Pentagon Denies Flyover Request for Faith Based Event
Jul 07 2009
A victim of the economy, not the culture war
BotB Verdict
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“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief” – Jacques Ellul
Summary
Although I was hoping to avoid another religious themed article, this issue came out of the blue. In an attempt to get out ahead of it, we’re posting this article before it starts making headway in the electronic world. An article that appeared on July 3rd on Christian News Wire stated that the Pentagon (and President Obama) denied a flyover request for a July 1st ‘God and Country Rally’. Note that while the details of the story are true, it gets a ‘mostly bilge’ rating because of the spin placed around it and the fact that the press release ignores the fiscal reality of the decision and places the blame solely on religious grounds.
The Press Release (soon to be viral email)
Pentagon Denies Flyover of Patriotic ‘God and Country Rally’ in Nampa Idaho Because of its Christian Content
NAMPA, Idaho, July 3 /Christian Newswire/ — This marks the first time in the 42 year history of the event that a flyover request was denied by the Pentagon. The event is held ever year to honor the spiritual foundations of our country with a special emphasis on the men and women who serve in the armed forces. In past years, the “God and Country Rally” has focused on honoring and paying tribute to those veterans who have served our nation in the past and those who are currently on active duty. At the rally this year, all five branches of the armed services were featured with over 60 new recruits sworn into the military at the event. After a phone conversation and an e-mail response from the Pentagon, Rally Director Patti Syme says they were denied the request for a flyover this year because of the “Christian” nature of the event. The Christian Defense Coalition says this is a “slap in the face” to all those who have proudly served or are currently on active duty in the armed services. The group is concerned that this new policy may indicate an open hostility toward public expressions of faith by the Obama Administration.
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, states,”For years, flyovers have been allowed by the Pentagon at the ‘God and Country Rally’ in Nampa Idaho. These flyovers were not to endorse or promote any one religious faith tradition. Rather, they were held to honor and pay tribute to our heroic men and women who have served or are currently serving in our armed forces. For the Obama Administration to deny a flyover for the first time, is a slap in the face to all those who proudly serve our country especially when we are at war. These flyovers have been a special part of the ‘God and Country Rally’ for many years. Will the new policy of President Obama be that a person has to surrender their faith tradition to honor and pay tribute to our courageous men and women who serve in the military? With respect to the economic concerns that the Pentagon mentioned, I would answer this way. If we can pay hundreds thousands of dollars for President Obama to go on a date with his wife to see a Broadway show and have an expensive dinner in New York City, we can certainly find a way to honor our brave men and women who serve in the armed services with a simple flyover. The Christian Defense Coalition will diligently work to reverse this unjust policy and determine why this flyover was denied in the first place.”
Brandi Swindell, national Christian activist and Director of Generation Life, based in Idaho, adds, “For the Pentagon to deny this flyover for the first time in the history of our state is deeply troubling and disturbing. During a time of war and especially around the 4th of July we should be doing all within our power as a nation to honor and respect our military. It must be stressed that the flyover was not to honor Christianity but to honor our fallen heroes who have proudly given their lives to protect our country and advance the cause of liberty around the world. Does this mean in the future that all public rallies must be stripped of any expressions of faith to respect our military? This Administration should be protecting religious expression in the public square not crushing it. I hope that President Obama will reverse this unjust policy and next year we will be allowed to give the military the honor they deserve.”
Origins
The article was printed as a press release on July 3rd, and included a link to the Pentagon’s explanation for the denial of the flyover, printed in full below:
Thank you for your request for Air Force aviation support during God and Country Festival on 01 Jul 2009 in Nampa , ID. We have carefully reviewed this particular event. As you may recall from the request form’s instructions, the Department of Defense (DoD) authorizes the Air Force to participate in flyovers for those recognition events held in direct support of the five patriotic holidays (Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, POW-MIA Day and Veterans Day) and for aviation-related events, such as airshows and airport dedications. Sporting events that fall on one of the five patriotic holidays mentioned above are not considered to be events held in direct support of a holiday commemoration and will require a waiver.
Your Air Force aviation support request doesn’t fall into either approved category, as such, we are unable to approve it. Air Force and DoD policy prohibit support for events which appear to endorse, selectively benefit, or favor any special interest group, religious or ideological movement.
With an increasingly high operations tempo and limited resources to meet our training and operational commitments, we are required to take a hard look at all of our requests and carefully follow our policies and guidelines. In denying your request, we are not questioning the worthiness of the event, but rather enforcing DoD and Air Force policy to preserve the operational and training requirements of our aviation units and to practice the prudent stewardship of taxpayer-financed resources.
We hope that you can appreciate and understand our position. We believe that your event will, nevertheless, be a success. Any further questions can be referred to me at [redacted].
Tech. Sgt. Roy Utley
Aviation Supporthttp://www.airshows.pa.hq.af
Evaluation
The response from sergeant Utley spells out clearly why the request was denied and offers support and a sensible commentary on the issue. There’s not much more that I can add to the facts of the matter. We are in a deep recession, and just as we have seen with matters such as the VFW inventory request and the 3 questions from the VA issues, the military is following existing rules and regulations. The sergeant is right, the event does not fall into any of the approved categories for flyover approval and would be an unnecessary expense.
But the real problem here is that the blame for the denial is once again put on the shoulders of the current administration and is being used as a propaganda tool by those that see a culture war in every action it takes. The labeling of the denial as ‘unjust’, and jumping to the conclusion that President Obama wishes to strip faith out of any public event is irresponsible. Throwing in the mention of the President’s trip to New York and trying to compare that to the honoring of our fallen troops is a tactic designed specifically to incite their supporters against the administration. President Obama spent the 4th with members of the military and the USO in a grand celebration in Washington, hardly turning his back on the heroes of our past.
As a corollary to the event, our old friend Reverend Klingensmitt took the occasion to pray to God that Sergeant Utley face the ultimate judgment:
Let us pray. Almighty God, we pray you rebuke the cowardly bureaucrat in the Pentagon, (whose phone number is [redacted]), who decided for the first time in 42 years to deny a request for a military plane flyover at the “God and Country Rally” honoring our veterans in Idaho, because the event might “appear to benefit a religious or ideological movement.” Since when are God, Country, and Veterans groups too ideological? God we recall Revelation 21:8, the cowardly…their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. In Jesus name, Amen.
(emphasis mine)
Update Based on Comments
Thank you to JD for an alternative view of the issue, and for providing a link to his blog topic regarding the incident. From his article, which can be viewed here, he provides this overall assessment:
In short, while there is nothing that requires the military to support any event with a flyby, the Air Force should not have used religious association of the event to deny the request. That said, it is highly unlikely that it was a malicious attempt at hostility toward Christianity; rather, the decision was likely the result of a hypersensitivity to religious topics now present in the military.
Further Reading/Sources
Christian News Wire Press Release
Free Republic Discussion Thread (message board example)
Klingensmitt’s Prayer (mp3 audio format)
ChristianFighterPilot.com’s Article Regarding the Issue
Remember that comments are moderated to avoid the scourge of spam, not for content. We do not edit comments and it should only be a short time before your comment appears.
“The sergeant is right, the event does not fall into any of the approved categories for flyover approval and would be an unnecessary expense.”
“Economic concerns” are boilerplate for such correspondence. If it were really true, how would the military be affording the hundreds of other flybys it accomplished last weekend? If it were true, why the need to even mention religion in the official denial?
Your assessment of the TSgt’s analysis is incorrect. The two approved categories are aviation and patriotic events. It is obviously not an aviation event. It is debatable, though not a given, that it is not a patriotic event. Religion has nothing to do with it.
“soon to be viral email”?
Sounds like you’re intent on creating controversy, rather than responding to it.
Previously discussed:
http://christianfighterpilot.com/blog/?p=362
Thank you again for commenting and joining the discussion, JD. I assure you that I’ve already received the email from several sources, so ‘soon to be viral’ is a valid assessment. And, thank you for the link to your blog, I will update the article with your assessment and a link to it in the sources section.
Great job on pointing out how reasonably the Sgt. handled the request.
As to “Christianfighterpilot”, JD, and the assertion that this was not a Christian event, please note that the organizers of the event have explicitly noted that their reasons for the event are almost entirely for proselytizing purposes, in their mission statement, no less. They are spewing lies, and JD seems to accept these lies at face value.
JD:
Your prattle was bullshit at Scienceblogs and it’s [BS] here. Are you active duty? Is this part of your mission as a member of the U.S. military?
[modedit]
For a good fisking of JD’s deceptive argument, I suggest reading this blog post: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/07/air_force_refuses_flyover_of_r.php
Re: “the assertion that this was not a Christian event…”
Exactly zero people have made that assertion.
