The Air Force will allow an atheist airman to omit the phrase "so help me God”

[Silent3]

The Air Force has reversed course again and will allow an atheist airman to omit the phrase "so help me God” from its oath, the military branch said Wednesday.

“We are making the appropriate adjustments to ensure our Airmen's rights are protected,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said.

Glad to hear they've fixed this, for now, but I fully expect the obnoxious dominionists to keep pushing.

Christians, once forced to swear oaths to powers in which they did not believe, seem now to be forcing others to swear oaths to powers in which they do not believe.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/09/17/the-irony-of-the-air-forces-anti-atheist-oath/

[cbayer]

1. I think this is a pretty definitive decision on the part of the Air Force.

They have taken a stand and should be commended for it.

[cleanhippie]

2. Commended for reverting to a policy they changed to less than a year ago?

And only after threats of multiple lawsuits from several secular and Humanists groups?


Yeah, the should be commended.

[LiberalAndProud]

3. No, they didn't take a stand.

They reversed reprehensible policy because they didn't have a leg to stand on. It was clearly unconstitutional, and they were being threatened with lawsuits. I suspect their lawyers told them stand down and stand down now, so they did. Nothing commendable about it.

[cbayer]

4. That is certainly possibly how it went down, but they may have also made

a decision in response to the letter from the MRFF.

Perhaps not commendable, but at least the right thing to do.

[cleanhippie]

6. It will be interesting to hear just why the AF changed the policy last year in the first place.

While the AF is seemingly overrun by Evangelicals, such a blatant unConstituional policy change was bound to raise eyebrows. And it did.


I guess in some way we should be thanking the fundies, nearly everytime they manage to give their beliefs the force of law, they end up cementing the secular viewpoint instead.

[LiberalAndProud]

7. Response to criticism, maybe? Just speculating.

AF was criticized for persecuting the religious last year.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/gen-boykin-air-force-sec-nominee-will-she-protect-religious-liberty

[Warren Stupidity]

8. The Dominionists successfully infiltrated

Last edited Thu Sep 18, 2014, 03:05 PM - Edit history (1)

and took control of the AF bureaucracy starting in the late 80s. They keep pushing the limits to see what they can get away with. But don't worry, progressive enlightenment is breaking out among deeply conservative religious sects.

[TlalocW]

5. I have a bad feeling though

That a little tic mark will be added to this airman's record (and any others who don't say, "so help me God&quot that might cause them to be passed over for promotions, etc.

TlalocW

[pinto]

9. Thought this finish to the piece was interesting. Hadn't thought of it in those contexts.

Christians, once forced to swear oaths to powers in which they did not believe, seem now to be forcing others to swear oaths to powers in which they do not believe.

The punishment for refusal is, of course, different: No one is being killed for failure to swear correctly, because after all, no one is forced by the state to fight in the military.

Some might think that the comparison between ancient Christians and modern atheists is a false one. Yet it is a closer parallel than it may first appear.

Atheism, as a recognized system of belief, is still in its relative infancy, as Christianity was in the Roman empire.

Federal courts have determined that, at least for the purposes of First Amendment rights, atheism is a religion, but that decision was made only in 2005.

We are, as a nation, still coming to terms with the phenomenon of atheism. The question of whether an atheist can serve in the military without compromising his or her beliefs seems like an important question to address, and to get right.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. "Atheism, as a recognized system of belief" it isn't.

The issue is not that non-belief needs to be recognized as a "system of belief" it is that nobody ever should be compelled for any reason by any state agency to affirm any theistic belief at all. It is in our constitution as one of the fundamental rights.

[pinto]

11. I think that was ironically the point. Equal application seemed to be the legal intent.

I, as a white gay man, have had far fewer challenges than men or women of color. Yet benefit from the same equal application standard as it has legally expanded to include the GLBT communities. As it should for us all.

May be a stretch of an analogy but I think there's some legalistic correlation. To include atheist free speech in 1st Amendment terms the standard had to be expanded, legally. As it should for us all.