Students walk on the campus of Liberty University in September 2019. A watchdog group advocating for religious freedom in the armed forces has accused Pentagon officials of “dropping a nuclear weapon on the Constitution” after a military court held a special session at Liberty University last week. In a strongly worded letter Monday to U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation blasted military officials for allowing the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals to hold a secular criminal proceeding in the halls of a private college with a “Christian worldview.” “To hold oral argument in a United States military justice case in a bastion of odious discrimination such as Liberty University sends a message that the Air Force continues its decades long malfeasance by unconstitutionally elevating the Christian faith over all [others’] faith and non-faith traditions,” Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, the group’s president, wrote in the letter. In an emailed statement Monday, Liberty said the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s accusation that military officials violated the law were “erroneous.” “The practice of holding hearings at Liberty University is not a prohibited endorsement of religion,” Keith Faulkner, the dean of the law school, said in the […]
