[GATOR NAVY]

I'm not going to say that harassment of atheist isn't possible in the military. All I have is my personal experience of 24 years in the Navy with "No Religious Preference" on my dog tags. I was at about 12 commands, some large enough to have assigned chaplains, some not. I never saw anything that could be remotely described as a "Christian rally", no one anywhere in my chain of command ever hassled me for not being a Christian and I wasn't "insulted" by prayers at ceremonies.

As far as "support" for the rest of us, during an extended stay I had at Yokosuka Naval Hospital 500 miles from my family and command, the only non-medical person who regularly came to see me was the hospital chaplain. He sure didn't ask me if I was a Christian before helping me.

[DungeonMaster]

I was an athiest when I joined the Army. I also got saved in the Army and it had nothing to do with public prayer I’m happy to say.

[Vaquero]

Never having been in the service I can only rely on friends comments.

One friend who was in the Navy, Vietnam era, use to say that during boot camp, if you didn't go to services on Sunday, you were given lots of dirty work to do, like clean the head. Knowing this, atheist would go to services just to avoid the inevitable latrine duty etc.

[DrewsDad]

The coalition also wants President-elect Obama to develop a new directive for all chaplains and commanders that eliminates public prayers from any mandatory-attendance events for troops and ensures the Defense Department will not endorse any single religion, or even the idea of religion over nonreligion.

And so, their solution is to endorse nonreligion over religion?

[dday76]

It seems the near universal opinion on this conservative forum is that this is ‘no big deal’. But it is a big deal. The nontheists are just asking for support so they can serve.

Assertions are that there really is no discrimination going on. The demeaning and derogatory opinions against atheists expressed here are representative of those in the military. How successful can an atheist expect to be with that kind of sentiment from all sides, especially the chain of command?

Several have suggested that these people aren’t really atheists or wouldn’t be in a foxhole. That may be a comfortable myth, but the truth is that they have been in foxholes. The MAAF site has a long list of atheists in foxholes - http://www.maaf.info/expaif.html

Then there is the assertion that the poor poor evangelicals that hold a majority position at every level of command are the real persecuted majority. The only problem lies with those who want to abuse their power to blast prayers over loudspeakers, or to give Christian prayers to a captive audience, or to fund multi-million dollar global evangelism programs under the guise of ‘family support’ like Strong Bonds. It is part of our Oath to the Constitution and the first clause of the first amendment to put the mission first. There is still an opportunity for personal religion and the second clause of the first amendment as long as it’s not done officially.

Another assertion is that atheism isn’t a religion and doesn’t deserve protection. That’s really the important problem to solve. The deeply-held beliefs of nontheists are equivalent personally and legally to traditional religious beliefs, and it only helps to build the team by reaching out to the nontheists to provide morale, family, equal opportunity, and counseling support.

People here seem to want to shout down the minority. Atheists just want to serve without feeling like second-class citizens. It’s no different than Women, African-Americans, or Jews before us.

[CottShop]

hmmm- I thought these were supposed to be big tough military people? I guess I was mistaken in believing that they are- Seems they are so sissified that they can’t bear to have their ‘feelings’ hurt? Grow a spine you atheist personel- Words won’t kill you- don’t like what ya heaR? All I got to say is cry me a stinkin river eh?

[Diggity]

Maybe if they were shot at they wouldn’t think prayer was such a bad idea.