A newly expanded federal lawsuit alleged Monday that the military doesn’t take complaints of religious discrimination seriously enough and allows personnel to try to convert Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan to Christianity.
The Military Religions Freedom Foundation and a Fort Riley, Kan., soldier suing Defense Secretary Robert Gates now allege that a bias toward evangelical Christianity pervades even the Army’s suicide prevention manual and the Air Force’s sponsorship of an evangelical motocross ministry...
That pattern, the amended lawsuit alleges, includes attempts to convert Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuit includes comments from two soldiers, including a chaplain, that appeared in Christian missionary publications about such activities, including their desire to distribute Bibles.
The lawsuit also criticizes the Army’s 2008 manual on suicide prevention, quoting it as promoting “religiosity” as a necessary part of the effort and describing “connectivity to the divine” as “fundamental.”
The lawsuit also notes that in 2007, the Air Force sponsored “Team Faith,” which performs motocross stunt shows to “lead extreme sports athletes to Christ.”
In addition, the amended lawsuit alleges, the Air Force’s Air and Space Power Journal recently published an article portraying Islam as inherently violent, by an author with ties to an anti-Muslim group.
The lawsuit also alleges that three military chaplains have endorsed specific ministries or religious products while in uniform. Those ministries, the lawsuit said, included a group that had a camp meeting this summer in which a speaker described President-elect Barack Obama as “an Islamic terrorist sympathizer.”
