{"id":7387,"date":"2016-12-26T15:33:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T21:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=7387"},"modified":"2016-12-26T15:33:58","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T21:33:58","slug":"are-they-personal-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/12\/26\/are-they-personal-items\/","title":{"rendered":"Are They Personal Items?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First Liberty<\/strong><\/em> has announced<\/a> its filed for certiorari<\/em> with SCOTUS<\/strong><\/em> for the case of …<\/p>\n

… LCpl Monifa Sterling, a Marine convicted at a court martial in 2013 for refusing an order to remove Bible verses from her personal workspace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The IB Times<\/strong><\/em> reported<\/a> during previous, military court appeals:<\/p>\n

Sterling was charged after she refused to take down a single Bible verse she used to decorate her cubicle in three locations. She later told the court she had posted them in a triangular shape to represent the Holy Trinity. …<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a case of insubordination,\u201d Brian Keller, the attorney representing the federal government, told a five-judge panel Wednesday during the hearing. The judges are expected to weigh the arguments and release their decision later this year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So it’s not entirely clear to me if the issue is the display of religious verses, or failure to obey an order. First Liberty<\/strong><\/em>, a conservative group devoted to religious freedom, suggests the issue is the former:<\/p>\n

First Liberty attorneys argue that Sterling\u2019s right to post Bible verses is protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, a federal law that should apply to all American citizens.<\/p>\n

But so far, every court to hear Sterling\u2019s case has claimed that RFRA doesn\u2019t protect Sterling\u2019s right to display a Bible verse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chris Rodda on HuffPo<\/strong><\/em> points out<\/a> that Sterling had also been court-martialed for other charges unconnected with the Bible incident, such as refusing the orders of a superior officer and lying about a medical treatment, and\u00a0suggests<\/a> this is all trumped up:<\/p>\n

\n

Of all the charges that Sterling was found guilty of at her court-martial, the charge of disobeying the order to remove the signs was not the most serious of the charges brought against her. In fact, as the transcript of the court-martial shows, the Bible verse incident received the least amount of attention at the court-martial. But now, thanks to the propaganda from fundamentalist Christian organizations and the right wing media, Sterling\u2019s case has been turned into a case of outrageous Christian persecution. Anyone reading articles about this case on the internet would think that Sterling is a poor, persecuted Christian who was court-martialed for nothing more than posting a Bible verse on her desk.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

An article from the Washington Times,<\/i> for example, titled \u201cHigh military court will hear case of Marine punished for displaying Bible verse<\/a>,\u201d begins: \u201cThe highest U.S. military court will hear the case of a Marine who was punished for refusing to remove a Bible verse from her workstation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the curious, if four Justices agree to hear the case, then SCOTUS accepts<\/a> it (‘grants certiorari”). It’ll be interesting to see if the Court decides to hear the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Liberty has announced its filed for certiorari with SCOTUS for the case of … … LCpl Monifa Sterling, a Marine convicted at a court martial in 2013 for refusing an order to remove Bible verses from her personal workspace. The IB Times reported during previous, military court appeals: Sterling \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7389,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7387\/revisions\/7389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}