U.S. Space Force Bible Blessing Sparks Outrageous Outrage
The faith event was deemed a “repulsive display of only the most vile, exclusivist, fundamentalist Christian supremacy.”
The simple act of blessing a Holy Bible for the new US Space Force has sparked outrage from the usual sectors.
The drama started when the images of the ceremony in the Washington National Cathedral were released on social media.
“Today @WNCathedral blessed the official Bible for the new @SpaceForceDoD, which will be used to swear in all commanders of America’s newest military branch,” the cathedral’s official account tweeted Sunday.
“We have been asked to dedicate a new Bible that will be used next week, when Major General John William Raymond will be sworn in as the first Chief of Space Operations,” Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, said during the ceremony. “And, shortly thereafter, this Bible will be taken into space.”
Today @WNCathedral blessed the official Bible for the new @SpaceForceDoD, which will be used to swear in all commanders of America’s newest military branch. pic.twitter.com/Bg9KVzrp8W
— Washington National Cathedral (@WNCathedral) January 12, 2020
Vice President Mike Pence went on to use that Bible to swear in General Jay Raymond as Space Force commander.
Breaking: VP Mike Pence gives the oath of office to Gen. John ‘Jay’ Raymond as the first Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force pic.twitter.com/3RMnLZwAdd
— Sandra Erwin (@Sandra_I_Erwin) January 14, 2020
The complaints began rolling in from the “religious freedom” crowd as soon as the electrons hit Twitter, decrying the event as a display of white supremacy.
“The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) condemns, in as full-throated a manner as is humanly possible, the shocking and repulsive display of only the most vile, exclusivist, fundamentalist Christian supremacy,” MRFF
founder and president Mikey Weinstein wrote in a statement denouncing the Bible blessing.“The utilization of a Christian bible to ‘swear in’ commanders of the new Space Force or any other [Department of Defense] branch at ANY level is completely violative of the bedrock separation of church and state mandate of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
Princeton Professor Steven Stauss offered this eye-rolling take:
So no Jews, Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Sikhs allowed in Space Force?
— Steven Strauss (@Steven_Strauss) January 12, 2020
The rest of the Twitter comments were just as lame and devoid of any understanding of the US Constitution and what the concept of religious liberty means.
US Air Force Officials then responded with some drama-free facts:
…Air Force spokeswoman Lynn Kirby said the description of the book as the official Space Force Bible is incorrect. And, she said, using it will not be required for commanders.
“In keeping with the Department of the Air Force historical tradition when swearing in a new service chief, the Bible mentioned in the tweet will be used during the swearing-in ceremony for the first chief of space operations,” Kirby said. “This option will remain a personal choice for each individual swearing in.”
Not having any serious issue with the current administration, the MRFF indicates that it will spend its time planning to lodge formal complaints with Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
The MRFF also announced it would assist clients filing Inspector General (IG) and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints.
Should efforts to appeal through the Defense Department fail, the group has vowed to bring their complaints before a federal court in Northern Virginia.
“The utilization of a Christian bible to ‘swear in’ commanders of the new Space Force or any other DoD branch at ANY level is completely violative of the bedrock Separation of Church and State mandate of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and also violates Clause 3, Article 6’s total prohibition of No Religious Test for any Federal Gov’t position. Additionally such blatantly scurrilous activity violates a slew of critical DoD directives, instructions and regulations.
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Comments
There is no ‘separation of church and state mandate’ in the Constitution, much less the first amendment. These guys are making this up as they go along.
Perhaps they’re thinking of the USSR Constitution which did separate church and state. These types of pissants tend to worship Communism anyways.
Not only separated but destroyed.
They suppressed some while normalizing another of their own creation: Atheist, Marxist, Progressive, with secular traditions. Everyone has a faith (e.g. conflation of logical domains), a religion (i.e. behavioral protocol), ideology (e.g. monotonic change), and cultural practices. In Mortal gods They Trust.
The point of a religious person swearing an oath on the religious text of their choice is that it reinforces the importance of answering honestly and introduces an element of spiritual accountability. Atheists don’t need to swear an oath, they can affirm that they will answer honestly, knowing the law will hold them accountable if they lie. There’s no constitutional prohibition that would prevent someone from swearing an oath on a Bible or any other text. It’s not a religious test because it’s not required.
Bingo.
You wouldn’t want an atheist swearing on the Bible because it means nothing to him. An oath is a promise taken before god (whichever one the oath-take believes in). When the oath taker doesn’t believe in a god, affirmation is made in attempt to bind the person making the affirmation by his own honor. If the person has no honor or no god, it’s still a legal foundation for holding the person to account.
That’s true only if said religious text requires honesty and accountability. That’s why the practice of letting Muslims swear oaths on Qurans is pernicious, because the Quran condones lying.
Actually there is. It’s pretty clear: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”.
And what law has congress passed establishing any religion?
A personal private letter from Thomas Jefferson is the bedrock of separation of church and state. Why not have Obama write a letter which can become the bedrock for dissolution of the Constitution… the doctrine of separation of the citizens of the United States from the Bill of Rights?
Of course I am a most vile, exclusivist, fundamentalist Christian supremacy type of guy… oh and white (most Cherokee than Warren?)… and.. I like my guns like a like my coffee… black. There….
Jefferson was upset at being called out by Christian Evangelical Abolitionists over his ownership of slaves.
The point of the letter was to tell them to STFU about it.
Worse, and this is still the central aspect of the “religious freedom” nuts today: his argument was that people of faith ought not speak at all on matters of public policy.
