the lawsuit would be the first of many his group intends to file against the Pentagon.

    "This landmark federal litigation is just the first of a galaxy of new lawsuits that will be expeditiously filed against the Pentagon in a concentrated effort to preserve the precious religious liberties guaranteed by our beautiful United States Constitution," Weinstein said Monday.

*

WHERE I FIT IN

I have been relatively quiet over the past several months - largely because Chris Rodda, author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version Of American History and I have been totally wrapped up in just doing groundbreaking research work, for MRFF, that has no precedent, and our research work will power the upcoming MRFF suits because we have demonstrated a widespread and pervasive pattern of apparent constitutional violations within the United States Military. We've been running blazing a research trail for out in advance of actually stopping to catch our breath and write our findings up in detailed form.  

No one has ever done what we have done. There is no precedent, at least in the public realm. I know that because if anyone, or any agency had previously studied the influence of the Christian right in the US military Chris Rodda and I would have found traces of such research. We have found no such traces.

The ideological conquest of the most powerful military on Earth has been waged in silent. It is not quite a fait accompli though. There is still hope...  

I haven't so far claimed all the stories that have been spun out of my research findings out of the sense that I was producing discoveries of the influence of fundamentalist, apocalyptic Christianity at a rate that, were the US to attack Iran and the US political climate turn sour, could potentially prove bad for my wellbeing to say the least.

But, I'm coming to the conclusion that I have no choice. Given what I now know, I have a responsibility to speak out. Widely. Anonymity will no longer do.

The bizarre part of all this is that while my research findings, for MRFF and on the religious right generally, have launched quite a number of national news stories by now [written by others but deriving from my work], not a single piece I've ever written has ever made its way into print. This post - claiming the whole of what I've accomplished researching for MRFF - is my way of starting to address that. It's a beginning.

Some of the programs I've been studying have been growing and developing for years, but no one has - up to now - bothered to study them. Actually, no one outside of the military, in many cases, seems to have even been aware of their existence. The scope of likely constitutional violations I've uncovered is, in certain cases, massive.

I was having  a conversation, recently,  with an associate editor of a major distribution magazine who is working on a soon to be released and very ambitious story on the influence of the Christian right in the federal government. He  apologized to me, saying he said he had been highly dubious of my initial take on the spread of apocalyptic religious ideology in the Pentagon. Now, he's convinced - I've demonstrated it, with more on the way.

Preying on the vulnerable is a tactic of two of the ministries we've investigated. One specifically targets basic training installations, and the other targets those who are about to be deployed, coming right out and stating that soldiers facing combat are "shaken" so they are more receptive to hearing the gospel than those "at ease." (This second ministry has Department of Defense contracts for some of its programs.) - Lead MRFF Researcher Chris Rodda

[note: I've excerpted that comment, by Chris Rodda, from the discussion thread pertaining to this post.

Last week, Chris Rodda and I wrote up a summary, for lawyers working for MRFF, of our research work from the last five months. The report we wrote will serve as the framework for the MRFF lawyers who will file and argue the  upcoming MRFF lawsuits, in at least several if not many jurisdictions across the United States, alleging a widespread and pervasive pattern of aggressively promoted fundamentalist, usually apocalyptic Christianity within the US military that is being promoted by all levels of military leadership, from the top reaches of the Pentagon on down.

I suspected that, and I have alleged it on this forum. Now, I have the facts to prove it. Those facts are being deployed as legal weapons, in court, in order to defend American Democracy against what may be the most significant threat it has faced in over one hundred years.

Isn't The Military Shifting It's Allegiance, To The Democratic Party ?

It's true, yes, that in terms of raw numbers the US military is actually starting to skew towards the Democratic Party - indeed. But, that doesn't negate the growing influence of apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism in the military. First of all, Christian fundamentalism isn't necessarily synonymous with the GOP. It tends to be, but realize that the Democratic Party is indeed a big tent. Second, and more importantly,   the officer corps has been especially heavily targeted by the Christian right and so raw polling numbers, on party affiliation, do not really matter. The targeting of military leadership began decades ago and, drawn by shifts in religious belief in the US military's leadership caste, the  US military has been pulled, especially rapidly in the last several years, towards the religious and ideological attractor of Premillenial Apocalyptic Dispensationalist, Fundamentalist Christianity : lots of words indicating an armaggedonist mindset.

