August 23, 2010
At least two soldiers allege they were
punished for not attending an evangelical Christian concert in May say
that the Army's equal opportunity program is fundamentally broken . The allegations have since led to an
Army investigation.
Anonymous soldiers and Pvt. Anthony Smith, who is on
active duty with the National Guard in Arizona, told Truthout they were
among approximately 80 soldiers who were punished for choosing not to
attend "The Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concert" headlined
by BarlowGirl, an evangelical Christian rock group, at Fort Eustis on May 13.
After being punished by cleaning the barracks, Smith
and another soldier that night organized approximately 20 of the
punished soldiers to complain to the fort's Equal Opportunity (EO) office.
The first EO adviser they met with tried to persuade
them that nothing was wrong, according to Smith. Both soldiers said EO
advisers pressured them to not file a formal complaint. According to
Smith, advisers he consulted with told him a formal complaint would
create a paper trail as well as "a timeline."
The adviser also told him
that the complaint would become "a statistic." Smith believes this
wasn't a lie. He said formal complaints are "100 percent useless."
"On May 13 the [non-commissioned officers] at Ft
Eustis issued us a directive (equivalent to a law which we must obey)
that we march towards a religious destination," the soldier wrote. "In
my mind that was an unlawful directive . . .
It's a recommendation that Mikey Weinstein, the
founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF),
wholeheartedly agrees with. On Thursday, MRFF's senior researcher Chris
Rodda exposed the alleged incident at Fort Eustis on Huffington Post after Weinstein received numerous complaints about the incident.
Smith said he turned to MRFF because no one else
would listen to him. He said other soldiers with similar experiences
shouldn't be afraid to reach out to MRFF "because they have the
resources to help."
Weinstein says the soldiers who came forward are
"heroes" that were "spiritually raped" by their command. Weinstein also
said that incidents aren't one-off events, and described the entire
concept behind the Spiritual Fitness Concert series as violating the
establishment clause.
There's evidence to support that accusation.
According to USASpending.gov, the Department of Defense (DoD) paid the
BarlowGirl's talent agency, Greg Oliver Agency, $23,000 to perform.
Vince Barlow, the band's manager and father, confirmed his daughters
were paid that amount for two shows, one at Fort Eustis and the other
at nearby Fort Lee.
According to their web site, BarlowGirl is "tender-hearted, beautiful
young women who aren't afraid to take an aggressive, almost warrior-like
stance when it comes to spreading the gospel and serving God."
Vince Barlow, however, said he spoke to the concert series'
creator, MG James E. Chambers, a born-again Christian, before the
May performance and said he would never jeopardize the concert series by
coercing soldiers to attend.
In response to the incident, the Army said Friday it
will investigate. "If something like that were to have happened, it
would be contrary to Army policy," Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins
told The Associated Press.
The problem, however, according to Weinstein is that
the concert series even exists, especially since it was created by a
commanding officer and that it's paid for by taxpayer money, a clear
violation of the establishment clause.
The brainchild of MG Chambers, the Commanding
General's Spiritual Fitness Concert series was created at Fort Eustis
when he was the commanding general there. In June 2008, Chambers brought
the Christian concert series to Fort Lee, when he became its
commanding general.
The point behind the concert series was to connect to
young soldiers. "The easiest way to get to Soldiers today is through a
phone or music," Chambers told Fort Lee Public Affairs back in 2008. "Through those means, you can change behavior, and that's what I'm looking forward to more than anything else."
There isn't much doubt that the concert series
promotes religious belief. Chambers admitted as much to Fort Lee Public
Affairs. "The idea is not to be a proponent for any one religion," he
said. "It's to have a mix of different performers with different
religious backgrounds."
But Smith says he hasn't heard of any act performing
who wasn't Christian. "I never once heard of a Muslim event or an
atheist event," he said. "The vast majority of them have to be Christian
events."
According to MRFF, the DoD has spent at least
$300,000 on Christian musical acts for these events. For instance, since
2008, the DoD has paid $125,000 to the Street Level Artists Agency,
which describes its mission as "Christian radicals ... bringing the
Gospel into the rock 'n roll vernacular of the common man," for
performances at Forts Eustis and Lee since 2008, according to records on
USASpending.gov.
Weinstein said Chambers' job isn't to stand for
faith, but to defend the United States Constitution, and he wants an
example made of the major general.
"MRFF has one simple message to our Commander in
Chief and the Pentagon he controls," Weinstein said. "Show the world
that we still have the noble capacity to be the Good Guys; subject Ft.
Eustis Commander, MG Chambers to immediate trial by general courts
martial for his blatant violations of the most foundational rubrics of
the oath he swore to the United States Constitution."
Rightardia covered this story when it first broke. MG Chambers should be removed form his post and charged with misappropriation of funds. There is no doctrinal basis for spiritual fitness in the US army.
Rightardia is also aware that evangelicals have been using God Rock to attract new young converts since the 1980s. Many churches sponsor Christian concerts to improve flagging church attendance.
source: http://www.alternet.org/module/feed/mobile/?storyID=147937&type=story
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
Netcraft rank: 9528
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment