Taking God's Name

"No, not an oath . . .
Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs."
- Julius Caesar, Act 2 Scene 1

Five days ago, the United States Air Force Academy quietly announced that "After reviewing the cadet Honor Oath, and in the spirit of determining a way ahead that enables all to be true to their beliefs, the Air Force's Academy has decided to make the final clause optional."

The United States Air Force Academy Honor Oath

"We will not lie, steal or cheat nor tolerate among us anyone who does.  Furthermore, I resolve to do my duty and live honorably, so help me God."

As reported by Time's Mark Thompson, the original 1959 oath "was modified following a 1984 cheating scandal" and "the phrase 'so help me God' was tacked on 'to add more seriousness to the oath.'"  

The USAFA press release discussed leadership's reasoning behind the decision, but did not mention the complaint brought by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose mission statement reads: "The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom to which they and all Americans are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment."

I am not surprised by the decision and although there will be dissatisfaction in the ranks, the US military has a solid tradition of being on the front line of equality, even if it doesn't all seem that way. President Truman's executive order 9981 desegregated the military in 1948, six years before segregation in American public schools was declared unconstitutional. In 2011, the Department of Defense eliminated punitive discharges for those who identify as homosexual.

Even so, according the Air Force Times, MRFF president Mikey Weinstein wasn't satisified with the decision and argued that "the Air Force Academy took the cowardly route,” Weinstein said after the announcement. “From our perspective, it still creates a tremendous amount of unconstitutional turmoil ... for anyone who is a religious objector." In an excerpt published in the Christian Post, Weinstein promised to press the fight "if the words are still there, if our clients are willing to come forward, we'll sue the academy in federal court aggressively and as soon as we can."

Media sympathetic to promoting and supporting public expression of religion, and specifically Christianity, reacted as you might expect. This piece published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State takes the religious alarmists to task and outlines what the writer sees as a strong push by the religious right to "invent a national Christian identity"

A blogger at Christian Fighter Pilot argues that nothing has really changed, since cadets could easily omit the phrase and nobody would notice, but is concerned that "Weinstein is calling the shots for religious liberty in the US military."

Big surprise, everybody has something to bitch about.

This decision to make "so help me God" optional allows adherents to monotheistic faiths, of which Christianity is by far the majority in the United States and by obvious extension also in the US armed forces, to express their commitment to their deity. It allows those who find deities superfluous to openly avoid mentioning a deity and perhaps move their lack of belief a little closer to acceptance alongside those who believe wafers and wine turn to flesh and blood and there is a supernatural being who punishes or rewards every thought of every human being on the planet. I also suspect polytheists will be able to insert a surreptitious pluralizing "s" to their oaths with no one being the wiser.

And, as Shakespeare pointed out, oaths are for those who expect wrongdoing. Liars are wont to lie loudly and keep their own cunning counsel.