Ban on troops communicating with religious freedom group clears House [View all]

Source: Military Times

Ban on troops communicating with religious freedom group clears House

By Jaime Moore-Carrillo
Jul 14, 05:13 PM

A conservative Republican provision of the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill that would prohibit Defense Department personnel from communicating with an established civil rights group survived a contentious House vote Friday.

The amendment, slipped into the House version of the defense authorization bill by Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, would forbid service members from contacting the Military Religious Freedom Foundation or its leadership. The legislation would also bar commanders from taking “any action or mak[ing] any decision as a result of any claim, objection or protest” made by the group “without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.”

MRFF’s founder, Mikey Weinstein, described the provision’s progression to the Senate as the “Pearl Harbor” in a far-right campaign to erode the rights of military personnel.

“Members of the military have the right under the First Amendment to free speech, as curtailed appropriately by the Supreme Court; they also have the right to petition their government for grievances,” Weinstein told Military Times. “Both of those have been viciously violated today by the actions of the far-right Christian nationalists in Congress.”

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The MRFF’s activism has provoked the ire of conservative organizations and lawmakers. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was one of several GOP legislators to slam leaders of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy for removing a 190-square-foot painting titled “Christ on the Water,” which depicts an image of Jesus appearing before merchant mariners adrift in a lifeboat, from a public space in the academy’s main administration building at the behest of MRFF in February.

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Read more: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/07/14/ban-on-troops-communicating-with-religious-freedom-group-clears-house/