ACLU: Military Chaplains “need to find another career.”
Posted on May 17, 2006
Jeremy Gunn, the ACLU’s “religious liberty” point man was for some reason invited to the Air Force Academy to address cadets and staff to share his view that the attack on public expression of faith is a myth. In the May 11 Colorado Gazette story covering the event exposes Gunn as the condescending anti-faith bigot he is. Feast on the dementia:
A perceived war on Christians in America is a myth driven by politics, a top official from the American Civil Liberties Union told cadets and professors at the Air Force Academy on Thursday.
Addressing an issue that has generated controversy at the academy, including allegations of discrimination against non-Christians, Jeremy Gunn said many falsehoods are fueling a pro-Christian backlash.
“A lot of this is sincerely believed, but it is self-intoxicating rhetoric,” said Gunn, director of the ACLU’s program on religious freedom.
So, the people that actually notice or are directly impacted by the attack on public religious expression led by the ACLU are just making it all up. Mr. Gunn, in case you didn’t know, the ACLU’s record is not what the Venona files were before the fall of your beloved Soviet Union — most is a matter of public record, easily researched…and the facts are crystal.
Gunn said instead that religion has never enjoyed a time of greater freedom and public discussion in America.
“If you don’t see it, it’s because you’re too close to it,” he said.
Say what? I think he’s calling his audience idiots again.
Gunn said evangelicals, rather than seeking freedom to practice their faith, are seeking a government endorsement of their practices, including proselytizing.
“The question is what role should the government play in supporting, promoting and endorsing religion,” he said.
This is where his abject ignorance begins to shine. One of the first acts in George Washington’s tenure as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces (GW was, if we want to get REAL technical, the first American soldier, a true “Army of One.”) was to establish the chaplaincy! I guess the entire history of the chaplaincy has been one long conspiracy created just so the ACLU could swoop in and save us all from a military that actually provides (GASP) religious counselors for service members.
Gunn challenged the role of chaplains in the military, saying that they need to balance their faith against the needs of the service.
Those who put evangelism first, he said, “need to find another career.”
The Apex of Absurdity is not only what Jeremy Gunn calls his winter cabin in the Poconos, it’s what his crescendo of condescension reached with this putrid cherry on top. Please understand that by evangelism, Gunn isn’t talking about forcibly baptizing anyone in the Euphrates, by “evangelizing,” he means a chaplain mentioning his denomination publicly.
Siren blast to Gunn: The needs of the service in regard to a chaplain’s assigned duties ARE a chaplain’s religious faith and training!
In his next seminar with the Marines at Camp Pendleton, I can just imagine Gunn ascending the podium to tell a bunch of SAW gunners that if they put shredding terrorists first, they “need to find another career.” Pink mist.
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11 Responses to “ACLU: Military Chaplains “need to find another career.””
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Syndicate Me
Yet you guys never mention any of the instances in which the ACLU comes to the aid of Christians whose religious liberties are being restricted by the government. Your misunderstanding of the ACLU’s position on religious freedom is quite profound.
“In his next seminar with the Marines at Camp Pendleton, I can just imagine Gunn ascending the podium to tell a bunch of SAW gunners that if they put shredding terrorists first, they ‘need to find another career.’ Pink mist.”
Wonderful. Ever so subtly suggesting that you want Mr. Gunn to be machine-gunned to death instantly nullifies any arguments that you have made in my book.
“Your misunderstanding of the ACLU’s position on religious freedom is quite profound.”
I have NO misunderstanding of the ACLU’s campaign to erase faith from the public square. It’s real and it’s no secret. Your denial just confirms your contorted, myopic and willingly blind view of what the ACLU stands for and how it has openly stated for decades that it wants to remake America in its own image.
“suggesting that you want Mr. Gunn to be machine-gunned to death”
What I wrote did not imply that I “WANT” Gunn to meet the fate you suggest. If your sensibilites are so fragile that you can’t distinguish between someone imagining the reception in front of a different audience one would receive by vomiting the type of idiocy Gunn did at the Academy and advocating what you claim I have, I suggest you get back in your sandbox. The crowd is more your speed. The fact that you don’t understand the analogy I’ve put forth proves that’s where you belong.
Dang Capt., your lack of comprehension is astounding. You sound like meathead. That you can extrapolate (is that too big of a word for you Capt.?-Ed.) from Glibs words that Glib was calling for the ACLU’s Major of the A**hat Brigade death by machine gun shows that you have attained the pinnacle of the heap and now out rank Jeremy Gunn.
“So, the people that actually notice or are directly impacted by the attack on public religious expression led by the ACLU are just making it all up.”
Yes, they are. Give one example of how you or any other Christian has been unable to observe your faith on account of this alleged “attack.”
