Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
With Mikey Weinstein's kind permission, I'm going to reprint an example of the kinds of letters and emails the Military Religious Freedom Foundation gets on a daily basis from active duty military personnel and their families. The details have been changed so as to maintain the anonymity of the person who wrote it but it is otherwise reproduced just as it came in. And bear in mind while you read this that MRFF has received more than 10,000 such communications.
Dear Mr. Weinstein and MRFF: I am absolutely worried about writing this to you, as I am terrified of the (military service branch withheld), but feel I have no choice. My husband is an honorable man, who I believe has been persecuted in the United States (military service branch withheld) for his refusal to cave in to the Evangelical agenda. He is a (rank withheld), waiting for his retirement, that he won as a part of his Court Martial proceeding in (time frame withheld). Mikey, I have never seen anything like this. My husband has a (educational degree and discipline withheld), taught at (university name withheld) where we often bucked the system regarding the proselytising and has had an honorable career (in the top 4% of rank withheld) in (military command name withheld) until a new command came in to (military installation name withheld) in (month and year withheld). Up until then he was considered to be an excellent candidate for (rank withheld) but we refused as he only wanted to retire and get away from the bible thumping. This command is evangelical in nature-and they harassed me all the way through my husband's court proceeding. When the new command came in, my husband (raised Catholic and an agnostic now) found himself under investigation for (infraction withheld) and then they finally dug until they found (minor infraction name withheld) that were present and could not be denied. My husband, scared for his pension and his family, plead guilty to some of the charges leveled against him. Ultimately, (husband's name withheld) was given an honorable discharge and his pension. Anyways, this commander of his called me often, telling me that "if you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, then things will go better for (husband's name withheld)." He went to the brig yes-the judge sent a (rank withheld) to the brig for 45 days)and then asked to pray over my husband, telling him if he just confessed his "sins" to "Jesus Christ" then he would find things getting better for him. Of course (husband's name withheld) gave his commander permission to pray over him as he was terrified to say no-because we believe all of this stemmed from my husband's stance on the illegality of evangelical proselytising in the (service branch name withheld). So, now he was due to retire on (date withheld), but the (military branch name withheld) "cannot get his paperwork." I complained about this pressure put on us several times to the JAG, who has done nothing to my knowledge on our behalf. I believe they are being passive aggressive with the retirement because I complained about the harassment from my husband's commander who told me "call me even in the middle of the night, (wife's name withheld). I will pray with you, anywhere anytime. Jesus is your Lord, and we all soldier forth in his service." I shudder to think of what they could do when they find out I wrote to you. I am a professional woman, an educated woman, and I know they could try to ruin me for speaking to you. I am crying writing this. I am scared of these people, and I know that they will try to do something else. I was told by my husband's commander that I should attend his church. I wonder if because we did not they are "punishing" my husband now by slow leaking his retirement. What does it mean "things will get better for your husband"? I appreciate your time sir. With best regards, (name and location withheld)
Politics
Comments
It's times like these that I think we should pass a Constitutional Amendment making the active promotion of religion to be a crime.
Posted by: Woody Tanaka | June 29, 2009 10:02 AM
The military are the folks with all the guns and tanks and H-bombs, right?
Posted by: Gingerbaker | June 29, 2009 10:06 AM
I['m sure that the blogs resident born again whackjob, JD, will be along with a quite different spin on the letter.
Posted by: SLC | June 29, 2009 10:20 AM
Back in my evangelical days, I would have considered the notion of external coercion to convert completely absurd, and utterly anathema. I always believed (and still believe, and this is just more data for the thesis) that Christianity + earthly power = corruption of both. This is both bizarre and frightening.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | June 29, 2009 10:26 AM
Whaargarbl + wall of text = Wallgarbl?
