Watchdog Group Asks US Department of Defense to Investigate Missouri Army Base That Promotes Baptist Church Proselytism
WASHINGTON — July 23 — Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate an Army base’s practice of coercing soldiers to attend church services during their training.
Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri offers “Free Day Away” as one of only two opportunities for soldiers to leave the base during eight weeks of vigorous Army training. (The other day is the day before graduation, which can be spent with parents and guests.) During “Free Day Away,” trainees are picked up by a bus sent from the Tabernacle Baptist Church of Lebanon, Mo., to participate in a day full of recreational activities, followed by dinner and a required church service.
Trainees are given the impression that the event is sponsored by the Army and that they must attend. If they do not attend, they have to remain on the base and continue with training, while those who attend the event have a break for the day.
“We believe that it is of utmost importance that the Army guarantee the constitutional rights of those who risk their lives to protect our freedom,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “And that means ensuring that soldiers have the freedom to practice any faith or no faith at all.
“The coercive religious practices at Fort Leonard Wood are an outrage,” he continued, “and the Department of Defense should put a stop to them immediately.”
During the church service, soldiers are told that they are all sinners who must repent and that they “must be saved now or go to hell.” Soldiers willing to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior are instructed to step into the aisles of the church and enroll in a six-lesson correspondence course that will lead to their “personal salvation.”
In a 2003 article in the Global Baptist Times, the pastor of Tabernacle Church reported that 270,000 soldiers had participated in the “Free Day Away” ministry since its inception in 1971 and that 47,000 had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. The Tabernacle Church also asks the soldiers to provide their home addresses so members of their families can also be “saved.”
Fort Leonard Wood has promoted this program for the past 36 years and the program is endorsed by the base commander, Americans United learned during its investigation.
Americans United, in its letter, urged Gordon S. Heddell, acting inspector general for the Department of Defense, to conduct a full investigation into the Army’s “Free Day Away” practice.
The letter was prepared by Americans United Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser and volunteer attorney Howard Sribnick.
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
So, Washington University extended its middle finger to everyone who believes that women are, like, actual human beings (maybe even as good as men!), and awarded an honorary doctorate to Phyllis Schlafly, radical right-wing founder of the anti-feminist Eagle Forum, anti-gay crusader of the first order, singlehanded murderer of the Equal Rights Amendment, suppressor of safe and sane sex education, and militant nationalist whose xenophobia puts Adolf Hitler’s to shame, whose bitter, twisted hatred oozes through her facade of “morality” in a perpetually pinched visage, utterly criminal fashion sense, and helmet hair that can’t possibly be on purpose.
Yeah, there was a protest (and we applaud the students and faculty who participated):
Wearing white armbands, Washington University students and faculty staged a silent protest as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly received an honorary degree at Friday’s commencement.
Hundreds got up from their seats, turned their backs to the stage, and stood silently as the 83-year-old Schlafly was bestowed an honorary doctorate of humane letters. …
Schlafly, who earlier in the week had called the protesters “a bunch of losers,” told The Associated Press on Friday that her proudest accomplishment was defeating the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. “Nixon, Carter, Hollywood, were for it,” she said. “We took them all on.”
She called university women’s studies departments “feminist propaganda masquerading as academics.” …
…but, despite the protesters’ best efforts, this is a stain on Washington University — and Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton’s justification for honoring this anti-freedom Nazi is laughable in its lameness:
… Our long-standing process for awarding the honorary degree was followed: Mrs. Schlafly was nominated by a member of the community and was reviewed by the Board’s Honorary Degree Committee. The Committee included faculty, students, trustees and administrators. After two meetings, Mrs. Schlafly and other nominees were recommended unanimously for consideration at the full Board meeting. The full Board voted to award the honorary degree at the May 2007 meeting.
Following the public announcement of the honorary degrees, many in the University community have called for the University to rescind that offer, stating that Mrs. Schlafly is associated with some views, opinions and statements that are inconsistent with the tolerant and inclusive values of the Washington University community. Personally, I do not endorse her views or opinions, and in many instances, I strongly disagree with them.
However, after further consultation with members of the University’s Board of Trustees, the University has concluded that it will fulfill its commitment to award the degree to Mrs. Schlafly. I apologize for the anguish this decision has caused to many members of our community.
That “apology” is just another way of saying: “I’m sorry if you were offended.” Not “I’m sorry we did it,” but “I’m sorry you didn’t like what we did.”
In bestowing this degree, the University is not endorsing Mrs. Schlafly’s views or opinions; rather, it is recognizing an alumna of the University whose life and work have had a broad impact on American life and have sparked widespread debate and controversies that in many cases have helped people better formulate and articulate their own views about the values they hold.