Of course, anyone who claims that paranoia-based beliefs are “crystal”-clear facts or that Jeremy Gunn’s statement that “if you don’t see it, it’s because you’re too close to it” is tantamount to “calling his audience idiots” isn’t interested in the real world any more than someone who regularly prays to imaginary sky-gods or thinks that some invisible cosmic jokester actually gives a rap about whether men bugger other men in private.
Kudos for managing to work mention of the Soviet Union into every rambling, off-likter entry you crap onto this blog. In so doing you manage to take a credibility level of zero into the negative digits. But I admit I enjoy reading the thoughts of genuinely paranoid people from a safe distance.
About killing Gunn: Sorry. I guess you’re not the outraged potential murderer here; the SAW gunners are.
The ACLU’s position is very simple: the practice of religion is a guaranteed right which cannot be impinged by the government, but government promotion of religion is unconstitutional. It’s a very simple distinction.
Ya know what? Let’s play a game. Here’s how it works: I’ll describe an actual situation involving a religious liberties issue, and you guess which side the ACLU took. Answers appear at the end.
#1: A city commission in East Point, Ga., blocked a Baptist church from purchasing a plot of land claiming that the land was zoned for secular purposes only. A) The city commission. B) The church.
#2: The warden at a Rhode Island prison barred a Christian prisoner from preaching during religious services at the prison, claiming the prisoner was a security concern. A) The warden. B) The prisoner.
#3: A Catholic man in Michigan had drug possession charges dropped after he agreed to drug rehabilition. The rehab organization, run by a Pentecostal church, told the man that he had to convert to the Pentecostal faith or he would be kicked out of the program. After the man refused to convert, a judge sentenced him to prison for failing to complete the program. A) The judge. B) The Catholic man.
#4: A second-grader was barred from singing “Awesome God” at a talent show at her public elementary school. A) The school. B) The student.
#5: A New Mexico man was arrested for preaching on a street corner when police said he was “harassing” passersby. A) The police. B) The preacher.
#6: Prisoners in Ohio filed suit against the state corrections department when they were denied access to religious materials. A) The corrections dept. B) The prisoners.
#7: A park manager in Virginia attempted to block a minister from performing baptisms in a river running through the park. A) The park manager. B) The minister.
#8: A public school in Michigan removed a Bible verse from a student’s yearbook entry. A) The school. B) The student.
Answers: B B B B B B B B
I could go on, but that’s enough for now. Maybe I’ll put an extensive list on my blog soon. Apparently the ACLU didn’t get the memo that the ACLU is trying to remove any trace of religion from the public square. I pulled all these cases from the ACLU website, by the way.
Cap’n',
These guys aren’t exactly quick on the uptake, but even they realize that the ACLU isn’t actually anti-religion. What upsets them as far-righty Christians is that the ACLU stands in the way of what they really want — special dispensation in the courts and in both the public and political spheres.
They blindly, repeatedly and erroneously claim that this country was “founded on Christian values,” and when it’s pointed out to them that they’re wrong, they simply shield their eyes from the evidence and squawk even louder about “America’s Christian heritage” and “the war on Jesus.” This depsite the very POTUS being a slack-jawed born-again and repeatedly proving himself sympathetic to moronic faith-based causes, such as interfering with stem-cell research and allowing taxpayers to fund abstinence-only “education” programs that are not only ineffective but rooted in a cavalcade of lies.
Since this sort of special dispensation is precisely what is constitutionally verboten according to countless numbers of judges from everywhere along the political spectrum, the ACLU goes after the special-treatment-seekers especially hard. And thank Shiva for that.
brain–
As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been voted off unAmerican Idle for this comment the other day:
“This country does not have a tangible foundation of any sort”
Obnoxious ignorance of this sort doesn’t deserve an audience…so good night now.
As for Captain Rashy-nads–
Congrats for cutting and pasting from the ACLU’s “please ignore the man behind the curtain” section of their “religious liberties” page. As we have covered repeatedly, the ACLU does sometimes take cases while holding their snotty noses. They have a much better record on Free Exercise than they do on their perverted twisting of the Establishment Clause, which they have cynically deployed as a sword against public expression of faith and free association.
How many times do they have to sue schools and legislative bodies for the until-recently standard practice of opening sessions with a prayer (we opened the FOUNDING OF THIS COUNTRY WITH A PRAYER…NOW WE CAN’T EVEN OPEN A TUESDAY WITH A PRAYER!)? How many suits do they have to file denying religious organizations EQUAL access to otherwise-available-to-all public funding pools? How many Boy Scouts do they have to deprive of a treasured experience of youth? How many city seals need to have cross erased despite the rich tradition of that symbol in this nation? How many more war memorials do they need to attack? How many highway patrolmen’s memorials do they have to attack? How many manger scenes do they have to try and remove from public open forums (see the Cranston, RI case from ‘04 in which they got spanked and exposed.) How many long-standing Ten Commandments displays do they need to sand-blast? …before you shed the dementia?
