May 18, 2015

A few weeks ago, a member of the United States Air Force, in full military dress, said the words,

"mostly I'm thankful that I'm a redeemed believer in Christ standing here right now,"

on a propaganda network known as GodTV. You'd have to be either insane or woefully ignorant not to see that as a violation of the Separation Clause of the Constitution's very important First Amendment. The military is a secular organization, and it was meant to stay that way, no matter how much the Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians protest.

Naturally, all this evokes the expected level of shock and horror of Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the self-professed, practing Christian who has the same disdain for the indigent as most of her Fox News comrades. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) sent this letter in response to this Christian Propagandist's egregiously blatant disregard for our Constitution. Here's an excerpt from the letter:

'As you well know, Major General Olson is the program Executive Officer for C3I and Networks” at Hanscom AFB, Mass. where, as that installation’s highest ranking officer, he commands 2,200 subordinate Air Force personnel and is in charge of nearly $11,000,000,000.00 of American taxpayer funds.

General Welsh (Chief of Staff of the U.S.A.F) , as the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Thus, please take a good, hard look at this link below (at the bottom of this post) and tell me that you’re just not sick to damn death seeing an active duty Air Force General Officer boastfully proselytizing and freely witnessing his personal brand of his own fundamentalist flavor of his evangelical Christian faith to literally a worldwide television audience and, concomitantly, streaming over the World Wide Web on “GOD TV” '

Can you even IMAGINE the essentially limitless propaganda bonanza this speech by Olson has ALREADY likely provided the sinister likes of ISIS/ISIL, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Taliban and a horde of other terrorist organizations that universally depend on painting the United States military as “Crusaders” for a virtual galaxy of nefarious reasons?

Obviously, Fox News' Peter Johnson Junior, their go-to-correspondent for sanctimonious Christian outrage, was also aghast, saying

"God save these United States if that's what we're up against."

He was referencing the letter from the MRFF. Their collective shock is completely fake, as they know damned well this is not an event sanctioned by the military and Olson willfully violated Air Force policy.

At the same event last year, Democratic Congresswoman Rep. Janice Hahn (D-CA), stormed out of the same event in protest over Focus on The Family's James Dobson's “10- or 15-minute rant against President Obama.” Dobson calls President Obama "The Abortion President," and also claims that gay marriage will lead to Civil War.

shirley
Shirley Dobson: Gay Marriage Is Evil! Credit: Twitter
Shirley Dobson, the wife of James Dobson, heads The ‘National Day of Prayer Task Force’: NDPTF. Shirley also called
marriage equality "evil," keeping the Dobson Family unified in their hate.

Fox News and Dobson all claim that this is a violation of the very same rights that our servicemen and women fight for around the world. But let's be honest and call it what it really is: another blatant attempt of Fundamentalist Christians who wish to hijack the military, which they've been attempting for decades. If a high-ranking Major General like Olson doesn't understand that his appearance at this Obama hate-fest in full military uniform was offensive to those whose rights are violated by his preaching, he shouldn't be in left in charge of thousands of enlisted soldiers and so much of the taxpayers' money. He should also learn some respect for his Commander in Chief, period.

Here's Olson's Evangelical Rant, over 20 minutes-long.

This is the violation, in black and white:

2.12. Balance of Free Exercise of Religion and Establishment Clause. Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for their own free exercise of religion, including individual expressions of religious beliefs, and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. They must ensure their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed to be officially endorsing or disapproving of, or extending preferential treatment for any faith, belief, or absence of belief. (emphasis added)

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