The Freedom From Religion Foundation is excoriating a U.S. Air Force directive requiring personnel to update their religious affiliations using a drastically reduced list of categories.
The discarded categories include “Atheist,” “Humanist,” “Wiccan,” “Pagan,” “Druid” and numerous other minority religious and nonreligious identities. The list retains a disproportionate number of specific Christian denominations.
The Department of the Air Force announced on Sept. 25 that all personnel must update their Religious Affiliation Code in the Virtual Military Personnel Flight system. Active-duty personnel have until Oct. 16 to comply while Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard members have until Nov. 9. Those who do not select a new affiliation will have their records “automatically realigned according to an approved transition construct.” The mandate implements a Pentagon policy announced earlier this year that slashed the military’s religious affiliation codes from roughly 211 to just 31, including removing the category of “Atheist.”.
FFRF sounded the alarm when the Pentagon first announced the change in June, warning that it would marginalize the many “atheists in foxholes” and other service members whose identities had effectively been erased from official personnel records. Now that concern is becoming a reality.
The Air Force claims that the transition will give its Chaplain Corps “accurate demographic data” to provide tailored resources to service members. But forcing people whose actual beliefs — or nonbeliefs — have been deleted from the system accomplishes precisely the opposite. Although the retained categories include “No Religion” — and, inexplicably, “Agnostic” — the deletion of “Atheist” and “Humanist as accepted categories appears to target those who are most outspoken in their dissent from religion.
“Almost half of today’s service members are atheists or have no religious affiliation and they should be able to accurately identify themselves,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “These are folks who put their lives on the line to defend a Constitution that is supposed to protect freedom of conscience — and that should include their freedom of conscience.”
The Pentagon expanded its previous system in 2017 following years of advocacy by service members from minority religious and nonreligious backgrounds. The expanded codes allowed personnel to more accurately identify their beliefs or convictions and gave military chaplains and officials more appropriate information about the service members they serve.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended the dramatic reduction, arguing that the previous system of more than 200 codes was “impractical and unusable.” The Pentagon says the change is meant to streamline religious-support planning rather than judge the legitimacy of particular beliefs.
But the context surrounding the change is impossible to ignore. In announcing his overhaul of the military chaplaincy earlier this year, Hegseth complained that the Chaplain Corps had been “infected by political correctness and secular humanism.” He has also instituted Christian worship services at the Pentagon and repeatedly emphasized his own conservative Christian worldview in his official capacity.
The result is especially troubling for nonreligious service members. “Atheist” is no longer available as a distinct affiliation even though atheists have served honorably in the U.S. military throughout the nation’s history. Humanists and adherents of numerous minority religions have likewise lost the ability to identify themselves specifically in the personnel system. Military.com reported that an active-duty Air Force member who had previously identified as an atheist was outraged, not only personally but on behalf of other Air Force personnel whose brand of nonbelief is no longer represented.
The Air Force says service members will remain free to specify their actual religious preference on identification tags rather than being limited to the standardized personnel codes — making the change even more mystifying.
“If the military recognizes that service members must be able to accurately state their nonbelief on identification tags,” adds Barker, “there is no legitimate reason to deny them the same accuracy in their personnel records.” Barker also reminds that the First Amendment does not permit the government to treat those with minority religions or nonreligion as lesser citizens.
FFRF calls on the Department of Defense to restore the comprehensive religious and nonreligious affiliation codes and urges the Air Force to halt mandatory implementation of the truncated system. No American who volunteers to defend the Constitution should have to sacrifice an accurate acknowledgment of their own beliefs — or nonbelief — to serve.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