Oh, well, then, that’s different. Since a “life and work [that] have had a broad impact on American life and have sparked widespread debate and controversies that in many cases have helped people better formulate and articulate their own views about the values they hold” is all there is to your criteria for bestowing honorary degrees, you may as well honor Don Black.
And, Mark, you can save the malarkey that “the University is not endorsing Mrs. Schlafly’s views or opinions.” Giving a degree to anybody (think of your own undergrads) is the university’s confirmation that the honoree has fulfilled followed the university’s curriculum and met the university’s requirements for graduation. And the honoree will forever represent the values of the university.
At Commencement, Trustee Emerita Margaret Bush Wilson has volunteered to read the citation to award the degree to Mrs. Schlafly. As the first woman of color to serve as the national chair of the NAACP, the second woman of color admitted to practice law in Missouri, and as a prominent St. Louis civil rights attorney for more than 40 years, she provides a strong voice for the importance of tolerance and discourse as hallmarks of the Washington University community.
Like bringing up Margaret Bush Wilson — a female African-American — is supposed to soften the blow? Geez, Mark, could you be any more obvious in your tokenism? You sound like the kind of guy who would argue against gay rights by citing Andrew Sullivan as if he represented all gay people.
Being black and/or female and/or a civil rights activist doesn’t automatically make one wise.
In the midst of this controversy, I want to affirm my personal and the University’s institutional commitment to strengthening diversity and inclusiveness and to improving gender balance.
Additionally, I have made a commitment that the University will review the process for awarding honorary degrees and will propose appropriate changes.
Such as?
Washington University is home to students and faculty from all walks of life, from most systems of religious belief and political thought, and from all corners of the world. Yet we do not require these widely diverse individuals to agree with one another. We are stronger because disagreement allows us the opportunity to speak as individuals and as advocates for sometimes widely divergent agendas. …
Mark, there is right and there is wrong. Washington University was clearly wrong — and all you’re doing here is dragging out that tired old plea for tolerance of intolerance. Are you familiar with Karl Popper?
There’s more of Wrighton’s non-apology at the link. More of the same, that is — it’s nothing more or less than we expected.
As for post-game reactions, this one — by some clueless bot called Bob Ellis — is typical of the Radical Religious Right; notice the wild hyperbole, equating the Washington U. protesters with international terrorists:
Some applauded while Schlafly was hooded. But about a third of the graduating students draped in the school’s green and black robes turned their backs to her, along with some faculty members sitting on the stage behind her. Many family members in the audience also took part.
Three faculty members made the extra point of walking off the stage and then turning their backs from the audience.
A reaction like this might be appropriate if a university had invited or honored someone like, say Saddam Hussein, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong-Il or the leader of some terrorist group. Yet somehow I doubt that there would be the slightest bit of angst over such a guest at this school.
Of course, this writer is the typical idiot who believes everyone to the left of Genghis Khan is “anti-American” and “vehemently hate[s] our country,” and fears the Endtimes of America.
But here’s the best part:
I had the honor of meeting Schlafly last October in Washington D.C. She is such a nice lady…
Yeah, and George W. Bush is such a good Christian. (And I hear Hitler loved his dog, too.)
Now for a word from the reality-based community, per Bobbie Francis, chair of the ERA Task Force of the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO):
WU alumna Schlafly (1944 A.B., 1978 J.D.) has made a name and probably a fair bit of money for herself by writing, speaking, and organizing against a spectrum of issues she condemns as feminist or liberal — the ERA, Title IX (prohibiting sex discrimination in education), reproductive rights, comprehensive sex education, the right of gays and lesbians to adopt children or teach in public schools, the United Nations, and the teaching of evolution, to name a few. …
It is unlikely that the nation’s most visible anti-feminist in the second half of the 20th century remained barefoot while pregnant and raising six children, since during those same years, beginning in the early 1950s, she was also running unsuccessfully for Congress (1952, 1970), presiding (as she still does) over the conservative Eagle Forum she founded four decades ago, writing The Phyllis Schlafly Report and a syndicated column, and broadcasting commentaries on hundreds of radio stations.
She has traveled the country organizing, strategizing, writing, and speaking in opposition to women’s rights and many other issues, but she admits to no contradiction or hypocrisy in telling other women they should not have families and careers at the same time.
Her arguments against the ERA demonstrate the degree to which she is no friend of the truth.
The ERA, she says, would require the denial of Social Security benefits to housewives and widows. As a lawyer, she must know it simply means that such benefits would be conferred in sex-neutral terms (”homemaker,” “surviving spouse”).
