LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The Christian Science Monitor takes up the ongoing investigation of religious coercion in the US Military.

At Speicher base in Iraq, US Army Spec. Jeremy Hall got permission from a chaplain in August to post fliers announcing a meeting for atheists and other nonbelievers. When the group gathered, Specialist Hall alleges, his Army major supervisor disrupted the meeting and threatened to retaliate against him, including blocking his reenlistment in the Army.

Months earlier, Hall charges, he had been publicly berated by a staff sergeant for not agreeing to join in a Thanksgiving Day prayer.

On Sept. 17, the soldier and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) filed suit against Army Maj. Freddy Welborn and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, charging violations of Hall's constitutional rights, including being forced to submit to a religious test to qualify as a soldier.

The MRFF plans more lawsuits in coming weeks, says Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, who founded the military watchdog group in 2005. The aim is "to show there is a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religious beliefs within the Department of Defense."

For Mr. Weinstein – a former Air Force judge advocate and assistant counsel in the Reagan White House – more is involved than isolated cases of discrimination. He charges that several incidents in recent years – and more than 5,000 complaints his group has received from active-duty and retired military personnel – point to a growing willingness inside the military to support a particular brand of Christianity and to permit improper evangelizing in the ranks. More than 95 percent of those complaints come from other Christians, he says.

It's an interesting thing, seeing something that I have been personally writing about and investigating for over two decades finally come to light. When a publication like the "Christian Science Monitor" takes up the subject, it is truly serious.

The irony was that I started my own studies of coercive religious practices while I was enlisted in the USAF 27 years ago. A roommate who could not abide my having 'occult' books and who took it upon herself to burn some of them- including a rare Franz Bardon book that I haven't yet replaced- was the catalyst for me to start learning why people did things like that. After reading "Holy Terror" and dozens of other books, and talking to many people, I had a grasp on it for the most part.

Creating this community was meant to help me answer other remaining questions on this subject, which I must say, has been a greater success than I've ever dreamed.

An earlier poster asked about the purpose of 'Dark Christianity'. Its purpose is to reveal political ambition wrapped in the false flag of religion, and to teach people how to spot it, and if they can, counter it. Theocracies are only good for those who lead them. Everyone else is subject to their interpretation of Scripture and 'God's Will'.

The infiltration of our armed forces by hard-core religious people is alarming, but predictable. What better captive audience can such people have than wartime military members? Feed them some scripture and some rapture ravings, and then send them out to shoot at 'Hadjis'- after all, their god is a mere idol, right? Get them while they're young and idealistic, get them battle hardened, and maybe they'll lead the assault on our own country, shooting at 'libruls' and 'lukewarm' people instead.

Not a pretty picture.