Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Texas Republican Gets Demolished By Veterans For Trying To Force Christianity Upon Military

Veterans are calling out Texas GOP Rep. Sam Johnson for his effort to force members of the US Armed Forces to take an oath to God, and they wiped the floor with him.

In response to the Air Force Academy allowing cadets to omit “so help me God” from the oath, Johnson introduced the Preserve and Protect God in Military Oaths Act of 2015 to force God and Christianity upon our soldiers.

But Johnson’s bill has only pissed off veterans and the backlash against him has been swift and harsh as the House Republican has been absolutely trashed.

One veteran, Todd Celtrick, wrote a devastating comment on Johnson’s website condemning the bill and suggested expanding it to include all gods.

“I for one (as another vet) actually love this idea. We could have everyone at the end shout out what god or gods they are swearing to I.E. the Christians could say ‘so help me God’. But then the Muslims could yell ‘so help me Allah’ and the pagans could shout something like “‘so help me Thor’ or ‘Odin!’ Hell, we should let them go through the whole damn list while they are at it. Oh and the Satanists, can’t forget them! I guess they would yell ‘so help me Satan’, but yeah… religion! Oh and speaking of, every time someone wants the ten commandments posted on public grounds, we should have the Wiccan three fold law right next to it! This makes it all so simple, don’t you see!?”

Another veteran, Patrick Restivo, used even stronger language referring to Johnson as a traitor to the United States and a domestic enemy of the Constitution. The kind of enemy the military has sworn to protect the country against.

“I am an American veteran. I took an oath to defend the constitution of this great country from ALL enemies foreign and domestic. You sir are dangerously close to becoming an enemy of the constitution for suggesting that the rights of citizens be violated by trying to impose your narrow religious views on the brave service members who defend us all. We do have freedom FROM religion and if you try to take it away, we WILL fight back. If you want to live in a theocracy then renounce your U.S. citizenship and go join ISIS and be with the rest of your kind, you traitor.”

Four-time oath taker Mike Pakarek slammed Johnson for trying to create a religious army that would presumably be used to wage holy wars.

“I’ve taken the Oath 4 times. I’ve never mentioned any God, because I’m an atheist who is a patriot. This fight you cannot be allowed to win, both for my sake and for my Christian brothers in arms. America cannot have a religious armed forces.”

But perhaps the the best statement came from Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He absolutely blasted Johnson and ripped him to shreds using words that Johnson and most conservatives would have to look up in a dictionary to understand.

“The astounding ignorance and bigotry displayed by his brazen presentation of this proposed wretched sectarian legislation is literally mind-ripping. Not only does it viciously savage United States constitutional religious protections afforded all American citizens, including members of the U.S. military, it also provides an unparalleled bonanza of propaganda for our fundamentalist Islamic enemies such as Isis, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Additionally, it enrages our Islamic allies and utterly desecrates and destroys military unit cohesion, good order, morale and discipline. The United States Congress should at the very least censure this constitutionally derelict villain and universally despicable human being.”

If Rep. Johnson is wise, he’ll withdraw his dangerous bill and never bring it up again. The fact is, we do have freedom from religion. But rather than explain it myself, here’s how Founding Father Thomas Jefferson put it back in 1808.

“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved … the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”

~Founding Father Thomas Jefferson: in a speech to the Virginia Baptists, 1808

I’d say Jefferson is far more knowledgeable about the Constitution than Sam Johnson will ever be.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/03/24/texas-republican-gets-demolished-by-veterans-for-trying-to-force-christianity-upon-military/