The ERA, she says, means “abortion on demand.” She must know that the ERAs or equal rights guarantees currently in 21 state constitutions have never been used for that purpose.
The ERA, she says, would compel courts to approve same-sex marriages. She must know that the ERA simply says constitutional rights shall be held equally by citizens without regard to sex, and states with ERAs in their constitutions have been able to declare marriage a contract between a man and a woman.
The ERA, she says, would make women eligible for the draft. She must know that Congress already has the power to draft women and was considering the possibility of drafting nurses as the Vietnam conflict ended.
At age 83, Schlafly is still preaching her threadbare anti-equality gospel on campuses, at legislative hearings, and elsewhere. If she went on about race the way she does about gender, it would be obvious that her prejudiced views are often the equivalent of Holocaust denial or hate speech. …
Feminism, she told a Bates College audience, “is incompatible with marriage and motherhood” and is “teaching women to be victims.” She denies a married woman’s legal right to claim sexual assault by her husband: “By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”
Women should not be permitted to do jobs traditionally held by men, such as firefighter, soldier, or construction worker, she says, because of their “inherent physical inferiority.” …
Of course Washington University has the right to bestow an honorary degree on anyone it chooses. But recipients should be people who have contributed to making the world better in a professionally acceptable way, according to at least minimal standards of intellectual honesty.
Judging by the negative reaction to Schlafly’s selection, including an online protest site on Facebook, it is appropriate that Washington University will derive more guilt than benefit by association with this choice. Only by withholding the degree and publicly acknowledging its error could the university have salvaged even a shred of academic integrity out of the situation.
The Board insisted on proceeding today, however, they really should have made their presentation as follows:
“And so, Phyllis Schlafly, in acknowledgment but not in honor of your numerous activities over six decades in the misrepresentation of facts about and the organized obstruction of progress in social and political justice, equality of opportunity, and the guarantee of full citizenship status to over one-half of the nation’s population, Washington University mistakenly awards you the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.”
It was supposed to be fun and a life lesson learned but some parents and taxpayers in University City still are not laughing and remain frustrated over the school board allowing a young man to wear the homecoming queen crown.
. . .
“A king should be a king and a queen should be a queen,” says University City resident Richard Dockett.
. . .
The criticism was pointed directly at the board who thought this would be a lesson in diversity and the power of the vote, but some citizens saw it differently. “It appears to me that we put more emphasis on gay rights than on we do on educating our children,” said former board member Walter Daniels.
Zaggy’s run wasn’t about sexual orientation, he says it was all about fun which is mother re-iterated as she criticized the community for being what she sees as closed-minded. “As a parent this is the first time that I have been truly disappointed,” said Mariann Zaggy, “not in our school board not in our school district or our administration or our students, but I am truly ashamed in the self-righteous citizens and parents in our district who think the election of a boy as a homecoming queen is somewhat deviant.”
We’d be ashamed too, Ms. Zaggy. All we are right now is really glad we don’t live in Bigotsville, Missouri.
Officer in trouble over motorist’s video in South County
ST. GEORGE [Missouri] — A car-mounted video camera — more commonly used by police than against them — captured a loud and threatening confrontation in this tiny St. Louis County community that left an officer on suspension and the whole world able to listen in.
The picture doesn’t show much, but the audio part of the recording, posted on Google Video and YouTube on the Internet, brought more than 300 protest calls to St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig.
. . .
In the video, [Sgt. James Kuehnlein], a St. George officer for about two years, approaches a young man who was sitting in a parked car about 2 a.m. in a commuter lot near Spokane and Reavis Barracks roads. Kuehnlein asks for identification. When Darrow asks whether he did anything wrong, the officer orders him out of the car and begins shouting.
“You want to try me? You want to try me tonight? You think you have a bad night? I will ruin your night. … Do you want to try me tonight, young boy? … Do you want to go to jail for some (expletive) reason I come up with?” the police officer says. Later, Darrow says, “I don’t want any problems, officer.”
“You’re about to get it,” Kuehnlein is heard saying. “You already started your (expletive) problems with your attitude.”
After the officer notices the camera, he says, “I don’t really care about your cameras, ’cause I’m about ready to tow your car, then we can tear ‘em all apart.”
The 20-year-old driver, Brett Darrow, 20, who had installed a dashboard video camera “after past run-ins with police,” posted the video, in two parts, on YouTube:
Watchdog Group Asks US Department of Defense to Investigate Missouri Army Base That Promotes Baptist Church Proselytism