Posted by: schism | June 29, 2009 10:29 AM
They get these types of complaints all the time, unfortunately. The MRFF letter to CFGC is up and we'll see if anyone at the Pentagon takes notice. I did a fact check on their complaints and came out of it very impressed with Mikey and MRFF.
http://www.moaablogs.org/battleofthebilge/2009/06/mrff-cfgc/
Posted by: Matthew LoFiego | June 29, 2009 12:01 PM
I'll second Eamon Knight's comment. Even when I was a believer , I would instantly known how wrong this is. At that time (ca. 1980's), I think most of the people in my church would have agreed, but nowadays I'm not so sure.
Posted by: Scott Hanley | June 29, 2009 12:03 PM
It appears Evangelical Christianity is being replaced with (or becoming?) Coercive Christianity.
Posted by: llewelly | June 29, 2009 12:51 PM
If I had stayed in the Navy, I would have been able to retire 3 years ago. This letter shows me I was right to get out when I did.
Posted by: Daft Greg | June 29, 2009 12:56 PM
If I had stayed in the Navy, I would have been able to retire 3 years ago. This letter shows me I was right to get out when I did.
According to comments I've seen elsewhere, the USN is relatively sane.
Posted by: alias Ernest Major | June 29, 2009 1:06 PM
You might want to redact the term used for that branch's military jail. It is not common to all branches and gives a hint as to identity.
Posted by: Galbinus_Caeli | June 29, 2009 1:32 PM
Ditto on Galbius @#11 Ed, remove it immediately and erase our comments, and clear the server's cache if you can.
Posted by: The Pale Scot | June 29, 2009 1:46 PM
Seems to me this is being used as evidence there is a religious conspiracy in the military. I speculate that if all the facts of every case were truly revealed, religious pressures would be just a minor aspect of a much larger problem that has been prevalent for years in the military.
There has to be more to the story. I was an outspoken atheist in the USMC and had no problem getting to 20 years for retirement. I've seen harassment like this, but it was usually conducted against idiots that did foolish things because they didn't like their lot in the service. Commanders and supervisors would go to extremes to get rid of people like that, exerting unjustifiable treatment they would not dream of under ordinary circumstances simply because they knew nobody would side with the malcontent. In such cases it was simply that they used their authority to make life miserable for the malcontent, or rather misused it. The only difference in this case seems to be religious pressure is being used.
Posted by: Steve | June 29, 2009 1:59 PM
Steve,
The letter states that the officer in question is near retirement. In your experience, is it common for people who've served that long to be the kind of foolish idiots that commanders and supervisors would go to such lengths to get rid of?
Posted by: James Hanley | June 29, 2009 2:23 PM
James,
You can't use time-in-service as a good qualifier of quality especially within the officer corp. I'm not making any judgments on this guy (I think the behavior of his command is atrocious), just clarifying things on that one issue.
Posted by: Scott Reese | June 29, 2009 2:52 PM
Ed,
In line with what Pale Scot and Galbinus said, you should also redact the length of the term of the sentence.
Posted by: 2-D Man | June 29, 2009 3:40 PM
llewelly
Christiaity has always been a religion that goes, we will be nice and convert you, if you still refuse we will make you at sword point, look at all the conversions during the dark ages when people resisted
Steve
To me the point is that they are making this guys life difficult because he refuses to convert, yeah they may think the guy is an idiot and want to make life difficult for him, but why would they tell him to convert and make his life easier??
XxX
Posted by: Kim | June 29, 2009 5:22 PM
ugh. I currently have 3 members of my family on active duty in the Army and AF. My husband was a Marine and then served 20 years in the AF.
None of these family members are church-goers and none have been on the receiving end of any coercion to become such.
I sincerely hope these instances of abuse are few and far between, but like the instances of SWAT teams getting addresses wrong, not even one instance should go unchallenged.
Posted by: Donna B. | June 29, 2009 5:49 PM
This is sick. I used to date someone whose father was in the military, and I saw first hand how ingrained religiosity is in the military.
