• Soldier/Foundation Sue Secretary of Defense Over Forced Religious Prayers

A nonreligious Kansas soldier today sued his boss, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, after being forced to attend mandatory military events where fundamentalist Christian prayers violated his constitutional rights.Specialist Dustin Chalker, a decorated combat medic in the U.S. Army, filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court in Kansas yesterday. Joining him in the suit is the Albuquerque-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org), a nonprofit charity dedicated to the protection of thousands of U.S. military personnel from unconstitutional religious practices forced on them by military superiors against their will.