The Quran memo and the Constitution
By now, everyone has probably seen the memo wherein the CJTF-1 Chaplain banned distributing Qurans to service-members who don’t have “Muslim” on their dog tags. In order to get one, you need to either have a DA3161 declaring that is your religion, or get a letter from his commander detailing why the soldier wants/needs one. Is there a Constitutional Issue in play here?
Frankly, I don’t know for sure, but it certainly seems to me that there are a few issues. The basic issue of military chaplains was resolved in the case of Katcoff v. Marsh, which essentially said that chaplains are allowed because the Free Exercise clause and the nature of military service essentially requires it. The case is about the conflict between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause, and the court seemed to weigh the merits and found while there was some trepidation about establishment, that you couldn’t offer free exercise to troops without having the religious personnel there to facilitate that. (Brief side note, the “Marsh” in the case name is Jack O. Marsh, who was the Sec Army at the time, and would later be a friend and professor of mine in law school.)
Establishment clause stuff is kind of in flux, but generally it is understood that the Lemon Test (Lemon v. Kurtz) is still controlling. Discussion of that would take more time or effort than you care to read, but baldly stated the Government has to try to avoid getting TOO entangled in religion. Of course, as noted above, in this case they can’t completely excise all religious stuff, or they run afoul of the free exercise clause. So you have to have Chaplains around, but the Government, or the military can’t choose winners and losers among those religions. Largely they do this by figuring out what percent of religious practitioners are say Roman Catholic, and then as closely as practical, assign that many Roman Catholic Chaplains.
The problem here is a sort of “equal protection” argument among the religions. You can’t allow the Baptists to have services in the chow hall, and relegate the Mormons to the latrines. Not that everything needs to be entirely equal, but disparate treatment needs to be made on the basis of something concrete. If there are 4,000 Episcopalians and 4 Unitarians, you don’t need to make sure they have equal access to rooms or funds, it should at least cognizably be relative to their numbers.
So what we have here is just head scratching. Now, I honestly don’t know, and hopefully someone can share with me, how the “imminent danger” aspect of this works in. I don’t believe for a second that this policy is aimed at either hindering or furthering the Islamic religion, it seems pretty clearly focused on stopping any future problems.
Nonetheless, facially this policy has some serious shortcomings.
1) It seems to discourage any non-Muslim from having access to the Quran, which would of course make it more difficult for anyone considering a change of faith from actually getting the info that they should have. I’ve wanted to read the Book of Mormon for a long time now, but I don’t ask for one because I know I will end up on a list. I don’t want to become a Mormon, but I do want to know enough to talk intelligibly on their religion. Likewise, serving in A-Stan, I am certain some Joes probably want to know more about the prevalent religion.
2) It treats Muslim service-members in a way different from any other religious practioners. This goes without saying. It’s not too far a leap in logic to see that there’s a short jaunt from requiring “Muslim” on a dog tag to get the Quran to some other identifying marking. And no one wants to envision the days of people wearing yellow stars to show their religious colors.
3) The “distribution” by the military of various holy books is now no longer content neutral. One can get a copy of the New Testament or perhaps the Hindi Vedas, but only by meeting certain pre-requisites can one get the Quran.
(As Matt rhetorically asked: “Does the chaplain refuse to give the bible to soldiers with Muslim on their dog tags?”)
Is the policy justified? I think from a security standpoint that might be the case. Clearly the military believes that to be the case, and I am loathe to dispute that, since I don’t have all the info I would need. Perhaps this was a prophylactic measure taken after much thought, in consultation with the ISAF headshed, Chaplains and JAGs. That would be my guess.
But from a Constitutional standpoint, this policy seems fraught with danger.
Category: Politics
So have a family member send you a Quran. I am currently taking a comparative religion course and part of the course is reading and studying the Quran. If you want to know how they think and the importance of the religion to them then you have to read and study it.
This is administration driven and political correctness is running amok. Just my opinion.
I’ll mail you a Book of Mormon with no strings attached and no questions asked. I won’t even send any missionaries or bug you myself or anything! I enjoy your writing too much to not do you one little favor. My email address is in the email address section thing there, send me a mailing address and I’ll hook you up.
The Constitutionality of it is one thing of course, but the reasoning alone stated in the first sentance of the memorandum is what is bothering me.
Is the implication there that soldiers are guilty of desecrating the Quran in the eyes of hte military now? Despite the fact the ones burned were done so because they were desecrated by detainees and used as means of passing on information.
Is it the implication that Soldiers would now seek out Qurans to burn or otherwise desecrate?
