Beyond Belief, Read only If you believe In Fairness, wether is Religious or Not
Before you start reading, adamfoxie*'s website would like to ask you: Do you believe in fairness, wether applied to gay or straight or religious or non believer? Please keep your answers in mind as you read this report.
Over the weekend, it was noticed that a new petition was taking off like a rocket. Kevin Jenkin’s petition asking the US Army for equal treatment for religious and non-religious soldiersgathered 1,500 signatures before I could even move it into the featured category.
The petition addresses an incident at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. In the fall, the base hosted and provided resources for a Christian music and speaking event. After the event, Sgt. Justin Griffith decided that it was only right if the base hosted a similar event for atheists as well. He went about organizing one, and got approval along every step of the way.
At the last step, however, all plans were scuttled when the base balked at providing the same type of funding it had provided to the religious event.
Kevin set up the petition in support of Justin, whom I was able to get in touch with and told me a bit about himself, the event he’d been planning, and what he’ll do next if this petition effort is successful and he’s given the same treatment as the religious event.
If you haven't yet, please take a second to sign the petition, then read on.
WK: Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your background?
Sgt. JG: I’m a 28 year old Sergeant in the U.S. Army (Active Duty). I’m stationed at Fort Bragg, NC, where I live with my wife Tianna, and my month old daughter, Zoe. Being raised in the oversized Texas-shaped buckle of the Bible belt, I was spoon-fed biblical literalism and creationism from very early on. Although my personal journey away from religion was difficult and emotionally taxing, I still maintain an excellent relationship with both parents. They respect me and love me just the same, atheist or not.
I joined the Army several years after ‘de-converting’, and have grown in many ways since. Nobody is twisting my arm here, I love the Army. I love my fellow Soldiers.
WK: when did you get inspired to put together Rock Beyond Belief?
Sgt JG: The day after Rock the Fort, the evangelical Christian membership drive. (that happened on September 25). I had received dozens of emails and several posters and flyers from officials at Fort Bragg for the Christian conversion event. I saved them because I sort of had a feeling that ‘this was going to be huge.’
As you may know, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, even the American Civil Liberties Union and many others were all vocally opposed to the pending evangelical Christian event. Pleas were made to Bragg officials to cancel it, but LTG Helmick stated that the event wouldn’t be crossing the line because they would be both willing and able to provide the same support to any comparable event. We were the first to graciously take him up on that offer.
During the initial week or two, I had contacted every secular organization and invariably they said “We were going to do an event too! We were going to call it [X]” That’s when I knew that if I kept at it, the interest was already there. The skeleton existed, but it was up to us to add the muscle and flesh it out.
WK: I notice that your poster has a number of artists already lined up, how far along in the planning process had you gone before running into issues?
Sgt JG: We were ridiculously far into the process. The ending really surprised us. That might sound naĂ¯ve to some of your readers, but it’s not. We had been so meticulous and ‘by the book’ that we really did a knock out job behind the scenes. I’m trying hard to avoid overly-complicated military jargon here, but basically we were not optimistic at the start. We became optimistic.
At first, we were laughed away, but then all the right offices started listening to us. I’m not sure if it was the addition of a name like Richard Dawkins, or the requests for press passes from PBS, or the other mainstream news coverage we are always on the cusp of getting. But by mid-December things were going our way.
Out of the many signatures we needed to get on our submission, every single one of them made us nervous. But one after another, each department came back to us with a green light, recommending supporting our event in full to the next guy up. The most stressful wait was the big one: Fort Bragg’s legal department had our packet for a month straight. They came back to us in late February with a recommendation to the Garrison Commander to give us *everything* we asked for. That was huge for us, especially because the Garrison Commander was the very last person who needed to sign off on the event, and we were assured that it was largely ‘a done deal’ and to expect the final bit in a day or so.
Unfortunately, the last minute crippling restrictions came to us in the ironic form of an ‘approval letter’ from the Garrison Commander. He went against the advice of his own legal staff, which is his right to do. They are just recommendations. Then again, it is our opinion that they were recommendations based in policy and regulations. We are still holding out hope to see if we can avoid taking Mikey Weinstein up on his offer to litigate on our behalf via the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He describes the case as a ‘one inch putt’.
This is still a developing story, so it’s difficult to say how this will play out. April 2nd is definitely out. But we plan to re-approach with a new date for the fall to try to offer a ‘2nd try’, but we are not going to budge on the severe restrictions that crippled our first attempt at the last step.
We know a lot of people got screwed with hotels and other arrangements in the week or so that went by after we announced our event’s date, and the March 1st ‘A Believable Stop’ post that really broke my heart to write. To all of those people out there, I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I’m not the one who owes you an apology, but I’m offering you one anyway.
WK: Despite the set backs, will you try to host this event, or a similar one, in the future?
Sgt. JG: I think my above answer hints at the possibility of doing a 2nd chance Rock Beyond Belief. It’s too early to tell how it would go over, though luckily I’ve been assured that the process will be MUCH shorter, and we’ll clear it through the Garrison Commander first. He is a very busy and important man, so I expect it to a week or two easily, and I haven’t even formally re-submitted the packet yet.
Weldon Kennedy is a Change.org Director of Organising. He has worked on a variety of issues and elections and spent many years managing campaigns for the London-based ONE.org.
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