On May 14, twenty Christian Nationalist members of Congress wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper, decrying the success of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) in getting proselytizing COVID-19 chaplain videos removed from military command Facebook pages.
As I wrote at the time:
“Another MRFF victory highlighted in the letter — or rather a series of victories — is MRFF’s recent success in getting various military commands to remove proselytizing COVID-19 chaplain videos removed for their commands’ Facebook pages. These videos, posted on the Facebook pages of Fort Hamilton, Fort Drum, Redstone Arsenal, and the Air Force Reserve were complained about by members of those military commands, who saw them as the chaplains capitalizing on the COVID-19 crisis to proselytize. In all four cases, when contacted with the complaints about these videos, the commanders (who no doubt consulted with their legal staffs) decided to take them down. MRFF’s position on these videos is not that chaplains can’t make them and post them, but that they should be posted on the base’s or unit’s chaplain’s page, not the command page. (But why would a chaplain bent on proselytizing want to post on a piddly little chaplain’s page that only has a few hundred followers, when their command’s page has thousands or even tens of thousands of followers and command perceived endorsement?)”
MRFF’s position has always been that it’s fine for chaplains to post religious videos, but they should be posted on their chapel page, not on their unit’s command page where both religious and non-religious service members go for information.
Just this morning, Mike Berry of the fundamentalist Christian legal organization First Liberty Institute wrote in on op-ed on the Washington Examiner, titled “The Army must protect chaplains fighting through the coronavirus,” wrote of MRFF’s success in getting the proselytizing videos removed:
“The Orwellian-monikered Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which once demanded 400 trials by courts-martial for service members who dared to exercise their First Amendment rights, recently embarked on a campaign of assaults against religious freedom within the military.
“The MRFF publicly demanded immediate punishment against four Army chaplains because they had the audacity to carry out their constitutionally mandated mission during the pandemic.”
Berry further wrote:
“In each of the aforementioned incidents, the Army’s immediate reaction to the MRFF’s demands violated the constitutionally protected rights of these chaplains. The Army should act swiftly to correct these mistakes as quickly as it made them.”
Sorry, Mr. Berry, but the Army Chief of Chaplains office has just come down firmly on the side of MRFF, issuing on May 26 “Additional guidelines for displaying UMT internet content,” which begins:
“Using Technology and Social Media Platforms is vital to providing religious support, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. As a Corps, we have been connecting with and supporting our Soldiers, their Families, and our Army Civilians in amazing new ways these past several months. Unfortunately, our Corps’ increased exposure has brought with it an increased level of scrutiny – but it’s important that we learn from that scrutiny and continue to hone our craft. …”
That scrutiny, of course, came from MRFF, or rather from the military members who reported the proselytizing videos to MRFF requesting MRFF’s advocacy to get the videos removed from their commands’ Facebook pages.
Sections 3 through 6 of the new guidelines (emphasis added below) precisely state what MRFF’s position has been all along – that religious chaplain videos be posted only on chapel pages, where, as the guidelines say, “individuals must make a choice to engage the material.”
“3. General encouragement can be placed on a unit webpage, but specific religious support content should be on a dedicated UMT, RSO, or Chapel webpage.
“4. UMT, RSO, and Chapel home pages should be “one click away” from the associated unit page – and religious support content other than those hyperlinks should never be displayed on any unit page.
“5. Any content in support of a specific religion should be “one click away” from the associated UMT, RSO, or Chapel home page – and content in support of a specific religion should never be displayed on a UMT, RSO, or Chapel home page.
“6. When providing content with a limited audience, as you often should, use a more secure platform than a simple webpage – such as a Facebook Group, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom – so that individuals must make a choice to engage the material.”
These Army Chief of Chaplains guidelines go even further than what MRFF has been demanding, saying that content promoting a “specific religion” shouldn’t even be directly posted on chapel pages, but should only be linked to or provided via private platforms for those who make a choice to engage.
Cue the outrage from Mike Berry, those twenty members of Congress, Fox News, etc., etc., etc.