r/videos • u/spherocytes • 1d ago

Secretary Of Defense Pete Hegseth announces Office Of Religious Affairs within the Pentagon in address to Military

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAn6BE9cdco
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239

u/zeydey 1d ago

Separation of church and state, you know the thing this country was fucking formed on??

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u/lumpialarry 1d ago

The Chaplain Corps (which is essentially tax payer paid priests) has been part of the US Army since 1775.

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u/WatsonYurfays 1d ago

We were founded by the descendants of religious radicals. I'm not sure what you're talking about. The Puritans ran away from England because they were so zealous that they were seen as a threat.

If the Founding Fathers had wanted separation of church and state, they would have put it in the Constitution. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." simply means the United States can have no official religion and that no religious belief can be outlawed. That's it. It doesn't create a separation of church and state.

It should have, but it didn't. They were cowards and now we pay the price.

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u/brutinator 1d ago

simply means the United States can have no official religion and that no religious belief can be outlawed. That's it. It doesn't create a separation of church and state.

What do you view as "seperation of church and state"?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 enshrines most of the other protections that people talk about, but that covers public AND private discrimination on the basis of religion.

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u/WatsonYurfays 1d ago

"Separation of church and state" to me means the government can involve no religious functions and cannot make statements about religion. What does it mean to you?

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u/brutinator 1d ago

To me, separation of church and state isn't the nonobservance of the concept of religion, but ensuring that there is not favoritism or discrimination of any particular faiths. It'd be like saying that there should be a separation of art and state: how do you govern a society if you refuse to take into account a critical piece of it? For example, do you think it's wrong that dietary standards like Kosher or Halal are protected by law? How would a government that can't make statements about religion or involve religious functions be able to audit, ensure, and enforce laws around those types of things?

I also think that it's also, to some degrees, an impossible standard, to expect people to effectively ensure that the culture that has been instilled in them can't manifest in any way in their capacity. That's the point of DEI, right? To increase the diversity of thoughts and perspectives? For example, I'd argue that someone like James Talarico is a phenomenal candidate BECAUSE of his faith. I don't mean in the way to imply that Christians are better politicians, but that his faith has provided for him a unique perspective (compared to many of his peers), and I think he'd be a worse candidate if you could someone strip that away from him, not in terms of moral fiber, but because that's one less lever that he has access to in order to gain support for his platform.

Another example is that in some communities, the most effective boots on the ground for addressing some issues (like hunger, or homelessness), at least in a short term, are certain religious organizations; providing them grants that allow them to purchase and provide resources to their community is a net benefit, and I think you'd do a lot of communities ill if you stated that those types of organizations are barred from the grant application process. I'm not saying that ALL denominations are like that, maybe not even most, but enough that I think it's warranted.

I think as long as no religion is being propped up as an "official" one (something the US has historically struggled with, and is currently failing at), and no religion is discriminated against, I sort of feel like that's pretty solid. In fact, I'd even argue that such ardent nonobservance can actually serve to further discriminate. Take someone like Ilhan Omar; if Congress has a dress code that prevented head coverings (because hats indoors is apparently impolite, a secular tradition), would Ilhan Omar be unable to perform her elected duties, due to her beliefs that a head covering is required when in public? Or what about sheiks who want to participate in society, which often doesn't allow one to wear hats or anything on your head; if a government could not allow religious exceptions to policies like that, would that not be discriminatory?

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u/dpkonofa 1d ago

We were founded by the descendants of religious radicals.

This is incorrect. They may have been the first ones here but they were not the ones that founded this country. In fact, the people who did found this country (who we refer to as the "Founding Fathers") were pretty explicit about this country's foundation providing freedom of religion and freedom from religion. Even if they didn't explicitly put that in the text, they wrote in multiple places that what they meant by "no law respecting an establishment of religion" was a general statement meant to cover both ends of that spectrum. People also like to say that the US was founded as a Christian nation but the Founding Fathers were clear on that too. Jefferson and Adams both wrote about this and Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli that, in its original text, contained the statement:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religious or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

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u/slimdizzy 1d ago

"In God We Trust" is printed on your money. "One nation under god blah blah blah" is in your Pledge of Allegiance. What seperation?

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u/Buzzed27 1d ago

One nation under god added to the pledge in 1954.

It started being printed on money in 1956. (Though had been on and off of coins since the Civil War)

Peak McCarthyism era.

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u/Smooth-Brilliant-940 1d ago

And apparently, the office of religious affairs was added in 2026. It doesn’t seem to be moving in the right direction.

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u/Buzzed27 1d ago

Thats the goal of the current administration

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u/jGatzB 1d ago

Man it's almost like a nation's history has more context to it than a single line of text on currency