Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Show Notes:: Chris Rodda on Anti-LGBTQI Captain Sonny Hernandez



As you know we are  not a scripted show, so the dialogue will not follow this "outline". Due to the nature of the topic and the amount of material, I made notes for myself and co-hosts of what I hoped to cover and the material available for background information

Chris's original story appears here and here.

IMO::  At the heart of it, this is a SOCAS issue complicated by the inclusion of the military.  A point that will become clear as we talk.  What Hernandez advocates is Christian theocracy, or as I prefer Christian Sharia.  The mentality he promotes is no different than the more ardent forms of Islam; Daesh comes to mind.  It is a point many former and current military member have remarked to me and in comments of the various articles.  I am sure Chris is well aware of theses sentiments.  It is why MRFF is so important. (And by proxy Chris's work with Liars as this is a notion espoused by Barton.)

The controversy raises questions over the role of chaplains and where the boundaries lie between spiritual leadership and innate freedoms of religion and speech guaranteed under the Constitution that all service-members swear to “support and defend.”

In some strange ways, this issue also ties in with the current flap of DayGloMan v the NFL and the Pledge debacle in schools.

Q:: What is MRFF, who is Mikey, and what is your role?

Before we get going, as of Sunday night I have 40+ articles concerning the debacle and related issues with Hernandez.  This story has taken off like no one expected and I believe (OK I know) you and MRFF are a big reason as to why. (About fucking time the MSM didn't just blow MRFF.)  Q:: How do you feel about that notion, especially considering some of the public criticism (ie FOX news) that Mikey gets as well as MRFF?

So, this first point is one you open with in your article concerning the oath that Hernandez took but isn't there something in the Christian Bible, in Matthew about if you speak an oath you will be bound by it? Every person that enters military service in the US swears an oath to the US Constitution to protect and defend it. This so called Chaplin would have them break faith with their god. I'd ask, who is the one worshiping Satan?

Q::  So who is this Sonny Hernandez character?
Article in question (BarbWire)
Background per MRFF

Some of the previous writings of Chaplain Hernandez, along with his “tag team” Bible-believing blogging buddy Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Dowty (a.k.a. the “Christian Fighter Pilot”), which led to MRFF’s filing of its initial DoD/IG complaint in April and other supplemental complaints, see these prior posts:
Q::  Concerning his misogyny statements, Hernandez was writing as a blogger on Air Force Lt. Col. Jonathan Dowty's “Christian Fighter Pilot” blog.  Without getting too far into the rabbit hole, can you explain the import of this? 

Also mentioned, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/gay-bashing-chaplain-endo_b_13867166.html

[Dowty was the slime ball who went after Brig. Gen. Kristin Goodwin (then Select), who had been nominated to be the Air Force Academy’s next commandant of cadets, of being a liar. Dowty’s basis for this accusation? Goodwin graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1993, but the policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) wasn’t implemented until 1994. Therefore, according to Lt. Col. Dowty, Goodwin, who is a lesbian, must have lied about her sexual orientation in order to join the Air Force.]

So, our "benighted researcher", you seemed to really get under his skin in one particular article.  Q:: What makes Hernandez's "case" so important? Besides the fact he has been a thorn in MRFFs side 
http://christianfighterpilot.com/2017/06/27/us-military-continues-to-ignore-mikey-weinstein/ 
and
http://christianfighterpilot.com/2017/06/06/mrff-operates-in-the-red-takes-government-money-but-mikey-weinstein-profits/
He has flat out and very publicly instructed members of the U.S. military to disregard and disobey the Constitution.

In his article, Hernandez did nothing short of instructing service members to disobey the Constitution that they swore an oath to uphold, with statements such as these,,,
  • Christian service members who openly profess and support the rights of Muslims, Buddhists, and all other anti-Christian worldviews to practice their religions — because the language in the Constitution permits — are grossly in error, and deceived.
  • “There is no exegetical support, and no moral justification for any Christian service member to openly profess or support the alleged rights of anti-Christians. Christian service members must share the Gospel with unbelievers so they can be saved, not support unbelievers to worship their false gods that will lead them to hell.”
To layman eyes, the anti-LGBTQI stance and his misogyny aside, that really is not the issue here is it.  At least based on your response, "No, Chaplain Hernandez, the right to religious freedom is not just an “alleged” right, nor is this right something that the Constitution merely “permits.” It is a right that the Constitution mandates!"  Q::  Can you expand on that a bit as to exactly what you are referring to?

