Chris Rodda points out a really staggering example of abuse of privilege: an Air Force Major defaming enlisted service members who can’t reply because he outranks them. You probably won’t be astonished to learn that the Major is a Christian, and a proselytizing one at that, while the soldiers he goes after are atheists.
For the past three years, an atheist Army sergeant has had to remain silent as lie after lie was told about him by an Air Force Major named Jonathan Dowty. Major Dowty, a.k.a. JD the Christian Fighter Pilot, is a Christian officer who belongs to the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF), an organization that thinks the real duty of a military officer is to raise up “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.”
As a devout Christian officer, Major Dowty has made it a practice to publicly attack and defame atheist and other non-Christian enlisted service members by name, knowing that they can’t respond to defend themselves because he’s an active duty officer, so it would be insubordinate for them to respond to him.
Would you believe it? I really do find myself incredulous. Wouldn’t you think he would recognize that that is taking a grossly unfair advantage?
Major Dowty has relentlessly targeted five particular service members on his christianfighterpilot.com blog — three atheists and one Muslim in the Army, and one Air Force tech sergeant who practices an earth-centered religion. All of these service members are or have been clients of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and include my fellow blogger here on Freethought Blogs, foxhole atheist SGT Justin Griffith.
Well, one of the soldiers Major Dowty has been lying about on his blog, SGT Dustin Chalker, just got out of the Army, and is now free to fight back against this Christian bully who has dogged him for the last three years.
Dustin’s “first order of business” upon becoming a civilian was to go straight to Major Dowty’s blog and post a little comment on a post that Dowty wrote about him just this week. Dustin’s comment, submitted last night, has not yet shown up on Major Dowty’s blog, where the comments are, of course, “moderated,” so I thought I would post it here.
And she did. It’s not a “little” comment, and it’s very satisfying. Go read it.
What’s even worse is that he probably find his own actions just and righteous, fighting the evil of the world.
I have met the type …
I’ve no doubt that there have always been the likes of Major Dowty in the armed forces. In the past, though, they could be reigned in. Now, unfortunately, they have everyone intimidated.
Isn’t there something in the UCMJ that limits the power of officers to abuse their authority WRT their subordinates’ beliefs, political opinions, personal lives, and other matters not directly pertaining to unit cohesion or military objectives? I should think there’d be something there…but then again it could have been repealed by a right-wing Republican Congress.
If a Pagan or atheist officer were dogging JD about his beliefs, I’m sure he’d be able to find something in the UCMJ to prove it wrong.
Love the targeted ads: “Master of Arts in Military History, Norwich University.” Do they teach about the Constitution in military-history classes?
I read quite a few of JD’s blog entries and was utterly appalled. Then I wondered how, with all this religious baggage he’s carrying around, he actually has time to do his job. Which for an active duty pilot you would think would be defending the USA. Turns out not to be the case; one of his entries details his priorities as 1. his religion 2. his family 3. his job (quite a bit third it seems….)
Thank doG that in my (long ago) flying days (not USAF thankyou) I didn’t have someone like JD as a wingman. I’d have been tempted to make him the victim of fatal training error…
The US military has really gone too far with religion these days. Try reading the other blog of that christian officers organization.
Isn’t there a GYST (Get Your Shit Together) branch in the U.S. Army? Some clerical officers charged with whipping other officers into shape?
He won, didn’t he?