It’s not surprising that you allow yourself to be duped by token cases that allow them to populate a page on their website with “proof” that they are not hostile to faith. It was thier strategy from the beginning to employ Useful Idiots. Quote from Roger Baldwin:
“Do steer away from making it look like a Socialist enterprise…We want to look like patriots in everything we do. We want to get a good lot of flags, talk a good deal about the Constitution and what our forefathers wanted to make of this country, and to show that we are really the folks that stand for the spirit of our institutions.”
Another:
“If I aid the reactionaries to get free speech now and then, if I go outside the class struggle to fight censorship, it is only because those liberties help to create a more hospitable atmosphere for working class liberties.”
Please don’t back up any bilge about that being a long time ago and irrelevant today…the highest ACLU award is named after Baldwin. Don’t be such a sucker man.
Huzzah! Name-calling always helps your case.
You’re still having trouble distinguishing between an individual expressing his or her faith in public and the government endorsing religion. That’s the key here.
One of my favorite things about the Establishment Clause is that it says nothing of tradition or history. It’s short and to the point. It doesn’t say “Since quite a few of the people who founded this nation were Christians, Christianity gets a free pass when it comes to government endorsement of religion. Sucks to the rest of you.” The ACLU will keep filing suits; they’ll keep winning; and I’ll keep giving them money… and so will you when they win cases and plaintiffs are reimbursed using tax dollars! (That last part isn’t unique to the ACLU at all, but it delights me nonetheless.)
¡Dios mio! The Baldwin-communism quotes again? And without mention of how he later renounced communism and purged the ACLU of Communists? Why am I not surprised?
“One of my favorite things about the Establishment Clause is that it says nothing of tradition or history. It’s short and to the point.”
Apparently not short or to the point enough for some to refrain from constantly changing establishment to “endorsement”, “promote”, and anything but “establish”.
The constitution prevents the “federal government” from “establishing” a religion, not the states or people.
“And without mention of how he later renounced communism and purged the ACLU of Communists?”
Yeah, he renounced communism pretty much the same as MLK.
Didn’t seem to take though, did it?
You forgot to mention that after he purged them, the ACLU let them back in.
CR–
I have NO trouble distinguishing and if you can read, you’ll notice I DID so. You have bought the ACLU’s tired lines lock, stock, cut and paste. They say it in their PR materials, you believe it, no independent thought. Sad.
Lawsuits to prevent INDIVIDUALS from acknowledging their faith at a graduation speech doesn’t strike you as preventing someone from acknowlegding their faith in public? How has an individual’s speech at a public event somehow been turned inside-out to be characterized as the federal government creating a state religion that all must follow?
You obviously have very little knowledge of American history and law. As far as you’re concerned, history and jusiprudence began with Hugo Black’s mention of your sacred and mythical “Wall” in 1947.
You are right about one thing. The Est. Clause is very simple and to the point, so you must acknowledge that ACLU and its allies have twisted it and grown it into something that it was never meant to be — a tool to crush all public displays of the foundation of founding principles and Constitutional law.
If the Est. Clause is what you and the ACLU says it is, how come Jefferson allowed what became the largest congregation in the country in the early 19th century to hold services in the US Capitol? How come he ordered the marine Corps Band to provide the music for services? How come he attended every week of his presidency? How come everything the ACLU is attacking NOW was never a problem for the first century and a half of this country’s existence?
History and law are obviously not on your side.
As far as the ACLU’s record — they had the advantage of a free run through the courts for several decades (this has been confirmed by former ACLU attorney Marc Stern). Normal Americans were blind-sided and only in the late 1990s did the people who actually have reverence for the Constitution begin showing up…and guess what (again, Stern talking), now the landscape has changed. The ACLU no longer enjoys an unimpeded rampage through the judicial system and because they don’t have the truth on their side, they will lose in the end.
Speaking as a former Army Chaplain (Vietnam, 68-69), the job of a chaplain is to ensure the freedom of religion of the troops in the units to which he (or she) is assigned. The chaplain does that by providing religious services of his own faith which servicemen and women can voluntarily attend. The chaplain also does that by making sure that opportunities exist for all servicemen and women, regardless of faith, to practice their religion. As a Methodist chaplain, I did not try to offer Jewish services, but it was my responsibility to make sure Jewish servicemen had an opportunity to practice their faith.
If a Jewish serviceman wanted to convert from Judaism to Christianity, I could help him do that as a voluntary expression of his religious freedom.
However, a Chaplain is an officer of the military and even though the chaplain does not have command authority, the chaplain is still in a power position relative to servicemen and women. Therefore it is absolutely wrong for the chaplain to abuse his position to try to evangelize people of different faiths who have not requested the chaplain’s assistance in converting; this is an abuse of their freedom. Non-Christians have a right to be upset at the current abuse by chaplains of their commitment to assure the freedom of religion of every serviceman and woman, and the ACLU is right on this one.