Atheist soldier claims harassment

JUNCTION CITY, Kansas (AP) — Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.

But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging that he’s been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn’t believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

“I’m not in it for cash,” Hall said. “I want no one else to go what I went through.”

Known as “the atheist guy,” Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and — just as severe to some soldiers — gay, none of which, he says, is true. Hall even drove fellow soldiers to church in Iraq and paused while they prayed before meals.

“I see a name and rank and United States flag on their shoulder. That’s what I believe everyone else should see,” he said.

Hall, 23, was raised in a Protestant family in North Carolina and dropped out of school. It wasn’t until he joined the Army that he began questioning religion, eventually deciding that he couldn’t follow any faith.

But he feared how that would look to other soldiers.

“I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist,” Hall said.

It eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.

“I said, ‘No, but I believe in Plexiglas,’ ” Hall said. “I’ve never believed I was going to a happy place. You get one life. When I die, I’m worm food.”

The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, a superior officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists in Iraq. Welborn has denied Hall’s allegations.

 Atheist Soldier Says Army Punished Him

TOPEKA, Kan. - A soldier claimed Wednesday that his promotion was blocked because he had claimed in a lawsuit that the Army was violating his right to be an atheist.

Attorneys for Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation refiled the federal lawsuit Wednesday in Kansas City, Kan., and added a complaint alleging that the blocked promotion was in response to the legal action.

The suit was filed in September but dropped last month so the new allegations could be included. Among the defendants are Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Hall alleges he was denied his constitutional right to hold a meeting to discuss atheism while he was deployed in Iraq with his military police unit. He says in the new complaint that his promotion was blocked after the commander of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley sent an e-mail post-wide saying Hall had sued.

Fort Riley spokeswoman Alison Kohler said the post “can’t comment on ongoing legal matters” and offered no further statement.

According to the lawsuit, Hall was counseled by his platoon sergeant after being informed that his promotion was blocked. He says the sergeant explained that Hall would be “unable to put aside his personal convictions and pray with his troops” and would have trouble bonding with them if promoted to a leadership position.

Hall responded that religion is not a requirement of leadership, even though the sergeant wondered how he had rights if atheism wasn’t a religion. Hall said atheism is protected under the Army’s chaplain’s manual.

“It shouldn’t matter if one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist,” said Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney whose firm filed the lawsuit. “In the military, all are equal and to be considered equal.”

Maj. Freddy J. Welborn was named in the lawsuit as the officer who prevented Hall from holding a meeting of atheists and non-Christians. It alleges that Welborn threatened to file military charges against Hall and to block his re-enlistment. Welborn has denied the allegations.

The lawsuit alleges that Gates permits a military culture in which officers are encouraged to pressure soldiers to adopt and espouse fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and in which activities by Christian organizations are sanctioned.

Hall’s attorneys say Fort Riley has permitted a culture promoting Christianity and anti-Islamic sentiment, including posters quoting conservative columnist Ann Coulter and sale of a book, “A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” at the post exchange.

The Pentagon has said that the military values and respects religious freedoms, but that accommodating religious practices should not interfere with unit cohesion, readiness, standards or discipline.

Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the religious freedom foundation, said the lawsuit would show the “almost incomprehensible national security risks to America” posed by the military’s pattern of violating the religious freedom of those in uniform.

“It is beyond despicable, indeed wholly unlawful, that the United States Army is actively attempting to destroy the professional career of one of its decorated young fighting soldiers, with two completed combat tours in Iraq, simply because he had the rare courage to stand up for his constitutional rights,” Weinstein said in a statement.

Weinstein previously sued the Air Force for acts he said illegally imposed Christianity on its students at the academy. A federal judge threw out that lawsuit in 2006.

 Err, I think England needs to revise their laws, this is law that you should only see in a Theocracy.

Christians seek right to sue BBC for blasphemy

A Christian group trying to prosecute the producer and broadcaster of Jerry Springer - The Opera under blasphemy laws will take its case to the high court in London today.

Christian Voice wants to bring a case against Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, and Jonathan Thoday, producer of the award-winning musical, for blasphemous libel, but was refused permission by City of Westminster magistrates court. The group is hoping to launch what would be only the third prosecution in more than 80 years for an offence which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The last successful prosecution was brought by Mary Whitehouse in 1977 against Gay News for publishing a poem, The Love that Dares to Speak its Name, about a Roman soldier’s homosexual love for Christ. The human rights group Liberty, which has been allowed to intervene in the high court judicial review, says the law is outdated and argues that free speech rights must protect sacred, profane and secular language alike.

Snake handling should be outlawed. Religious reasons be damned, teaching kids this sort of crap is straight up wrong.
Snakebite victim’s family sues - Blames Hospital, Nurse and Doctor

As a woman bitten by a rattlesnake during a church service in London struggled to breathe, hospital employees made derogatory comments about her religious beliefs rather than providing proper care, contributing to her death, a lawsuit charges.The case arises from the Nov. 5, 2006, death of Linda F. Long, 48, a London homemaker. Police said at the time that Long was handling a yellow timber rattler during a service at East London Holiness Church when the snake bit her on the right cheek.

People bitten by poisonous snakes during religious services sometimes refuse medical treatment. But others at that service quickly took Long to Marymount Medical Center in London.

According to the lawsuit, on the way to Marymount, someone in the vehicle called 911 at 7:46 p.m.; a dispatcher connected the call to the hospital, and the driver asked for an air ambulance to fly Long to Lexington. Hospital employees assured the Long family a helicopter was available.

A nurse met Long and those with her in the parking area outside the emergency room. Rather than take Long in right away, the nurse engaged Long and her family “in a lengthy and time-consuming series of questions” that went far beyond getting information needed to treat the snakebite, the lawsuit states.

After being taken into the hospital at 8:09 p.m., Long said she was having trouble breathing, and asked for oxygen. Hospital employees gave her a portable, oscillating fan as they allegedly “snickered and made derogatory comments” to employees — and Long’s family — about the religious beliefs and circumstances under which she was bitten.