According to news reports, the Military will soon allow service members to sport turbans, beards, tattoos and piercings as part of an expanded accommodation of their religious or non-religious expression.
The Hill reports, "A new Pentagon policy states that military departments will accommodate religious requests from individual service members unless a request would interfere with military readiness, a mission, unit cohesion, or good order and discipline.
This would include religious clothing, facial hair, religious tattoos and piercings."
The article concludes by quoting a Pentagon spokesman, "The Department of Defense places a high value on the rights of members of the military services to observe the tenets of their respective religions and the rights of others to their own religious beliefs," "including the right to hold no beliefs,"
The revised DoD Instruction R 1300.17 is available here. On my first reading, I found some revisions that seem to weaken the requirements of the Services to accommodate religious practice. Perhaps more on that later.
I suspect the Church of Body Modification will soon grow in membership.
But still no slack for the Little Sisters of the Poor...
The Hill reports, "A new Pentagon policy states that military departments will accommodate religious requests from individual service members unless a request would interfere with military readiness, a mission, unit cohesion, or good order and discipline.
This would include religious clothing, facial hair, religious tattoos and piercings."
The article concludes by quoting a Pentagon spokesman, "The Department of Defense places a high value on the rights of members of the military services to observe the tenets of their respective religions and the rights of others to their own religious beliefs," "including the right to hold no beliefs,"
The revised DoD Instruction R 1300.17 is available here. On my first reading, I found some revisions that seem to weaken the requirements of the Services to accommodate religious practice. Perhaps more on that later.
I suspect the Church of Body Modification will soon grow in membership.
But still no slack for the Little Sisters of the Poor...
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