Group Targets Military's 'Religious Preference'

A support group for atheist servicemembers has launched a petition drive to have President Obama end the requirement that the services solicit the religious affiliation of personnel, including recruits.

But a week after the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers submitted the petition on WhiteHouse.gov the effort has garnered just 25 of the 25,000 signatures it needs by Feb. 5 to get any kind of response from the White House.

MAAF President Jason Torpy, a West Point graduate and former Army officer, acknowledges there is a long way to go but says he remains “optimistic that we’ll get the signatures once some other groups pick this up.”

Under the White House’s “We the People” program, anyone 13 or older can launch a petition on the WhiteHouse.gov site. Current policy stipulates that a minimum of 25,000 signatures have to be collected to get a response from the White House. Responses may not come directly from the President, but more likely from an administration official, including White House staff.

In addition to petitioning the White House, the MAAF also intends to contact each of the service chiefs and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to urge them to change how they solicit religious preference information from their personnel, Torpy said.

Though not a sponsor of the petition, the watchdog group Military Religious Freedom Foundation says it is also on board with changing the way the military collects religious preference information, and also how it is used afterwards.

“What MRFF has received complaints about is the fact that a service member's religion is listed on forms where there is no legitimate reason for it to be listed, such as the Army's ORB (Officer Record Brief) … forms whose purpose is to provide a summary of a service member's education, special skills, and service record,” said Chris Rodda, a writer and a researcher for MRFF.

“There is no reason that religion should be a factor in any career or assignment decisions that the information on these forms is used for,” she said.

The MAAF petition argues that soliciting a person’s religious preference causes undue stress and pressure to conform among recruits entering a predominantly Christian culture in the military. “Having the ‘right’ answer on ID tags and official records might make the difference in peer treatment, and in equal opportunity in military assignments and promotions,” MAAF states on the petition.

But Torpy said he is not opposed to the services collecting the data, only the way it is now done and the limited responses people can make.

“I think gathering religious preference [data] is important. It’s important for the military to have a good understanding of the true religious preferences of its members,” he said. “What I’m asking is that the question should be optional, so to understand what the true religious preferences of members are.”

Right now, he says, a person may give the religion they grew up with even if they no longer subscribe to it. “Someone who doesn’t care might still feel inspired to give [a preference].”

The petition calls for Obama to eliminate the religious preference question in entrance processing; change the default entry from "No Religious Preference" to leaving the space blank; eliminate the “No Religious Preference” option; and add “Humanist” and “Spiritual But Not Religious” as options.

While the last category does not describe atheists, Torpy said it would apply to others in the military.

“A lot of our members want a positive expression of what they believe, and that’s ‘humanist,’ ” he said.