This, of course, is absolutely antithetical to what the 1st Amendment guarantees.
well bless their goddamned little hearts!
point of personal privilege: Mormons absolutely believe in the Holy Bible. I read the King James version daily, and regard it as scripture. Honestly….
This phrase jumped out at me: “Christian Supremacy.”
The dishonest demagoguery is almost breathtaking.
What’s frightening is the Left’s lemmings truly believe this type of thing.
Go soak your heads. *smh*
The twisting of “no state-required religion” into “no Christianity in gov’t” is one of the bedrocks of destroying our republic.
I’ve said it before, there isn’t any way we can live with these fascists. Give them any power and we’ll be herded into cattle cars. You heard bernie’s boy stating just that on Veritas.
The only reason they’re fighting so hard is the US is a huge prize money wise.
Today’s progressives are the most ignorant group of people our nation has ever produced. They confuse feelings with facts and they think history started the day they were born.
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There’s one thing putting a serious crimp in that (and they damned well know it).
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”—James Madison.
Anyone roll up a train full of those cattle cars and they run the serious risk of getting themselves shot to bloody rags.
Governor Blackface announcing an illegal order, trying to use a state of emergency to deny people carrying firearms as they rally in Virginia. Virginia passed a bill expressly denying the government the ability to do that, in 2012.
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=385311
This is a serious misstep. He has given the protesters an invitation to demonstrate their resolve to resist unconstitutional statutes by ignoring his declaration of an emergency. The gun owners going to the rally had better step up or it will only encourage the governor and the legislators, even if it only gives them the false sense that the gun owners will roll over. That could lead to greater trouble down the road. Without this declaration, when the protesters show up armed, it can still be dismissed as a all bluff and no bite. Not so if they defy the declaration.
I have a good friend in Virginia (a retired USCG officer). Tonight I am going to task him (via email) with going armed to the rally. (I am going armed to a rally in Olympia, WA on Friday, but our governor – so far – has had better sense than to issue what amounts to a challenge.)
It may surprise Stephen Strauss to learn that the Air Force Academy, which was venomously criticized some years back for having an aggressively Christian culture at the time, managed nevertheless to graduate cadets of quite a few non-Christian faiths without the Earth opening up to swallow it.
God as philosopher. While other acknowledge mortal gods as philosophers. Faith is constant. Religion is constant. Traditions vary by Church, Synagogue, Mosque, Temple, Chamber (e.g. Pro-Choice), etc. Principles matter.
Love it when the scum of the left pops their cork while PDJT is at the controls.
“And, shortly thereafter, this Bible will be taken into space.”
As a retired rocket scientist, I have to say that this is the sort of overpriced nonsense up with which I will not put.
Remember—it costs $10,000 a pound to send anything into Earth orbit. Things like this are expensive frivolities.
If everything else is already there, and you have room for one more pound, then the real additional cost is the fuel only, correct?
Do you know the Grandma test? It was the test me and my buddies applied to everything.
Do I want my Grandma seeing this on TV?
My grandma was a tough old bird. She did a lot of living in her 100 years plus 1 day. I could tell her anything. Except for one thing. I couldn’t tell her I disappointed her.
When you cross the perfume river and enter the wild, wild west where there are no other rules. Only thevgrandma rule remains.
How can you have a society when that society can have no traditions because some may potentially be offended by those traditions? This is why multiculturalism always ends in a bloodbath.
I seems that the people in the early Church in America that were going after people for witchcraft apparently have changed allegiances. The very thing they railed against the church for doing during those periods of our history, have become the same religious zealots that they hate.
Folks,
Apply the context from MRFF and basic common sense. All that is happening here is the MRFF using this occasion to advance their agenda of a purely secular military as opposed to a nondenominational or ecumenical military.
That said, there are folks in senior military positions who overstep the line on occasion. They use their command authority/influence to coerce subordinates to attend religious events and bring in the chaplain to pray at activities which don’t really have a need for it. Curiously when a new chaplain of a different denomination or faith arrives to the unit the chaplain is no longer deemed integral to the same events/activities.
The Air Force in particular went through a period where this kind of thing was rampant, so naturally the MRFF is sensitive to an AF officer whose first act, before being sworn in as the first-ever Space Force Branch commander, is to have a bible blessed.
The MRFF is just laying down a marker so let’s not make this a bigger issue than it is.
I’ll say this one more time; there is no such thing as the Space Force. It is simply another part of the Air Force. It uses existing USAF facilities, equipment and personnel to do what the USAF is already doing. The commanding officer is a serving USAF officer, as are all of the Space Force personnel. It is a sham and should simply be ignored. The creation of a Space Force, at this time, is analogous to creating the US Air Force, back in 1865, when all the aircraft, which existed, were balloons. So, to create a sense of relevance, the government does these “ceremonial” things. None of this is worth the time of day.
“The creation of a Space Force, at this time, is analogous to creating the US Air Force, back in 1865, when all the aircraft, which existed, were balloons. ”
Airplanes did not exist in 1865. Spacecraft exist in 2020.
Your analogy is very, very weak. Non existent to be honest. There were not enough balloons being used in a military way to make the establishment of an Air Force necessary.
The real analogy is the Army Air Force. There came a time when the Air power needed separation from the ground force, so they were split in September of 1947.
The same is true now. We need an Air Force administered by specialists in air power and air war. We need a Space Force administered by specialists in space power and space warfare.
Who is complaining? Who cares? They are irrelevant.
This is pretty moronic. They’ll likely have other holy books dedicated as well for those that are of other faiths. This is just more identity politics. They’d be cheering if it was a Koran instead of the Bible. While I’m an atheist I find this kind of IDPol ridiculous.