The Big Lie

Just in time for the, ah, "National" Day of Prayer (and hey, I didn't, don't, and won't, and I'm willing to bet that almost no one else did either, whether they profess to believe or not), comes this steaming pile from the folks at Big Babywood, or whatever the despondent followers of L. Ron Breitbart (PBUH) are calling it this week.

So President Barack Obama’s civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a crime--possibly resulting in imprisonment--for those in uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains—military officers who are ordained clergymen of their faith (mostly Christian pastors or priests, or Jewish rabbis)--whose duty since the founding of the U.S. military under George Washington is to teach their faith and minister to the spiritual needs of troops who come to them for counsel, instruction, or comfort.

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains (or any service members, for that matter), to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life. It’s difficult to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in that fashion.

And it's been sternly retweeted by #jesuschristnotyouagain, so it must be true!

Oooh, heavy duty! Love that Mama Grizzly thinks she can order the preznit like she's telling one of her kids not to do drugs or have premarital sex. He'd "better clear this up today, right now", or I'll, I'll....go on Greta Van Susterenenen and make seagull noises until someone pays me to stick a cork in it.

Noted call-girl aficionado Charlie Sheen once famously cracked that he didn't pay hookers for the sex, he paid them to go home afterward. There may be a corollary theory in the second half of that equation somewhere with regard to Palin. The voice is screechy, but even her writing instantly makes me think of the "wonk-wonk-wonk" muffled-trumpet sound of Charlie Brown's teacher.

Then again, the last time this broad got a wild hair in her ass, someone got shot. So you might not want to piss her off.

It's a frightening tale of impending persecution against the poor, beleaguered Christians who still somehow manage to insinuate themselves and their dogma into every public ceremony and pronunciamento, no matter how secular in nature, against all odds. But here's the small problem about that story that Palin, and your aunt that sent you the email or the FB share don't realize -- the article is not true, not even a little bit:

Here’s the truth: Government officials met with Mikey recently to hear about why officials who proselytized to their subordinates needed to be punished. That’s all. They listened to what he had to say. They didn’t even take any action on it — yet. But that got spun into how the Pentagon hired some anti-Christian hate group leader.

To alleviate that concern, here’s what Mikey said about the proselytizing in a recent Huffington Post piece:

Neither MRFF nor any other genuine religious freedom organization of any repute has ever championed — and never would champion — that evangelical Christians, as a whole, should be ousted from the government or the military. We demand only that people of all faiths (or no faith) obey their solemnly sworn oath to the Constitution and follow the military’s regulations regarding religion.

Sounds like what the military should be doing already.

The article is blunt and provocative, as is much of what Mikey writes, but it’s certainly not suggesting that anyone should be punished or put to death for being a Christian.

Mikey wasn’t hired by the Pentagon. That’s a lie. Mikey doesn’t want Christians killed or punished for practicing their faith. That’s also a lie. What he wants is for our military to follow our Constitution.

Of course, try telling that to the good Christians who responded to Weinstein with nothing but filth and hate and vituperative anti-Semitism, the same thing that spurred Weinstein -- who started his career as a staffer in Saint Reagan's White House, mind you -- into activism. Funny how people don't like a bunch of Academy closet-cases hounding them with "Christ-killer" epithets when they're trying to become professional military personnel.

Don't be too surprised if this becomes the Bullshit-With-Legs story for this weekend; CNN can only do so much grief porn, and Fixed Noise was built to scream bloody murder over nonsense like this.