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COVERS MRFF
Dems Join GOP Attack on
Freedoms of Speech, Religion
By: Jonathan Larsen
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
The House Armed Services Committee voted on Thursday to forbid members of the armed services from communicating with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), or to make any decisions in response to MRFF complaints without approval from the secretary of defense.
Democrats reportedly voted for this unanimously with Republicans, but there’s some important, technical footnotey stuff we’ll get to. First, the legislative obscenity.
The legislation came in the form of an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the committee approved, meaning for now the MRFF language is part of the annual military spending bill – until/unless it gets removed.
The bill is in response to the MRFF’s success at getting establishments of religion unrespected by the U.S. military, because the Constitution says the military doesn’t get to respect establishments of religion. The bill is intended to stop commanding officers from responding correctly by removing Christian (it’s always Christian) shit or allowing non-Christian shit.
But as MRFF’s Chris Rodda wrote over at Daily Kos, the implications also include the fact that the entire Pentagon would now be forbidden from even acknowledging MRFF’s public-records requests without the okay of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. What’s less clear is whether the amendment could be interpreted to ban even the rank and file from sharing with MRFF the complaints that form the basis of MRFF’s work: Protecting members of the military from the imposition of religious (it’s always Christian) doctrine, indoctrination, symbolism, etc.
Either way, the amendment would effectively destroy the MRFF – it ain’t like Austin is gonna spend his days greenlighting every email every post commander wants to write to the MRFF. (And, of course, notice that the amendment doesn’t ban military officials from allowing religous (always Christian) displays or observations without Austin’s say-so…it’s a one-way theocratic ratchet (theocratchet!) that greases the wheels towards further Dominionization of the U.S. military.
Examples of the kind of Christian indoctrination the MRFF has successfully fought in the U.S. military include Lt. Col. David McGraw forcing military personnel and families to attend his (always Christian) sermons, chaplains using COVID to proselytize, assisting (not always Christian) chaplains in pushing back against (always Christian) chaplains proselytizing.
Here’s MRFF President and founder Mikey Weinstein on the amendment:
“If the fundamentalist Christian nationalists who are behind this are trying to execute us through legislation, we’ll take that as validation of the positive effect that we’re having for our clients and for the Constitution… And they can go fuck themselves.”
Now, according to the Military Times, the amendment was sponsored by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), but passed with “unanimous, bipartisan support [shocked emphasis added].” Rodda clarifies that the vote was on a whole block of amendments, some of which didn’t even get read or debated…indicating either gross negligence on a whole bunch of amendments and/or, more likely, that this was really more of a procedural vote than anything, moving the bill along in the legislative process with still plenty of opportunities to address Turner’s amendment. (That was the technical footnotey point I wanted to make.)
As Rodda notes, there’s even evidence that Turner tried to sneak it through, not even listing his NDAA amendment in his list of his NDAA amendments. Either way, here are the Democratic members of the committee, whose ranks include members who are not only progressive but usually allied with freedom from religion:
Ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Reps. Salud Carbajal (D-CA), Joe Courtney (D-CT), Don Davis (D-NC), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), John Garamendi (D-CA), Jared Golden (D-ME), Steven Horsford (D-NV), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA). Jeff Jackson (D-NC), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Bill Keating (D-MA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Jennifer McClellan (D-VA), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Patrick Ryan (D-NY), Terri Sewell (D-AL), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Marilyn Strickland (D-WA), Jill Tokuda (D-HI), Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), and Marc Veasey (D-TX).
Now, why am I leading today’s ProgRep with this and name-checking all the panel Dems? Because the white Christian nationalist theocratic Dominionist right wing is dying – and that’s the most dangerous kind of animal.
Nowhere in our government does this dying animal have a firmer foothold than in the U.S. military. And its brand of religiosity is routinely affirmed and disseminated and validated by the U.S. government. It’s more than symbolism, it’s the nurturing of a culture in which breed anti-constitutional theocratic mindsets. And that’s really really bad to have in the armed forces.
Which means it’s paramount that lawmakers of every stripe stand firmly against it. This is the front line.
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