Jason Torpy, a retired soldier and president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, speaks about problems with harassment from military supervisors at Monday’s event sponsored by the Secular Coalition for America. Next to him is Army Maj. Laurel Williams, who said her formal complaints about religious-themed military events have gone unanswered. (Leo Shane III / S&S)
Jason Torpy, a retired soldier and president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, speaks about problems with harassment from military supervisors at Monday’s event sponsored by the Secular Coalition for America. Next to him is Army Maj. Laurel Williams, who said her formal complaints about religious-themed military events have gone unanswered. (Leo Shane III / S&S)
Wayne Adkins, a former Army 1st Lieutenant and an atheist, speaks about his problems with harassment from supervisors. (Leo Shane III / S&S)
WASHINGTON — A coalition of atheists and agnostics wants the new White House to protect young military members from what they see as rampant religious discrimination in the services.
The Secular Coalition for America held a news conference Monday urging new rules against proselytizing and more training for chaplains on how to handle nonreligious troops.
"When they say ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’ it’s slanderous," said Wayne Adkins, a former Army first lieutenant who served in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. "To deny their existence is to deny that they serve."
The coalition also wants President-elect Obama to develop a new directive for all chaplains and commanders that eliminates public prayers from any mandatory-attendance events for troops and ensures the Defense Department will not endorse any single religion, or even the idea of religion over nonreligion.
Jason Torpy, a retired soldier and president of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, said his group isn’t opposed to Christianity or any other organized religion.
"We just recognize that religion and religious people get a lot of support from the military," he said. "What about the rest of us?"
Torpy said his group has fielded hundreds of complaints from servicemembers who believe they’ve been harassed, passed over for promotion or forced into retirement for not following the religious preferences of their commanding officers.
Adkins said equal opportunity office investigators in the service ignored his complaints about harassment and mistreatment because he was an atheist, which in part led to his decision to leave the service.
Army Maj. Laurel Williams, currently stationed in Florida, said she has filed complaints about military conventions and programs that are little more than Christian rallies, but received little or no response.
About one-fifth of current servicemembers identify themselves as having no religious preference, according to Defense Department statistics.
Only a small percentage of troops identify themselves as atheists or agnostics, but Torpy said that’s because they fear retribution. Without new rules, he said, there isn’t any guarantee they can avoid that kind of treatment.
"We’re as dedicated to the military as our Christian counterparts," he said. "We just want to serve our country, too."
