Viral Email: KEEP MILITARY MEMBERS OUT OF CHURCH

"KEEP MILITARY MEMBERS OUT OF CHURCH"

[note - all mistakes below are original to text of email]

From: XXXXX@yahoo.com
To: XXXXX@gmail.com
Sent: Wed, Jul 14, 2010 3:29 pm
Subject: Fw: KEEP MILITARY MEMBERS OUT OF CHURCH

KEEP MILITARY MEMBERS OUT OF CHURCH

I hope everyone will pass this on and keep it going!!!
 
        Sent by Retired Vice Admiral Bob Scarborough, of Arlington, Va.
 
"I wanted to give you all some disturbing information on our wonderful president. I work with the Catch-A-Dream Foundation which provides hunting and fishing trips to children with life-threatening illnesses. This past weekend we had our annual banquet / fundraiser event in Starkville . "As a part of our program, we had scheduled Sgt. 1st Class Greg Stube, a highly decorated U.S. Army Green Beret and inspirational speaker who was severely injured while deployed overseas and didn't have much of a chance for survival to come. Greg is stationed at Ft. Bragg , NC and received permission from his commanding officer to come speak at our function. Everything was on go until Obama made a policy that NO U.S. SERVICEMAN CAN SPEAK AT ANY FAITH-BASED PUBLIC EVENTS ANYMORE. Needless to say, Greg had to cancel his speaking event with us.. Didn't know if anyone else was aware of this new policy. Wonder what kind of news we all will receive next. You're just  starting to see the Obamanation. Your religion is on the list next.? I don't know about you, but this makes me furious.

This is just how the Nazis did it in the 30's, slowly, one step at a time. If you don't see the similarities you are truly blind.

Response

Hey there,

Thanks for including me on this email.  It would definitely be disturbing if President Obama banned members of the armed forces from speaking at faith-based events.  However, I hadn't heard anything about that happening and the charges in this email seemed fishy to me, so I did some research.  Here is what I found.

Snopes.com is a website that looks into Internet rumors.  FactCheck.org is a well-respected website that evaluates the truth of both liberals and conservatives.  Both sites looked into this exact email and determined that it is not true!

Sgt. 1^st Class Greg Stube WAS actually prevented from speaking at a Catch-A-Dream Foundation event, but not because it is a faith-based organization.  In fact, the decision was made because the event was a fundraiser, and there is a longstanding policy that members of the military cannot participate in fundraising activities.  This is how the U.S. Army Special Operations Command explained it to the Catch-A-Dream Foundation:

"Sgt. 1st Class Stube forwarded your request to us for review. We regret that we cannot support the annual Catch-A-Dream Foundation Benefit Banquet with participation by SFC Stube. Army and Department of Defense regulations prohibit direct support to fund-raising activities. I've scrubbed the regs [sic] to determine if there were possibilities that we might apply to justify our support, but I found none.

The event is one we would truly like to support because of the wonderful work you do for children and their families. We extend our sincere best wishes for a phenomenal event."

FactCheck.org also pointed out that the Catch-A-Dream Foundation isn't even a faith-based organization.  And either way, President Obama didn't have anything to do with it at all!

Read their full explanation here:  http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/new-army-policy-against-faith-based-events/

And you can read Snopes' version here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/faithbased.asp

Lastly, please know that comparisons between the U.S. government and the Nazis -- who systematically exterminated millions of people -- are dangerous and offensive to many people.  It's even worse when the basis for the comparison is blatantly untrue.  I hope you'll remember that before you forward something like this in the future without getting out the facts first.   

Thanks.