The ideology that is now being promoted, from the very top of the Pentagon, militates towards an attack on Iran and a necessary religious war - in secular terms, those ( Samuel Huntington, et. al ) who say we're headed towards an inevitable a clash of civilizations.

Apocalyptic Christian ideology, in the United States military, may help power that clash. That's what I'm fighting against, with Michael Weinstein and Chris Rodda, and with MRFF.

As David Bowie once wrote,

It's no game....

Well, this is no game.

This concerns our collective future, in ways that I've written on at length already.

This is no game.

Hold your breath, cross your fingers, say a prayer....

Or read your Constitution and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow you're needed, to fight another day.

But, first...

Here's what Chris Rodda and I have uncovered over the last five months...

A portion of what we have found, that is [I haven't gotten the OK to publish certain material that will out in coming lawsuits] :

INFLUENCE OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST & APOCALYPTIC CHRISTIAN RIGHT IN THE US MILITARY

1. Uncovered preliminary evidence that top Pentagon officials who appeared in the Christian Embassy video, the subject of a Pentagon Inspector General's report, may have lied in their testimony to the inspector general.

2. Discovered the "OSU" scandal - that the Department of Defense and the Pentagon Chaplain's Office seemed to have endorsed a Christian fundamentalist evangelical ministry. "Operation Straight Up", that planned on sending both Christian evangelizing materials double printed in English and Arabic and also an apocalyptic video game based on the "Left Behind" book series, to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. OSU also planned (and still, essentially, does) a "military crusade" in those two countries (OSU's "crusade" is actually a planned evangelizing tour).

3. Documented the apocalyptic theological views of the US Army's new head of chaplains, Douglas L. Carver.

4. Discovered that, in 2005, the Pentagon invited evangelist Dave Kistler into the Pentagon, along with ministry volunteers who brought Kistler's ministry PA system, to give two consecutive sermons in the Pentagon courtyard at lunch while Pentagon employees were eating their lunch. The Pentagon's head chaplain called this "cutting edge evangelism".

5. Uncovered a pattern of Christian nationalist public events held last summer, across the US (details to be released in upcoming MRFF lawsuits) which featured Pentagon endorsements of various kinds violating DoD regulations on the endorsement of religious groups.

6. Investigated alallegations of anti-Semitism at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That research, in turn, led to the exposure of an egregious anti-semitic incident at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

7. Department of Defense - sponsored fake US history:

see: The Department of Defense -- Bringing Historical Revisionism to a High School Near You

8) In general, conducted an unprecedented survey into the influence of the Christian right in the US military, that we'll soon be publishing, provisionally under the title "The MRFF report" (stay tuned). Never before has anyone attempted even a remotely comprehensive survey of this research area. Jeffrey Scahill's book on Blackwater was a fine piece of work... But, this is more central still - Blackwater is big, but the Pentagon is truly vast, and the work Chris and I have done, for MRFF, has demonstrated an extent of influence never before recognized.

