HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

In the post USAF Denies Atheist Re-Enlistment, Buck noted the Air Force’s denying re-enlistment to airmen who refused to swear the full enlistment oath by refusing to say “So help me God” and asked:

Is the USAF provoking a religious test because they want God removed? What other reason could there be?

In reply, I wrote:

I believe this is all theater to provide cover for the government’s eliminating “So help me God” from the enlistment oath — and ultimately from any oath any fed may have to swear.  But the government cannot be seen as initiating the change.  The Air Force’s kabuki-refusal to re-enlist the atheist is intended to draw fire from the usual foes of religion in the military (and allies of the Obamites) to give them the opportunity to press the government for this change.  So that the government can then “change with the times” in response to the criticism, and do what the federal bureacrats of post-America have wanted to do all along.

This charade is designed to draw the fire of perpetually enraged Air Force Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein, who runs an anti-religious pressure group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.  And, playing his part, Weinstein has come through with a letter to Hagel in support of the complaining atheist airmen.  For Mr. Weinstein, the letter is quite moderate in tone.

In this instance, however, Mikey doesn’t have to play as rough as he usually does.  In what I strongly suspect is a carefully arranged set-up, Hagel’s going to take a dive rather than fight Weinstein —  and the deed will be done, the “offending” words gone.

Well, it turns out Buck asked the right question and I gave the right answer.  The Associated Press reports today that the case of the faithless airmen went up to the USAF’s General Counsel (perhaps the writer meant Judge Advocate General and doesn’t know anything about the military).  The GC/JAG played his part in the charade and directed that “So help me God” be hereafter optional in the enlistment oath, exactly as he (or she?; AP’s writer does not name the bureaucrat) was programmed to do.  The reason given was exactly what, in post-America, one would expect:

“We take any instance in which airmen report concerns regarding religious freedom seriously,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in a statement. “We are making the appropriate adjustments to ensure our airmen’s rights are protected.”

In fact what Mz. Jones (and what nation that takes its defense seriously would put a woman in charge of its air force? – no offense intended) is talking about is not “religious freedom” but the ongoing purging of any religious expression from American public life,  The Nevada Democratic congressman in whose district sits the air force base that was the site of this carefully scripted drama “applauded” the decision, according to AP.  Of course.

Lest we bash the Air Force unfairly, one should note AP reports that the option to omit “So help me God” has been available in the other services for some time now.

And so the de-Christianisation and de-naturing of what was once America continues apace.  I’m sure Barack Hussein Obama applauds the result as well.

— Comments —

Stuart writes:

Henry McCulloch states that the decision to make the words “So help me God” optional in the Air Force enlistment oath or affirmation constitutes “the ongoing purging of any religious expression from American public life”.

In fact, the words have been neither removed nor purged. They have simply been made optional. Since the U.S. Constitution has always explicitly prohibited the use of religious tests for any office or public trust under the United States, and since the words were until recently treated as optional, it is the recent policy of treating the words as mandatory which constitutes a deviation from the historic norm. The decision to make the words optional again is simply a return to this historic norm, and is explicitly required by the Constitution. Anyone who disagrees with the decision should blame the authors of the Constitution rather than the Air Force.

Laura writes:

Correct. There is no justification in the Constitution for requiring those words.

The American government hasn’t suddenly become atheist. It always was.

Buck writes:

A fair reading of both entries clearly describes and acknowledges that all of our military services allowed, without objection, the option of omitting “so help me God”. That was not in dispute. Henry McCulloch’s statement about an ongoing purging from public life is accurate.

The USAF seemed to abruptly break a long-standing cease fire, against tradition and against good order. There had to be a reason. We speculated about what that is.

One plausible explanation is that the USAF wanted, or was somehow tasked to press the long-quiet battle.

A truce with atheists can’t last. A quiet DMZ can only be tolerated by them, for so long.

My latest speculation is that the offended/offending atheist, so obsessed with his hate of God, discovered that the countless meek atheist before him had simply not uttered “so help me God”. In the spirit of good order, both sides stood down. The Creech atheist realized that the paper work also had to appear in good order. So, he drew a line through “so help me God”.

“Sir, can I file it like this?”

“No. Take it in to the CO”.

 Laura writes:

I know nothing about the offended atheist, but he wasn’t necessarily obsessed with a hatred of God.

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