U.S. Senate Gives Black Eye to House Fundamentalist Christians

I have been staring at the same three articles for about an hour now trying to make sense of them.  I am failing miserably.

This first piece is in regards to John Flemming's reaction to the failure to pass his version (the Flemming Amendment) of the NDAA. "that essentially seeks to give military service members the right to engage in anti-gay discrimination under the guise of protecting religious liberty.."

Warning that liberal activists are seeking to "expand secularism, humanism, atheism to limit your First Amendment right of speech not only in the military but elsewhere," Fleming said that conservative Christians must remain vigilant and work to expand protections for their religious liberty.

"With the next NDAA, we hope to strengthen our language even more," he said, "because we'll have both a Senate and a House Republican majority. So we'd really like to expand upon the language we already have in the NDAA that protects First Amendment speech and also protects atheist chaplains"

The second article is a 2013 piece by Senior Research Director Chris Rodda of MRFF, who gives some much needed background on the NDAA fight (FY 2014) and who** is behind this drive for legislating discrimination in the military

The attached is from MRFF's Mikey Weinstein.  It is his reaction to the failure of the Flemming Amendment passing:

The U.S. Senate has courageously just stood up to the Christian-supremacist bullies in the House of Representatives. Oh yes, the Senate has just completely ripped away from their religiously bigoted, House counterparts a would-be treasured bible-thumping bonanza of immeasurable, unconstitutional proselytization.  This erstwhile prize of legislative plunder had been specifically designed by these Congressmen and Congresswomen from the House, in nefarious collaboration with their legions of fundamentalist Christian parachurch allies, to be embedded deep within the confines of the 2015 Pentagon authorization/funding act.

Fortunately, the plan by these Christian crusader Members of the House failed. Please let me briefly explain, my friends.

[,,,]
In what we can only describe as an amazing early holiday present for servicemembers, Constitutional loyalists, and those who value the separation of Church and State, an obscure, but extremely detrimental amendment to the House-passed H.R. 4435 version of the bill “miraculously” disappeared from the final version of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (FY2015 NDAA). If the House had its way, next year’s Federal roadmap for America's armed forces would have included the following painfully ugly provision designated as "Section 525” in the Hoped-for House version:

“…if called upon to lead a prayer outside of a religious service, a military chaplain may close the prayer according to the traditions, expressions and religious exercises of the endorsing faith group.”

[,,,]
As I have said many times in many places for many years, in the U.S. armed forces you may have mandatory formations and you may have religious formations but you CANNOT have mandatory, religious formations.

Luckily for us, the United States Senate took the side of the U.S. Constitution, its construing Federal and state case law in conjunction with DoD directives, instructions and regulations. Further, the Senate obviously and carefully considered U.S. national security as well as the compelling governmental interest in optimizing the unit cohesion, mission readiness, good order, morale, and discipline of our valued armed forces members.

U.S. Senate Gives Black Eye to House Fundamentalist Christians 
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**(American Family Association, American Values, Alliance Defending Freedom, Center for Military Readiness, Center for Security Policy, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, Citizens for Community Values, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, Family PAC Federal, Freedom Alliance, Freedom X, Heritage Foundation, International Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers (ICECE), Judicial Watch, Liberty Center for Law and Policy, Liberty Counsel, Liberty Institute, Media Research Center, Military-Veterans Advocacy, Ohio Faith and Freedom Coalition, Patriotic Veterans, Stand Up America, Thomas More Law Center, The Oak Initiative, Traditional Values Coalition