**************************************** [text of MRFF suit] IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS MILITARY RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FOUNDATION, ) and SPECIALIST JEREMY HALL, ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) vs. ) Case No. ________ ) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE) SECRETARY ROBERT GATES, and MAJOR PAUL ) WELBORNE, ) ) Defendants. ) ) COMPLAINT FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF I. Introduction 1. This is a Constitutional common law/Bivens action whereby plaintiffs seek to vindicate rights to lawful assembly and free speech and rights to be free from governmental endorsement of religion under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, to prevent loss of rights without due process and equal protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and to prevent imposition of an impermissible religious test under Art. VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution of the United States . - 2 - II. Parties 2. Plaintiff Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is a not-for-profit public interest organization that advocates, inter alia, that the military recognize and defend the rights of individuals to be free of compulsory religious practices. MRFF has supporters and members that include plaintiff Jeremy Hall. 3. Plaintiff, Specialist Jeremy Hall, is an active duty member of the United States Army currently deployed to Contingency Operations Base (COB) Speicher, Iraq. Plaintiff is stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, and is a resident of Geary County, Kansas. 4. Defendant Robert Gates is Secretary of the United States Department of Defense and is responsible for the actions of subordinates. 5. Defendant Paul Welborne is a Major in the United States Army. I. Jurisdiction 6. This case involves rights under the Constitution of the United States and jurisdiction is vested in this Court by 28 U.S.C. § 1331. I. Venue 7. Venue in this District Court is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(3). I. Facts 8. Plaintiff Hall is attached to the 97th Military Police Battalion that is based at Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq. - 3 - Plaintiff began his second deployment to Iraq September 28, 2006. Plaintiff has performed his military duties consistent with orders. His performance evaluations while in Iraq evidence such. 9. Plaintiff Hall is an atheist and as such does not participate in religious services, ceremonies or rituals that are conducted on and around the military installation where he is currently assigned. To the best of plaintiff Hall's knowledge, none of his atheist beliefs, or conduct related thereto, have had the effect of undermining his duties or the effectiveness of his or other's response to command. Plaintiff Hall is known as an atheist to other personnel at the installation and has admitted his atheism when confronted by his military cohorts. Examples of such include: a) on Thanksgiving Day November 25, 2006, plaintiff and other military personnel assembled for a dinner to commemorate the holiday. Once the plaintiff, and others, were seated at the table, a call to hold hands and join in a Christian prayer was made by another individual at the plaintiff's table. Plaintiff politely and respectfully declined to engage in the prayer. Immediately after plaintiff made it known he would decline to join hands and pray, he was confronted, in the presence of other military personnel, by the senior ranking NCO staff sergeant who asked plaintiff why he did not want to pray, whereupon plaintiff explained because he is an atheist. The staff sergeant asked plaintiff what an atheist is and plaintiff responded it meant that he (plaintiff) did not believe in God. This response caused the staff sergeant to tell plaintiff that he would have to sit elsewhere for the Thanksgiving dinner. - 4 - Nonetheless, plaintiff sat at the table in silence and finished his meal; b) in July, 2007, while on duty and prior to an operation in Kirkuk, Iraq, the plaintiff declined to participate in a Christian prayer led by a Colonel. The plaintiff walked away from the assembly of individuals that prayed; c) during a duty assignment at the military installation in Iraq, plaintiff used the word "God" in what he intended to be a nonreligious context. But a Sergeant L. Ruiz overheard the use of "God" and claimed to plaintiff such use indicated plaintiff indeed was not an atheist. 10. Plaintiffs are aware that at the military installation Christian based organizations are allowed to conduct religious meetings and services without disruptions or threats of retaliation. 11. On August 7, 2007, plaintiff Hall attempted to conduct and participate in a meeting of individuals who consider themselves atheists, freethinkers, or adherents to non-Christian religions. With permission from an army chaplain, plaintiff Hall posted flyers around COB Speicher announcing the meeting. The meeting attendees included plaintiff Hall, other military personnel and nonmilitary personnel. 