This strikes me as nothing more than another attempt to appease the Muslims in Afghanistan…
I saw a video earlier of a drainage ditch in Pakistan that they drain once a year. (It is pretty much an open sewer) Thousands of Qurans are pulled from the feces infested bottom of this ditch, to be salveaged by what I believe to be a local Iman. The text said it can take over a year to remove the smell…
How can they be so outraged at the burning of desecrated Qurans, when they treat them the way they do there without a whimper of protest? Easy, it is not what happened but who did it. I think we all know that though, so how do you win that fight?
I think our response has been pathetic and weak, and this is just one more example of that weakness.
@3 – “Easy, it is not what happened but who did it. I think we all know that though, so how do you win that fight?”
Yep, because the infidels did it….and I don’t think you win that fight, especially after apologizing over it.
Here’s my two-cent’s on the subject. If a soldier wants a copy of a religious book, he can buy it himself. mail order, online, bring it from home, whatever. The Chaplain should have his own texts, and that’s it. Not one damned penny of tax-payer money should be spent on ANY religious text for ANY reason. That solves the problem right damn there. Of course, if I had my druthers there would be no chaplains at all. Let the fellows attend services off post when they’re out of a combat zone. Let them take God’s blessing with them when they go into theater. I’m pretty certain that God and His Angels understand that there are times when you can’t dot the I’s and cross the T’s. There’s a famous prayer before battle that a commander uttered which I think sums it up pretty well: “Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. Should I in my work forget thee, please Thou, do not forget me.” God and His Angels know what’s in your heart. Disband the Chaplain Corps and be done with it all.
Mass was celebrated in the early Christian church without any “ordained” ministers. It wasn’t until later on that Christianity began to become an organized religion with specific ritual and sacraments. Members of the LDS Priesthood serve in the ranks and can officiate where needs be. The military doesn’t specifically exempt Orthodox Jews from duty on their Sabbath. Almost any Protestant Sect Christian can lead a prayer service or Bible Study group. Much of Islam requires no specific “Catechism” to become a Cleric. You learn the Koran and get folks to follow you and there you are. I see no violation of the free exercise clause by eliminating all chaplains from the US Military. It should be an understanding of those taking the oath that there will be no specific religious facilities or staff provided for them, though no soldier sailor airman or marine will be prohibited from exercising their religious beliefs wherever and whenever circumstances dictate. We don’t give up all our rights when we join, but we all go in (or should, anyway) with the understanding that this is a unique situation and that some (or all) of our rights MAY be curtailed or restricted due to the needs of the service. I see religion as no different in that regard.
Oh man. Once irrational thought (i.e., religion) intersects with the legal system, there is no end to the paradoxes and absurdities. You’ve heard of “Draw Mohammed Day” I’m sure. As a nonbeliever I think maybe we should employ some equal-opportunity blasphemy, have a “Burn Holy Books Day”, burn torahs, korans, vedas, bibles, etc., a whole bunch of them, have everyone get really pissed off for a few days, then get over it, and get back to work.
The problem’s simple – to certain strands of Muslim, every copy of the Koran is a sacred thing, and for an infidel (who is by definition unclean) even to touch it – is about the same as flushing it down a toilet. (Before my first tour, one of the lessons we had drummed into us was, no matter where we were, never touch their Korans…) The idea, I assume, is not to upset the local nationals by having them know that those najis Christians are touching Holy Korans, whether they burn them or not, so as to avoid even more rioting and killing.
(If you download this article you can learn a little more about it. Footnote 126 notes the doctrine that “each copy…is entitled to the same respect.”)
Th Book of Mormon is freely available online and via mobile apps. The church’s website http://lds.org has the Book of Mormon as well as many other Mormon publications. There is no requirement to register.
Oh David, that would be perfect. I would love to read on my kindle, and it would save Cav the work, though I appreciate it.
Reading Michael Williamson right now (met him today, started reading Freehold tonight and it is AWESOME) and then will read that.
rb325th: Sadly, I can indeed see some young troop who’s just lost a buddy in a firefight desecrating a Quran in a grief-driven fit of rage. Removing the temptation to the maximum extent possible seems to me prudent.
And I don’t really have much of a problem with this. Those who are devout tend to bring their religious texts with them; those who “get religion” can borrow until they can obtain one by mail. Further: historically the military has had the power of press censorship during wartime on operational grounds. To me, this seems a very minor and defensible – and thus permissible – extension of that concept into the religious arena for operational purposes.
I’d prefer to see a “no free distribution” of religious texts by Chaplains in a combat zone vice a targeted one, though. Maybe a direct order system similar to the uniform replacement system that was used in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007-2008 could be set up.