A Court-Martial for a Bible Verse The Supreme Court should hear out Monifa Sterling, a Marine punished over a line from Isaiah. By S. Simcha Goldman see note please
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-court-martial-for-a-bible-verse-1493075573
The case of a Bible verse on a desk is not the same as prohibition of head gear. In my view if you permit a yarmulke, then you have to permit a turban, and a hijab and Rastafarian dreadlocks …it is a slippery slope. rsk
Should Americans be prohibited from practicing their faith while serving in the military? The Supreme Court ought to take up Sterling v. U.S., which presents exactly that question. Around 2013, the plaintiff, Lance Cpl. Monifa Sterling, had displayed a Bible verse above her desk. It was a message from Isaiah: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper.” That small act of religious devotion mattered to her, but the military considered it inappropriate. Her superiors ordered her to take it down. When she refused, the quotation was removed by a superior. Lance Cpl. Sterling was court-martialed and discharged from the Marines, in part for her refusal to remove the biblical message.
Her story bears a striking resemblance to a lawsuit that I took to the Supreme Court in 1986. Several years earlier I had joined the U.S. Air Force, intending to serve my country while continuing to practice my Orthodox Jewish faith. As part of that faith, I always covered my head with a yarmulke. I did so for many years while in uniform, and without complaint.
That is, until I encountered a vindictive military lawyer in 1981 who disliked an element of my expert testimony at a military hearing. He made a formal complaint about my wearing a yarmulke while in uniform. My commander subsequently ordered me to remove it. When I refused, I was threatened with a court-martial. Whether my commander was motivated by personal animus, bigotry or simple narrow-mindedness, I cannot say. He outranked me and would not tolerate any longer my minority religious practice.
I filed a lawsuit, Goldman v. Weinberger , and took it to the highest court in the land. But the Supreme Court ruled against me, 5-4, and deferred to the military’s stated interest in uniformity. Four justices dissented, arguing that the military had no good reason to quash the religious freedom of a serviceman who wanted to follow both his God and his country. I thereafter decided to leave the military.
In 1993 Congress enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, to protect believers like me. The law guarantees that men and women in uniform can exercise their faith freely except in the rarest of cases: when the military can prove that a compelling interest is being pursued in as narrow a way as possible. CONTINUE AT SITE
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