12. During the course of the meeting, defendant Welborne confronted the attendees, disrupted the meeting and interfered with the plaintiff Hall's and the other attendees' rights to discuss topics of their interests. During the confrontation, and because of plaintiff's actions in organizing the meeting, defendant Welborne threatened plaintiff Hall with an action under - 5 - the Uniform Code of Military Justice and further threatened to prevent plaintiff Hall's reenlistment in the United States Army. 13. Plaintiffs allege that defendant Welborne's exercise of authority and conduct in disrupting the above-described meeting and making threats against plaintiff Hall was done under color of United States law. 14. On information and belief, plaintiffs allege that the acts of defendant Welborne, and the failure of defendant Gates to prevent such violations, is evidence of a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense (D.O.D.) and the United States military. Evidence of such patterns and practices includes, but is not limited to: a) Constitutionally impermissible support provided for religious events including providing military personnel and equipment for events sponsored by Christian organizations that promote Christian beliefs; b) Constitutionally impermissible support for religious organizations within the military, and those organized by and comprised of members of the military, such as Officers Christian Fellowship and CREDO Spiritual Fitness Divisions, and Military Ministry; c) Constitutionally impermissible support for private religious organizations are granted access to military installations, some of which are under D.O.D. contract. These organizations include Military Ministry, Cadence Ministries, Malachi Ministries and Military Community Youth Ministries; d) Consitutionally impermissible support for official endorsement of private religious organizations by members of the military and/or the Department of Defense. Endorsed - 6 - organizations include: Christian Embassy, Operation Straight Up, and H.O.P.E. Ministries International; e) Constitutionally impermissible support for Christian proselytizing and tolerance of anti-semitism; f) Constitutionally impermissible support for use of military assets in a religious entertainment production; g) Constitutionally impermissible support for blatant displays of religious symbolism on military garb, figher aircraft and squadron buildings by the U.S. Air Force 523rd Fighter Squadron; h) Constitutionally impermissible support for placement of a biblical quotation above the door of the Air and Space Basic Course classroom at Maxwell Air Force Base; i) Constitutionally impermissible support for illegal use of official military e-mail accounts to send e-mails containing religious rhetoric; j) Constitutionally impermissible support for attempts by missionary organizations such as Force Ministries and the Officers' Christian Fellowship and CMF to create "Christian soldiers" by training active-duty military personnel to evangelize their subordinates and peers; k) Constitutionally impermissible support for military leadership appearing in uniform in promotional videos for these missionary organizations and openly discussing their commitment to bring religion into the military. 15. The pattern and practices of the United States military's constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs are prohibited by, inter alia, 10 U.S.C. § § 3073, 3547, 5142 and 8067, and the U.S. Air Force core value policy on religion that provides as follows: Military professionals must remember that religious choice is a matter of individual conscience. Professionals, and especially commanders, must not take it upon themselves to - 7 - change or coercively influence the religious views of subordinates. 16. Plaintiffs allege that the defendant Gates has a duty to exercise his authority to prohibit his subordinate, defendant Welborne, and similarly situated subordinates, from engaging in acts that infringe plaintiffs' constitutional rights. I. Causes of Action 17. Defendant Welborne's exercise of authority and conduct in disrupting the above-described meeting and making threats against plaintiff Hall was contrary to clearly established law and had the effect of denying the plaintiff Hall his right to free assembly and speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment. U.S. CONST. amend. I. 18. Defendant Welborne's conduct was contrary to the clearly established law and effectively denied plaintiff Hall his right to be free of government sponsored religious activity as guaranteed by the First Amendment. U.S. CONST. amend. I. 19. Infringement upon plaintiff Hall's right to conduct an atheist/freethinker/nonchristian meeting without unreasonable interference and threats of retaliation is a denial of his right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment, U.S. CONST. amend. V, because religious groups at Combat Operations Base Speicher are encouraged, facilitated and sanctioned by the Department of Defense. - 8 - 20. Plaintiff Hall's rights under the First Amendment were denied without due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. U.S. CONST. amend. V. 21. Plaintiff Hall, as a member of the armed services of the United States, has been constructively required to submit to a religious test as a qualification to his post as a soldier in the United States Army. This test is a violation of plaintiff Hall's rights under Article VI, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution. U.S. CONST. Art. VI, cl. 3. I. Remedies 22. Plaintiffs seek equitable relief in the form of an injunction prohibiting defendant Welborne from: a) interfering with plaintiff Hall's rights to free speech and assembly that do not diminish plaintiff Hall's response to command; b) to refrain from conduct that has the effect of establishing compulsory religious practices; and c) to require that defendant Gates exercise his authority and prevent his subordinate, defendant Welborne, and those subordinates similarly situated, from infringing upon plaintiff Hall's Constitutional rights. Plaintiffs also seek costs, fees and other relief deemed appropriate by the Court. Respectfully submitted, IRIGONEGARAY & ASSOCIATES