A third point that you note, "baffling them with bullshit".  I have read and re-read his supposed instructions to fellow Bible-believing chaplains and I can't make head or tails of it.
Therefore, if military chaplains are criticized by individuals for not accommodating all service members, and are told to resign from the military since they cannot care for all, just ask them this question: ‘Does the free exercise of religion apply to ‘all’ service members or only service members whose beliefs concur with yours?’ If the response is: ‘Military chaplains must provide for all or they are not fit to serve,’ they are now guilty of violating their own criteria of providing for all, since they are establishing a religion that requires every service member to accommodate evil even if their sincerely held convictions prohibit them from doing so. However, if they respond to the question by saying that the free exercise of religion is for ‘all,’ simply tell them: Thank you very much.
From what I can make of his statement, Hernandez is stating that HIS interpretation of HIS religiondictates that HE is allowed to and MUST discriminate against others HE deems less worthy.  Basically HIS interpretation of the Bile trumps the Constitution - which is against the oath he took when entering the service.  It's the "I'm Special" treatment that Kim Davis expected.

A point in an article from AFTimes. Don Byrd writing for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, states, that the idea of ”[d]enying the rights of non-Christians is an offense to American liberty. But it also undermines the strength of the Christian faith by suggesting it is threatened by a truly free conscience.  The success of a religion should not depend on the extent to which the rights of others are restricted.”  Basically Byrd underscores your contention that Hernandez publicly instructed members of the U.S. military to disregard and disobey the  Constitution.

MRFFs response
Initial complaint about Captain Hernandez was in April. It called for the chaplain to be investigated over a blog post titled: "How was Col Goodwin - an open homosexual - able to enter the Air Force?"  The complaint accused the chaplain of believing his "bigoted, homophobic, misogynistic" beliefs "take a higher precedence than the law and federal ethical standards".

In a response to the Friendly Atheist, you stated,  and I loved this,
Imagine if a Muslim chaplain tried to pull this shit. He’s be out of a job immediately — and cause Fox News to talk about Sharia Law for the next week. I would say imagine a Humanist chaplain doing the same… but there are none in the military. Meanwhile, Christians like Hernandez have plenty of power in the military and they want to make sure that no other religion gets any respect — even when all those soldiers share a mutual goal of protecting our country.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter, Hernandez's latest article "blatantly and indisputably advocates the subordinating of the U.S. Constitution to his personal Christian ideology and violated his Oath of Office as a commissioned officer, as well as Title 18, U.S. Code § 2387’s criminal prohibitions against counseling or urging insubordination, disloyalty, or ‘refusal of duty’ to other military members."

Complaints of military chaplains engaging in overtly sectarian behavior have doubled since Donald Trump became president, according to MRFF. The Hernandez piece was evidence of President Donald Trump emboldening the far fringes of the Christian right.

"America’s military members look to the president for direction and inspiration," he said. "Trump’s statements and actions have fully endorsed and validated this unbridled tidal wave of fundamentalist Christian persecution, which is now more inextricably intertwined into the very fabric of our Department of Defence than ever before."

Might be a good point to interject this observation, one in which you commented concerning Salon's comparison to Gordon Klingenschmitt.  Hernandez actually appeared on Klingeshmitt's "Pray in Jesus' Name" program.  I consider him a Klingenschmitt wannabe.

Salon writes,
Perhaps Hernandez is trying to horn in on the turf of Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former Navy chaplain, who currently is the most notable Christian nationalist chaplain. Klingenschmitt became a minor Religious Right celebrity after he unsuccessfully and falsely claimed that punishment he faced for engaging in political activity in uniform was somehow a religious persecution.
,,,
Klingenschmitt created a myth around himself that he was persecuted for trying to pray in the name of Jesus. After Klingenschmitt was removed from the Navy, he turned his fake story into a web and local television show. He later successfully ran for the Colorado House of Representatives, serving a single term, in the process becoming legendary within the state for his numerous erratic and offensive statements.
I have also posted quite a bit concerning the douchenozzle, ripping into his terrible understanding of the Bible.

AF response
As for the AF response , there seems to be some confusion which you address here,
And it is the statement made by Lt. Col. Gibson — that the Air Force is not conducting an investigation — that makes the Stars and Stripes article very misleading, and led many to wrongly believe that Chaplain Hernandez has been cleared. This is not the case. Although it is true that the Air Force is not conducting an investigation, that’s because it wasn’t the Air Force that was asked to conduct the investigation in the first place. The complaint, filed by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), was filed with the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD/IG), not the Air Force, so it is the DoD/IG that is conducting the investigation — an investigation that is still open and ongoing. (The Stars and Stripes article has now been corrected to correctly state that the complaint was filed with the DoD/IG, not the Air Force.)
Q:: Why is this important?
Initially reported by S&S that they were "standing behind" Hernandez's right to express his own views.

