“An atheist airman at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada was denied re-enlistment last month for refusing to take an oath containing ‘so help me God,’ the American Humanist Association said Thursday.
“And in a Sept. 2 letter to the inspectors general for the Air Force and Creech, Monica Miller, an attorney with the AHA’s Apignani Humanist Legal Center, said the airman should be allowed to re-enlist without having to swear to a deity, and instead given a secular oath. Miller said the AHA is prepared to sue if the airman is not allowed to re-enlist.
“According to the AHA, the unnamed airman was told Aug. 25 that the Air Force would not accept his contract because he had crossed out the phrase ‘so help me God.’ The airman was told his only options were to sign the religious oath section of the contract without adjustment and recite an oath concluding with ‘so help me God,’ or leave the Air Force, the AHA said.[...]
“’Reciting “So help me God” in the re-enlistment and commissioning oaths is a statutory requirement under Title 10 USC 502,’ Air Force spokeswoman Rose Richeson said Thursday. AFI 36-2606 ‘is consistent with the language mandated in 10 USC 502. Paragraph 5.6 (and) was changed in October 2013 to reflect the aforementioned statutory requirement and airmen are no longer authorized to omit the words “So help me God.”’“
http://weaselzippers.us/198797-refusal-to-say-so-help-me-god-sidelines-airmans-reenlistment/
(There is no such thing as the right to re-enlist.)
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