Posted by: TheDailyJokelahoman | June 29, 2009 6:31 PM
When I was in Navy medicine, I worked in the lab. I didn't see any particular animosity towards one group or another, although there were definitely cliques of folks who hung out. There were swingers, gays, straights, and a relatively small contingent of born again types. Generally, these groups were completely non-antagonistic. However, at that time, there was a large push to purge the military of anyone who used drugs, was over-weight, or had alcohol issues. The Navy response to that was OA or AA. IN other words these things were considered a "disease." Drug use would get you booted with a medical, as would chronic obesity or repeated alcohol offenses. However, you could receive "treatment" which consisted of the 12 steps for obesity and alcoholism. A little more knowledge has shown me that these programs are mainly havens for evangelical types and the process(steps) are essentially a means of becoming a born again evangelical. The irony in the military of course is that you have folks being driven towards 12 steps to become Christians(or more literal thinking Christians), while folks with different sexual life styles are allowed to go on being as hedonistic as they want to be. Look, I think the removal of "nymphomania" as a disease amongst psychologists was correct. It is interesting to note the diagnosis of "sexual addiction" is coming back with a 12 step cure. My whole point is that these sorts of diseases are non-specific( are you an alky if you drink only on Friday? How many partners make a sexual addict? Is addiction to porn, an addiction because of frequent mastribation? How much is too much?) The whole point of the disease is to push someone into spiritual/religious belief. I've got a hard time believing the military is "infested" with evangelicals. However, I'm positive that the 12-step movement is a genuine blessing to the evangelical movement.
Posted by: Mike Olson | June 29, 2009 7:10 PM
Forget redacting the few remaining identifiable bits. Ed most likely got that letter from the MRFF newsletter, as is - I know that's where I saw it first. So changing it on his blog would do little to mitigate the damage (if any).
I know Chris Rodda reads this blog, probably a lot more MRFF staffers as well. I'm sure they'll take these comments on board when cleaning up future e-mails for publication.
Posted by: BobApril | June 29, 2009 8:31 PM
Does anyone know what his court martial was for?
"He is a (rank withheld), waiting for his retirement, that he won as a part of his Court Martial proceeding in (time frame withheld)."
No one "wins" retirement from a court martial. Retirement is earned and only taken in the most heinous circumstances.
"I know they could try to ruin me for speaking to you. I am crying writing this. I am scared of these people, and I know that they will try to do something else."
In this sentence it's obvious she's talking about Obama and his thugs. The military can't touch civilians without direction from higher ups...remember Abu Grahab and Cheney?
Maybe, just maybe, this soldier had a very religious commander who cared about him and wanted him to find comfort as a result of his "crimes." Maybe he was just a well-meaning boss. Kind of like a union steward who wants to assure you that paying dues is good for you and will "help the country." (Through his wallet!)
I spent 29 years in the service and NEVER, EVER saw anything like this. This whole letter sounds false to me. You guys are such suckers, looking for someone to hate and ridicule that you'll fall for anything. Too bad you're the pawns of the current administration, spreading false stories and malicious, hateful rumors. All in all, this situation as described, DID NOT happen. Really.
Posted by: Carla | June 30, 2009 8:29 PM
Like Carla, I spent half a lifetime in the service (USMC). There are a couple of details in the letter quoted that I find puzzling.
Usually, particularly if the infraction is minor and the defendant close to retirement, he/she is permitted to retire to save the military money (investigations and courts-martial are expensive)and embarrassment. But if the infraction was serious enough for brig time (either pre-trial confinement or subsequent to an actual conviction) that doesn't happen. Something's strange here.
Two siblings, a spouse, three brothers-in-law, one parent, three nephews, and myself have served or are now serving on active duty. A commander with a bee in his bonnet can certainly make life hell for those who don't fall in line (I remember a division commander in Oki who had a pathological hatred of moustaches). But while there are a great many public manifestations of Christianity in the US military (prayer breakfasts, etc) none of us can remember that any of them were mandatory, or that non-attendance spelt career suicide.
Posted by: Shay | July 3, 2009 5:08 PM