Oh JD, what world do you live in?
Rev. Mahoney clearly (and falsely if you look at the event website) asserts that it is not a Christian event when he states in the press release, “These flyovers were not to endorse or promote any one religious faith tradition.” When specific instructions are included on witnessing for and testifying of Christ; when time is built into the agenda for evangelizing; the event is a Christian event.
It is disingenuous to argue that the flyover would not support or promote Christianity and would only be showing support of the troops. The event is religious in nature – and gov’t officials and agencys should do everything in their power to remain uninvolved.
Don’t lie JD. It’s against the 10 commandments and it makes baby Jesus sad.
Let’s keep this civil please. JD raises some valid points and we welcome all voices to comment from their own perspective. I appreciate the debate and the comments immensely, but would like to refer everyone to MOAA’s community standards.
To say that an event is not to recognize or promote any *one* religious faith, then to say that it is a Christian event is not a conflict, when you realize there are more than one Christian faiths.
In case anyone is interested, I did a bit of research into the rules and regulations that the denial may have been based on. I used the experience I gained from 12 years in Naval submarine force (Cold War era) to track down the correct DoD instruction. I’m not purposely throwing my service record in anyone’s face only for pointing out the fact that it would be somewhat difficult for someone without this kind of prior experience to know what to look for.
DoD instruction 5410.19 which dates as far back as 1968 and most likely prior but there’s no online copy beyond the 1979 update which cancels the 1968 DoD instruction it replaces and references DoD instruction 5410.18. I can pretty much safely say that the 1968 of version 5410.19 of the same instruction states the same thing.
Here’s the link to the 1979 .pdf of 5410.19. Look at section 6.2 specifically 6.2.1.1:
http://www.dsca.mil/programs/air_trade_shows/air_shows/dodi541019.pdf
Note: The latest update of 5410.19 was November 13th, 2001. Section 6.7.2 is the section of interest in this case.
The points, which supports the above post, is that this directive has been around for quite awhile now.
Just thought you folks might like to know the source.
And please excuse the typos in the above comment. I had someone yapping away while I was trying to write.
Another government mealy-mouth excuse to deny support for our fighting men.
It’s been OK for 42 years. Why not now? The excuses given don’t hold a drop of water.
This action is a direct slap at our armed forces.
Kirk M, thanks for the additional research. The email definitely remains incorrect, but I’ve been surprised the more that I’ve looked into this issue with the number of flyovers that were approved that in some cases are far from secular or in support of regulations. I’m starting to see the perspective of some of those unhappy about this a little more clearly.
As far as the religious stuff goes, this country is based on Christianity. Every single one of our Founding Fathers believed in the importance of the Bible and the power of God; even if they did not agree with it. The Constitution they wrote is based on Biblical principles and the goverment should follow it more closely. Under these facts there is no way the government should have denied the flyover for its Christian nature; especially because it is primarily focused on the troops anyway.
I don’t wish to engage in a religious debate but I would like to point you in the direction of some of what the Founding Fathers said about Christianity:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/dispatch/fathers_quote2.htm
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.” – Thomas Jefferson
And let’s not forget Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli from 1797:
If only that last part stayed true through the centuries…
I am a Christian Pastor and I always look skeptically at these ‘viral’ emails that my members send me. I took a look at the website of this Rally in Idaho and their mission is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We pray for our nation in my church every week, but I don’t expect a military flyover. There is a separation of church and state. The state is not to establish any religion. I don’t want the government involved in my church. I have a higher authority and sorry to say, Jesus Christ is not an American patriot. His kingdom is not of this world.
The government is in no way obligated to support a religious organization. I enjoy my freedom of religion, and thank God for it, but I don’t need any help in my church from the government.
Thank you Kirk M. for that link, very informative!
Thank you, Pastor Nate, that was extremely eloquent and reflects what I believe is the true emotions of what mainstream Christians believe.
In my opinion, I read some pretty sorry statements in answer to what is very important to many people. Is this because the state of Idaho is 60% owned by our federal Givernment?
Someone should have shown leadership by drawing a line in the sand and doing the flyover anyway instead of cowing down to an ever intrusive government.
While Obama brags about Woodrow Wilson and president FDR’s programs, (Both Marxists) and surrounds himself with the the scum of the earth, I believe the path we are being led to means there will be a great nashing of teeth.
God, country and family! What could be more important then this? Wake up Americans! Gaylord Brown, Klamath Falls, OR