Secular concert at Ft. Bragg canceled when Military renegs on promise to support it - Polidicks

[quote]RALEIGH, N.C. — A Fort Bragg soldier canceled a concert with a secular theme and no ties to religion, saying Thursday that base leadership failed to honor promises to support his show as it had a Christian rally last fall. Now, an advocacy group that watches for signs of religious bias in the military says it plans to file a lawsuit over the cancellation, arguing that Fort Bragg leaders have shown clear favoritism toward evangelical Christians at the expense of other groups. "It's heartbreaking," said Sgt. Justin Griffith, who announced the cancellation in a Thursday letter to Col. Stephen Sicinski, the garrison commander at Bragg. "I'm personally invested in this, both in money and time. And now I feel like I've strung people along." Calls to Bragg were not immediately returned Thursday evening. Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a planned speaker for the event, said his group plans to file the lawsuit. "We're not going to negotiate our constitutional rights," he said. "We're going to federal court." Fort Bragg is one of the military's largest bases. After a merger this week with what was Pope Air Force Base, the post now has about 58,000 uniformed military personnel and roughly 13,000 civilian workers. Plans for the Rock Beyond Belief concert, which was planned to include famed British atheist Richard Dawkins as its keynote speaker, began last fall, after an event on the post called Rock the Fort. That event, sponsored in part by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, was criticized by groups like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State as an attempt to evangelize not just soldiers, but civilians, who could also attend the show. Military leaders said at the time they would support similar events by non-Christian groups, a promise reiterated in a letter last month from the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate at Bragg to the Freedom From Religion Foundation. "Fort Bragg continues to be willing to provide the same level of support to comparable events proposed by non-federal entities," wrote Lt. Col. Nelson Van Eck Jr. Griffith and other organizers say that changed abruptly this week, when they were told that they couldn't have the large outdoor gathering with games and activities they had planned. Instead, they were told the event could take place at one of two indoor theaters, with the larger one accommodating about 700 people. In his letter to Sicinski, Griffith also says the base declined to cover any of the costs for Rock Beyond Belief, while it paid $54,500 toward the Christian event. Griffith also says he was told that any advertisements for the secular event would have to carry disclaimers that the concert wasn't endorsed by Bragg, while the Christian event was explicitly endorsed by the post. A military chaplain, for example, had sent out letters on Army stationary to area Christian pastors asking for their assistance in running the Christian concert. Because of the disclaimer, the financial support and the venue change, Griffith said, the concert he planned wasn't able to go forward, which has left him disappointed and frustrated. "This happened at the last minute," he said. "I just don't know how to pursue this further without litigation."[/quote] [url]http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/6e76a15ffa9d48ba831ea2c0950e7127/US--Bragg_Concert/[/url] This really bums me out, i've been following this for a while and it was looking promising, but the sudden turnaround by the military came out of nowhere and just crippled it. The fact that they stated their intent to equally support such things multiple times makes it all that much worse. It's blatantly unfair and biased that they would monetarily and verbally support an evangelical event but refuse to do so for a secular concert, and I honestly hope they get sued over this. Maybe the MRFF can actually teach them a lesson about, you know, military religious freedom.

[quote] "We're not going to negotiate our constitutional rights," he said. "We're going to federal court."[/quote] Fucking awesome response.

Come on now, that's nothing to bragg about.

I'd say that favoritism towards Christianity in the military is pretty common. Most of the people who have been in long enough to become high-ranking officers and NCO tend to have more traditional Christian values. We had bi-weekly bible groups led by the company commander for months in my company, and people who attended these events were excused from duty, to be replaced on work details by those who did not attend. These events were optional, and were in addition to the standard church services already provided by the chaplains in the church just down the road. There was nothing inherently [i]wrong[/i] with the bible groups, but it always seemed a bit unfair to me that I should be bumped onto somebody else's work detail so that he could go eat free pizza and sandwiches twice a week during optional bible groups.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;28426913]I'd say that favoritism towards Christianity in the military is pretty common. Most of the people who have been in long enough to become high-ranking officers and NCO tend to have more traditional Christian values. We had bi-weekly bible groups led by the company commander for months in my company, and people who attended these events were excused from duty, to be replaced on work details by those who did not attend. These events were optional, and were in addition to the standard church services already provided by the chaplains in the church just down the road. There was nothing inherently [i]wrong[/i] with the bible groups, but it always seemed a bit unfair to me that I should be bumped onto somebody else's work detail so that he could go eat free pizza and sandwiches twice a week during optional bible groups.[/QUOTE] That's pretty much what i've gathered from what all i've read/heard about this stuff, how Christianity is promoted and used to pressure people and how non-religious recruits and recruits of other religions can be treated unequally by both their peers and commanding officers. It's a real shame that in the military, of all places, people are treated unequally for their beliefs, though it's just a reflection of society as a whole I would imagine.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;28426913]I'd say that favoritism towards Christianity in the military is pretty common. Most of the people who have been in long enough to become high-ranking officers and NCO tend to have more traditional Christian values. We had bi-weekly bible groups led by the company commander for months in my company, and people who attended these events were excused from duty, to be replaced on work details by those who did not attend. These events were optional, and were in addition to the standard church services already provided by the chaplains in the church just down the road. There was nothing inherently [i]wrong[/i] with the bible groups, but it always seemed a bit unfair to me that I should be bumped onto somebody else's work detail so that he could go eat free pizza and sandwiches twice a week during optional bible groups.[/QUOTE] I'd go just for the pizza.

thus another reason for me to not join the military.