Is the Pentagon Violating the First Amendment, and Why Isn’t Anyone Else Asking this Question?

After I finished this post about the “flushed Koran” story, a thought occurred to me. One aspect of the story we’ve heard a few times is that the Federal government has a two year-old policy on how our soldiers must handle the Koran. We’ve learned, thanks to a story on the policy yesterday in the Washington Post about some of the details of that policy – the main points being that there are a number of very special rules for handling a Koran, that it must be treated “like a fragile piece of delicate art”, and that no such policy exists for the most sacred book of any other religion.

That caused me to ask myself why our self-appointed First Amendment guardians aren’t all over this? Where are Barry Lynn and the ACLU and the other usual suspects?

I mean, it sure seems to me that a special set of rules that applies only to the Koran would seem like a pretty obvious violation of the First Amendment.

In fairness, First Amendment originalists like me would likely say that what the Pentagon has done doesn’t violate the First Amendment because it’s not actually Congress (you know, that whole “Congress shall make no law…” phrase). But that’s not been the way our courts have decided to interpret the Establishment clause in the past 30 years or so. In fact, our courts have maintained, as you well know, a fairly strict “wall” of separation between government at any level and religion of any sort. This policy doesn’t just crack down that wall, it kicks it down and strides pretty boldly right over it. The Pentagon’s policy isn’t just a slight lean toward favoring Islam. It’s a full-fledged legal protection of the Koran with the weight of the military judicial systen behind it – a system that has every bit the same pwer and authority of the civil court system.

Up to this point, our courts have decided that the “wall of separation” is as real as the words which actually do appear in the Constitution.

Except for now. Now we have an official government policy that specifically demands that we treat the Islamic faith better than we treat any other religion.

About this, our self-appointed Guardians of the First Amendment remain silent.

And while I’m thinking thoughts of dogs that should be barking, where are our Theocracy Criers? Where are the bloggers who are quick to cry out that dreaded T-word whenever James Dobson so much as opens his mouth? Where is the outrage from Andrew Sullivan, Jeff Jarvis, or John Cole on this story?

For all the furor about the “religious right” in this country, I can tell you that you won’t see an official directive from the Pentagon that demands that no one but a Christian soldier ever be allowed to handle a Bible in front of any prisoners who might be Christians. You won’t see a mandate that a Bible be treated with any more reverence than a copy of I Am Charlotte Simmons. You can be sure that if we ever found out that such a policy existed, the hue and cry would be nearly deafening. Some power the forces of theocracy have that Islam gets preferential treatment and Christianty – whatever religion that is – can’t get a measly statue of the Ten Commandments to stay in front of a courthouse.

I went looking for some outrage and found nothing. I’ve not seen a single word of protest about the policy from the usual blogging suspects. I’ve not heard a peep about this on the nightly pundit shows. There has been no angry statement about how our religious freedoms are in peril from the ACLU or any other groups who would otherwise be flooding our airwaves with press releases and lawyers.

Nothing.

I can’t tell you for sure why this is so. You’re going to have to go ask those folks why they’re silent on the issue. I’d certainly be interested in their answers. For now, I’ll keep my suspicions to myself. It’s entirely possible that no one has realized what the Pentagon has done. It’s also possible that they have and that they don’t see it as that big a deal. I will tell you this, though. It’s surely seems like selective outrage to me and it makes me wonder if the real issue with most of these folks is with Christian religions and not with your Constitutional rights.