May 5, 2017
By Barbara Starr
Washington - When President Donald Trump (click here) signed an executive order promoting religious liberty on Thursday, he singled out the US military for preventing troops from receiving religious items....
...Pentagon officials are adamant there is no policy that prohibits members of the military from receiving religious items at military installations.
Military hospitals are considered the same as a military base, so security and patient privacy concerns require that any donation of any outside items by non-military groups be reviewed and distributed with chaplains overseeing religious matters. And no outside group can enter a hospital or a patients room without permission, according to defense officials....
This is also a security issue for the military. Soldiers are more than welcome to practice their religion and they have a right not to practice it at all. But, to ENFORCE the idea any religious group can enter the living space of a soldier uninvited is a military security issue.
..."In 2011, a local patient visitation policy was issued at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that was written to prevent unsolicited proselytizing from religious groups, including the distribution of their religious items to patients who had not asked for them," the Pentagon said in a statement sent to CNN.
Were the Gideons insulted? Why is it that religious organizations can't accept the fact there are Americans, soldiers or not, that do not value their intrusion?
"Due to the wording of that policy, religious groups interpreted the policy to be an outright ban on visitation and distribution of religious items," the statement continued. "The policy was subsequently re-written to eliminate ambiguity, stating that, 'Patients determine their visitors.' "
President Trump and/or Jarad Kushner should have discussed this political issue with someone from the military that actually handles military policy. It is my guess such a person has an office in Washington, DC and not Kabul.
Here again President Trump is out of step with the USA Constitution and still yet again his actions are going to result in lawsuits the US Justice Department has to litigate. Trump is piling on unconstitutional executive orders that the Justice Department will put on a shelf until they no longer can. It will delay justice and bring about a window of opportunity for his cronies to do as they please if there is no injunction.
Trump is either the most ridiculous man to sit in the White House without any concern for the efficient running of the government or he has a strategy to please all those that voted for him to insure his re-election in 2020.
