Do we not federally fund Chaplains as a part of every military Change of Command and graduation and retirement ceremony, and do they not invoke the name of God as part of these official ceremonies? Are not almost all of our formal ceremonies begun with parading of the colors, the Pledge of Allegiance, and an opening invocation and closing benediction? Do not our military academies begin their meals with a prayer, as does Congress? When we bury our dead at sea and ashore, do we not officially acknowledge God and ask his blessings on our departed shipmates and comrades? Of course we do. We also print “In God we trust” on all our currency. Surely this decision and treatment of the Boy Scouts is so totally out of synch with our national culture, military structure, and centuries of practice and tradition, that it is bizarre at best, and tragically discriminatory at worst.
My premise in all this is that if there are those in our nation who choose to attack the Boy Scouts for the use of “God” in their oath, and if they can find courts that will so readily misconstrue the intent and meaning of the First Amendment and what it says about the unrestricted practice of religion, then can our Chaplains Corps, our Base Chapels, our official ceremonies -- indeed our very oath of enlistment -- and our burial ceremonies be far behind? If all it takes is the mention or use of “God” on federal property, then it would seem to me that unless we can bring some common sense and long-standing national values to bear in our courts and within our institutions, then surely the fact that we use taxpayer dollars to hire people called Chaplains and then task them to conduct religious services on federally-funded property will soon come under attack from the politically correct gendarmes and their allies, the national thought police?
In my view, the ultimate hope for a solution lies in the basic good common sense of the American people and the affiliation of a vast majority of our nation in our historical military, religious, and youth groups, and their related ceremonies. There was a HUGE NATIONAL OUTCRY over this effort to deny the Boy Scouts use of or a presence at U.S. military facilities as our nation began to finally stand up and say, “Enough is enough.” And while I have little doubt that these lawsuits will not stop any time soon, I do know that the laws that are made in our nation are made through the will and agreement of the people. Ultimately, if this kind of political correctness continues to be practiced upon our youth groups, and potentially on our military chaplains corps, the people will rise up and change the laws to bring it to a screeching halt. And I don’t mean doing away with any perceived separation of church and state doctrine because I feel our nation strongly supports that approach AS IT IS WRITTEN IN THE CONSTITUTION and in continuing that “doctrine” in the manner in which it was constructed by the Founding Fathers -- NOT as interpreted by selected courts with their own political agendas and their own politically correct personal visions of “what America should be.”
What might be the ultimate craziness that causes the American public to rise up against this political correctness against national treasures such as the Boy Scouts remains to be determined. Perhaps as I suggest above, it will be when organizations like the ACLU decide to go to court to remove the phrase “So help me, God” from our oaths of office? Or some other bunch wanting to get rid of the military chaplains because they invoke the name of God in their official duties and wear religious symbols on their uniforms? Or challenging the building of religious chapels on military bases using taxpayer dollars?
But I can pretty much assure you that the day these thought police try to take away the use of “God” in our military burial services, or demand the removal of the crosses and stars of David from the gravestones of our honored dead, buried in federally funded military cemeteries, because “those are religious symbols being paid for with federal dollars and displayed on federal property” -- that, my friends, will surely be the last straw and the death knell for the politically correct thought police now advocating booting the Boy Scouts off military bases because their scout oath acknowledges God.
