Tomas de Torquemada in the US Armed Forces

About a month ago, I joined the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to replace Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL and member of the board who had recently been killed in the Benghazi incident. I was a reluctant recruit, knowing as I did the importance of spiritual solace amid the horrors of battle.

“Why,” I asked myself, “should we meddle with something so important?”

When the MRFF’s director, Mikey Weinstein, allowed me to

I knew that sexual assault, suicide and war wounds were already tearing up the military. Now, yet another perniciously destructive anomaly threatened good order and discipline in the ranks. And this one came from an almost unbelievable source: so-called Christians.

I write “so-called” simply because these people do not believe in the Christ of the scriptures; they believe in some human-crafted, almost devil-like version of Christ. These people have done to Christ what Osama bin Laden did to Muhammad.

Aside from the vicious nature of these people, however, was what they were doing to the armed forces.

When I joined its board, the MRFF had more than 32,000 clients. These were uniformed troops or civilians who worked in the military. Most – more than 90 percent – were themselves Christians. A few were Jewish, Muslim, members of niche religions, or non-believers. All felt persecuted, many because of coercion or duress brought against them personally from within the chain of command of their leadership, a direct violation of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and of the separation clause in the U.S. Constitution.

Whether being ordered to attend by Supreme Savings” href=”https://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/10/190907/tomas-de-torquemada-in-the-us.html”>continue apace despite the military leadership’s efforts to stem them.

I’ve read Sarah Blum’s book, “Women Under Fire,” and I’ve watched Kirby Dick’s film, “The Invisible War.” Both vividly document that sexual assault is ripping the heart out of our military.

Now, we have a breed of fundamentalist Christians trying to proselytize our armed forces into hell.

Perhaps worse, we have news media, members of Congress, research councils and a host of what I can only call radical fundamentalist organizations – American Taliban? – who constantly support them, urge them on, and demonize organizations like the MRFF.

Next, we will have the construction of fundamentalist Christian madrassas all across this great land.

I recall a cartoon from my younger days called Pogo. The main character, Pogo, was an opossum and his abode was the Okefenokee Swamp. This cartoon ‘possum dispensed from time to time some pretty fair wisdom (of course it was the cartoonist, Walt Kelly, who was dispensing the wisdom).

One day, staring into the dark recesses of his swamp covered with the detritus of modern civilization, Pogo said something like this to his companion, Porkypine: “Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.”

In that respect, mixing the Inquisition with our warriors is as dangerous as “us” gets. Mikey Weinstein and the MRFF’s sole mission is to fight the Torquemada in our midst.