Amendment Banning Contact With Military Religious Freedom Group Passes House

A proviso added into the 2024 defense authorization bill barring service members from contacting the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) narrowly passed the House of Representatives July 14.

The amendment, added to the larger defense bill by Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, effectively isolates the MRFF from contacting or being contacted by service members and also forbids commanders from taking “any action or mak[ing] any decision as a result of any claim, objection or protest” made by the MRFF “without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.”

The MRFF has been aggressive in pursuing the rights of its clients, defending them from unwanted proselytizing and removing religious symbols from public locations.  When the MRFF persuaded the U.S. Merchant Marine to remove a 190-square-foot-painting titled “Christ on the Water” from its main administration building earlier this year due to its explicit religious content, several GOP lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz were outraged.

MRFF’s founder, Mikey Weinstein, a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and veteran, called the House vote a “Pearl Harbor” against the religious freedom of military personnel.

“Members of the military have the right under the First Amendment to free speech, as curtailed appropriately by the Supreme Court; they also have the right to petition their government for grievances,” Weinstein said. “Both of those have been viciously violated today by the actions of the far-right Christian nationalists in Congress.”

The MRFF, founded in 2005, has served 84,000 clients with the mission of “ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.”

The amended defense authorization bill now goes to the Senate.