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Military under fire for biblical gunsights
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Kai Ryssdal: There is a long tradition in the American military of soldiers and sailors inscribing personal messages on their weapons. Whether its tanks or airplanes or the bombs that they drop. That is soldiers doing the inscribing, not manufacturers, which is why the Pentagon is scrambling to decide what to do about some gunsights it's been buying for the Army and Marine Corps.
The sights work well enough. It's what's on them. what is written on them that's the problem. Shorthand references to passages in the New Testament, like JN 8:12 for John chapter 8 verse 12. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports.
MITCHELL HARTMAN: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation says service members fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan started complaining about the gunsights a few weeks ago. They're supplied under a $660 million contract by Michigan-based Trijicon, which identifies itself as Christian and "faith"-based.
The Foundation's Mikey Weinstein.
MIKEY WEINSTEIN: To find these Biblical references actually engraved into the gunsights on our M4s and M16s is beyond the pale.
Weinstein says they also violate military rules against proselytizing in the Middle East. An Army spokesman said the Scriptural gunsights aren't a problem because they're for American soldiers, not Afghans or Iraqis who might be offended. And, he said, even the U.S. currency mentions God. Weinstein scoffs at that.
WEINSTEIN: It says, "In God We Trust." It doesn't say, "In Jesus We Trust."
Cabrini College business professor Scott Testa says using Christianity in marketing isn't unusual, though doing it on military weapons is.
SCOTT TESTA: You'll have everything from real-estate agents, insurance agents, retailers, where they'll actually quote Scriptures in their marketing materials.
The Marines say they're reviewing the contract with Trijicon, as is the British government, which also bought gunsights with citations from the Gospels and Revelations.
I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
@Mark Lathrop:
Really? That's what you're going with? 1) Our founders didn't place that there (it didn't appear until 1864). 2) If it's about Jesus, why doesn't it say: "In Jesus we trust?" However, I think it's fairly irrelevant what someone writes on a gun. The people on the other end are just as dead.
"In God We Trust" wasn't placed on our currency until the 1950s when someone thought such a silly gesture would somehow protect us from "godless communism." Our founding fathers were very much AGAINST our government endosting ANY religion.
The U.S. Constitution is a secular document. It begins, "We the people," and contains no mention of "God" or "Christianity." Its only references to religion are exclusionary, such as, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust" (Art. VI), and "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (First Amendment). The presidential oath of office, the only oath detailed in the Constitution, does not contain the phrase "so help me God" or any requirement to swear on a bible (Art. II, Sec. 1, Clause 8). If we are a Christian nation, why doesn't our Constitution say so?
The "Jesus of the (VERY contradictory) Gospels" is hardly the sweetness-and-light person most Christians seem to think he is. Read on:
Luke 19:27 (King James Version) But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
Matthew 10:34 (King James Version) Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Of course, the entire New Testament is nothing but poorly-written fiction...maybe references to the works of Robert A. Heinlein or Mercedes Lackey might be more enlightening.
Isn't it a conflict of interest for a so-called Christian company to manufacture weapons of violence? What happened to those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword...or do unto others...Am I missing something here regarding my perceptions of the Jesus who appears in the Gospels?
