Rules set for religious access at MEPS sites

Rules set for religious access at MEPS sites
By Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, January 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — One of the last voices many recruits have heard before boarding a bus to boot camp has been from a member of the Gideons, which distributes Bibles and other evangelical Christian literature around the world.

For decades, the group has been allowed to set up shop at Military Entrance Processing Stations, or MEPS, across the United States, handing out New Testaments to classrooms of freshly sworn-in troops, wide-eyed and ready to serve. Soon, the Gideons may have company.

In November, the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command, or USMEPCOM, sent its station commanders new guidelines on behavior for religious and other "nonfederal entities" that seek access to military applicants and recruits. Religious groups may not, among other restrictions, "proselytize, preach, or provide spiritual counseling to," nor ask for money from applicants, recruits and employees on MEPS premises.

Additionally, "A commander who accommodates one (group), must be prepared to do the same for every other similar (group)," or allow no groups at all, the order states.

The rules come more than a year after the American Civil Liberties Union, in an August 2007 letter to the command, asked for clarification about the military’s policy on the Gideons’ presence at the stations and sought permission to send retired Army intelligence Col. Michael Pheneger, an ACLU board member, to observe several stations across the country.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59781

I still have my Gideon Bible from the meps station, it was a great comfort to me.

Ásatrúarmenn are people who follow Ásatrú, a neo-Pagan religion based on the old Nordic religion described in the Eddas. I think they would be most interested in setting up shop outside MEPS. Warrior religion for warriors... sounds like a much more appropriate fit than warriors following the Prince of Peace.

a few alternative religions show up and demand access to the new troops to hand out literature. Then, the commanders will all ban all religious organzations from this crap.

I think not. The Money Changers in the Temple will get at them some other way.