Anderson Cooper 360 tonight on a soldier suing the govt for religious discriminiation...
The U.S. Christian military?
Randi Kaye
AC360° CorrespondentIs the United States Military becoming a Christian organization? That’s what one U.S. soldier tells us.
I met Army Specialist Jeremy Hall in Kansas City a few weeks ago. He’s based at Fort Riley, in Junction City, Kansas about an hour away.
At 24, he’s a remarkable young man determined to complete one final mission. That is to win a lawsuit against the federal government.
Specialist Hall is suing the Department of Defense and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for failing to protect his religious freedom. He says the military discriminates against non-Christians and his rights under the First Amendment were denied.
Hall has served two tours in Iraq as a gunner. He’s back at Fort Riley now only because he says his life was threatened after it became public he is an atheist.
“I don’t believe in God, luck, fate, or anything supernatural,” Hall told me.
It wasn’t always that way. Hall grew up reading the Bible every night and saying grace at dinner. Then, after his first tour of duty, he met some friends who were atheist and decided to read the Bible again. He read the whole Bible, and had so many unanswered questions, he says, he decided to embrace atheism.*
In the army, he says, that cost him dearly.
Hall says he was denied a promotion because of his beliefs, and felt his life was in jeopardy. He says the army assigned him a full-time bodyguard because of threats.
At Thanksgiving, Hall refused to pray with his table and says an officer told him to go sit somewhere else.
Also, after he was nearly killed when his humvee was attacked, he says a fellow soldier asked him, “do you believe in Jesus now?”
Hall says he was ostracized because he didn’t embrace fundamentalist Christianity.
We checked and religious discrimination is against military policy.
Bill Carr, the man in charge of military personnel policy at the Pentagon, told me, “if an atheist chose to follow their convictions, absolutely, that’s acceptable. And that’s a point of religious accommodation in department policy, one may hold whatever faith, or may hold no faith.”
Hall doesn’t want money from the military. He just wants soldiers to be guaranteed religious freedom. He plans to leave the army next year, as soon as he can, and wants to leave it a better place than when he first joined it, he says.
What do you think? Should military members be allowed to proselytize? Do you believe the Pentagon when it says this isn’t happening?
See the full report on AC360 tonight at 10PM.
* Nothing like reading the damned bible to make an atheist out of a person.
Randi Kaye
AC360° CorrespondentIs the United States Military becoming a Christian organization? That’s what one U.S. soldier tells us.
I met Army Specialist Jeremy Hall in Kansas City a few weeks ago. He’s based at Fort Riley, in Junction City, Kansas about an hour away.
At 24, he’s a remarkable young man determined to complete one final mission. That is to win a lawsuit against the federal government.
Specialist Hall is suing the Department of Defense and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for failing to protect his religious freedom. He says the military discriminates against non-Christians and his rights under the First Amendment were denied.
Hall has served two tours in Iraq as a gunner. He’s back at Fort Riley now only because he says his life was threatened after it became public he is an atheist.
“I don’t believe in God, luck, fate, or anything supernatural,” Hall told me.
It wasn’t always that way. Hall grew up reading the Bible every night and saying grace at dinner. Then, after his first tour of duty, he met some friends who were atheist and decided to read the Bible again. He read the whole Bible, and had so many unanswered questions, he says, he decided to embrace atheism.*
In the army, he says, that cost him dearly.
Hall says he was denied a promotion because of his beliefs, and felt his life was in jeopardy. He says the army assigned him a full-time bodyguard because of threats.
At Thanksgiving, Hall refused to pray with his table and says an officer told him to go sit somewhere else.
Also, after he was nearly killed when his humvee was attacked, he says a fellow soldier asked him, “do you believe in Jesus now?”
Hall says he was ostracized because he didn’t embrace fundamentalist Christianity.
We checked and religious discrimination is against military policy.
Bill Carr, the man in charge of military personnel policy at the Pentagon, told me, “if an atheist chose to follow their convictions, absolutely, that’s acceptable. And that’s a point of religious accommodation in department policy, one may hold whatever faith, or may hold no faith.”
Hall doesn’t want money from the military. He just wants soldiers to be guaranteed religious freedom. He plans to leave the army next year, as soon as he can, and wants to leave it a better place than when he first joined it, he says.
What do you think? Should military members be allowed to proselytize? Do you believe the Pentagon when it says this isn’t happening?
See the full report on AC360 tonight at 10PM.
* Nothing like reading the damned bible to make an atheist out of a person.