There are many choices of things to do today at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, for members of the military, their families, and for the public. Here is today’s schedule from the Fort Bragg website:
- Sat – Sep 25 UFC 119: Mir Vs. Nogueira 10 pm. Sports USA.
- Sat – Sep 25 — Sat – Oct 02 WAQ 2010 Cycle North Carolina Fall Ride For qualifying Soldiers as party of the Warrior Adventure Quest (WAQ) program. Registration deadline is 15 Sept at 1800.
- Sat – Sep 25 Junior Golf Camp 4 – 7 pm. Ryder Golf Course.
- Sat – Sep 25 Get Golf Ready in 5 Days Sept 11, 18, 25 & Oct 2, 9. Stryker Golf Course.
- Sat – Sep 25 Movie Night at the Beach 8:30 pm. Showing The Incredibles. Smith Lake Recreation Area.
- Sat – Sep 25 Fort Bragg Family Fun 5K Run/Walk 8 am. Hedrick Stadium. Beginning this month, Fort Bragg will be hosting a monthly Family Fun 5K Walk/Run.
- Sat – Sep 25 Family Fun Day 11 am – 4 pm. Sports USA.
- Sat – Sep 25 Adult Golf Clinic 1:30 – 3 pm. Ryder Golf Course.
- Sat – Sep 25 Rock the Fort 12:00 pm – 7:30 pm. Family fun event with Rock Musicians – Hawk Nelson, Gospel Artist – Jason Crabb and a message by Josh Holland. Free Event. Main Post Parade Field. (open to the public)
The last event on the list, Rock the Fort, is an event from the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, and is what has the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in protest mode. You may read the protest from AU HERE. The Rock the Fort event is open to the public, no one is required to attend. Here’s the information about the event (which includes, a carnival type event for the families).
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The event at Fort Bragg does not establish a government religion. However, if AU’s protest stops the event, then they are getting the government to remove the first amendment right to freely express and peaceably gather.
Of course AU prefers to use Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” metaphor that he used in a political letter to a baptist pastor on January 1, 1802. That “wall” is nowhere in the constitution, and it is interesting to note that despite Jefferson’s ardent stance against church and state ever joining together, that the following occurred just after he wrote the aforementioned letter (from the Library of Congress):
“…famous Baptist preacher John Leland, who appeared at the White House on Jan. 1, 1802, to give the president a mammoth, 1,235-pound cheese, produced by Leland’s parishioners in Cheshire, Mass.
One of the nation’s best known advocates of religious liberty, Leland had accepted an invitation to preach in the House of Representatives on Sunday, Jan. 3, and Jefferson evidently concluded that, if Leland found nothing objectionable about officiating at worship on public property, he could not be criticized for attending a service at which his friend was preaching. Consequently, “contrary to all former practice,” Jefferson appeared at church services in the House on Sunday, Jan. 3, two days after recommending in his reply to the Danbury Baptists “a wall of separation between church and state”; during the remainder of his two administrations he attended these services “constantly.”
Jefferson’s participation in House church services and his granting of permission to various denominations to worship in executive office buildings, where four-hour communion services were held, cannot be discussed here; these activities are fully illustrated in the forthcoming exhibition. What can be said is that going to church solved Jefferson’s public relations problems, for he correctly anticipated that his participation in public worship would be reported in newspapers throughout the country. A Philadelphia newspaper, for example, informed its readers on Jan. 23, 1802, that “Mr. Jefferson has been seen at church, and has assisted in singing the hundredth psalm.” In presenting Jefferson to the nation as a churchgoer, this publicity offset whatever negative impressions might be created by his refusal to proclaim thanksgiving and fasts and prevented the erosion of his political base in God-fearing areas like New England.
Jefferson’s public support for religion appears, however, to have been more than a cynical political gesture. Scholars have recently argued that in the 1790s Jefferson developed a more favorable view of Christianity that led him to endorse the position of his fellow Founders that religion was necessary for the welfare of a republican government, that it was, as Washington proclaimed in his Farewell Address, indispensable for the happiness and prosperity of the people. Jefferson had, in fact, said as much in his First Inaugural Address. His attendance at church services in the House was, then, his way of offering symbolic support for religious faith and for its beneficent role in republican government.
I can only assume that the Americans United group is fine with the weekly event on Fort Bragg’s calendar called “Attitude Adjustment” 
OneMom
