Bill Donohue comments on demands to employ atheist “chaplains”:
An amendment has been proposed to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act to add atheist “chaplains” to the armed forces. The principal organization pushing this idea is the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. The president of this entity, Jason Torpy, claims it is unfair for Christians et al. to have chaplains, but not atheists.
Now it is true that throughout the nation, atheists have no chaplains; it is also true that vegetarians have no butchers. No matter, Torpy says chaplains are needed to serve the 40,000 atheists in the armed forces. His figure is wrong: the Department of Defense says there are 9,400 atheists or agnostics among the 1.4 million active-duty personnel. Given that there are five times as many agnostics as there are atheists, nationally, that means there are less than 2,000 atheists in the military. Which means Torpy’s figure is 20 times the actual number.
Torpy’s ploy is familiar. The number-one goal of those atheists who are activists is to censor the public expression of religion, especially Christianity. If this doesn’t work, they settle for contrived competition, thus hoping to neuter its effects. That’s why atheist organizations seek to censor Christmas displays on public property, and when that fails, they seek to erect anti-Christian statements next to nativity scenes.
Torpy’s organization is on record opposing Christmas concerts on air force bases, Christian war memorials, and nativity scenes on public property (his organization brags about ending the “stranglehold” that crèches have). His group also supports anti-Christian billboards that compare Christianity to slavery.
The fact is that 95 percent of all Americans who are affiliated with a religion are Christian. To be sure, atheists have rights, but not among them is the right to war on Christianity, even in a backdoor manner.