To wit Mikey responded,
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and its legal counsel have reviewed the terribly erroneous Stars and Stripes article authored by its reporter Dianna Cahn released earlier this Tuesday evening and would like to make the following rebuttal. The second paragraph of the article incorrectly states, “The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which advocates on behalf of a pluralistic military with sharp separation of church and state, CALLED ON THE AIR FORCE TO INVESTIGATE HERNANDEZ after the chaplain called Christian servicemembers who give credence to other faiths ‘counterfeit Christians.’ At the very outset, let me emphasize that MRFF NEVER ‘called on the Air Force to investigate Hernandez.’ Indeed, we at MRFF long ago gave up expecting ANYONE in the Air Force to enforce its own regulations and the Constitutional mandates to separate church and state and guarantee religious equality within its own ranks.
Something you also replied to via FB,
I am sitting here right now writing something about this as quickly as I can, but for now please read Mikey's statement, which he wrote immediately upon our seeing this completely misleading and inaccurate article from Stars and Stripes last night. The article's inaccuracy makes it sound like Hernandez has been cleared by quoting an Air Force spokesman saying that the Air Force is not conducting an investigation. That's true -- the Air Force is not conducting an investigation. But there’s no reason it would be. Why? Because it wasn’t the Air Force that was asked to conduct the investigation in the first place! It was the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD/IG), not the Air Force, that MRFF's complaint against Hernandez was filed with, so it is the DoD/IG that is conducting the investigation — an investigation that is still open and ongoing.  (Stars and Stripes has now corrected its article to correctly state that the complaint was filed with the DoD/IG, not the Air Force.)
To which the S&S issued a correction, (a sloppy correction IMO),
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the agency to which the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed its complaint. It was filed with the Department of Defense Inspector General. The story also mischaracterized a christianfighterpilot.com blog post that questioned the integrity of a newly promoted brigadier general. This story has been corrected.
But the best part is this,
You know how I posted the Stars and Stripes article about the Air Force clearing Hernandez from the other day was wrong, and wrote about it on HuffPo yesterday? Well. lookie lookie at what's on the front page of Stars and Stripes right now!
It seems the AF is investigating,
After initially denying an investigation, the Air Force said Friday that its inspector general’s office is reviewing complaints against reserve chaplain Capt. Sonny Hernandez, who proclaimed that Christian servicemembers are wrong to support the rights of other faiths to practice their religion, actions that he said will lead them to hell.

“I can confirm that the Air Force is reviewing IG complaints made against Chaplain Hernandez that were referred to the Air Force Inspector General’s office,” Air Force spokesman Col. Patrick Ryder said Friday. “At this time it would be inappropriate to comment on the nature of those complaints or speculate on potential outcomes.”

An Air Force Reserve spokesman said earlier this week that the service was not investigating Hernandez.
See also

Even FFRF has voiced there opinion,
As a military chaplain you have a duty to aid our service members in the free exercise of their religious beliefs. Accommodating the free exercise of religion is, in fact, your only job. Military chaplains exist to grant our service members access to a church or religious leader of their chosen religion while they live on base or travel overseas.

While the military chaplaincy has unnecessarily expanded and in many cases now provides redundant access to Christian chaplains in areas where private Christian churches are available, the justification for military chaplains nevertheless remains rooted — tenuous though those legal roots may be — in the constitutional principle of free religious exercise. Your call to openly disregard the Constitution is particularly hypocritical, given that the Constitution justifies your existence.
After the show Deb and I did a we bit of digging,

The Hernandez video we spoke of,,,  https://www.youtube.com/embed/xm_qN4ieCr4

Tennessee Temple University 
Is a TRACS accredited school, which IRL means nothing,
The organization was founded in 1979 to "promote the welfare, interests, and development of post-secondary institutions, whose mission is characterized by a distinctly Christian purpose."[3] According to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), TRACS is a "product of the ICR" and was created "Because of the prejudice against creation-science, outspoken creationist schools" that had "little or no chance of getting recognition through accreditation."[5] TRACS requires all accredited schools to have a statement of faith that affirms "the inerrancy and historicity of the Bible" and "the divine work of non-evolutionary creation including persons in God's image".[6]

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