In light of service members' stories of aggressive evangelizing, the ostracizing of nonbelievers, and the failure of the military to investigate complaints by non-theists of discrimination, the Secular Coalition of America (SCA) and the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) are asking the incoming Obama administration to consider changes to military regulations to protect their rights and ensure the implementation of procedures for investigating complaints.

Although a military directive prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion and affirms the right of service members to practice a religion, it is "silent on how to handle nonreligious Americans who make up 21 percent of the armed forces," said SCA Executive Director Lori Lipman Brown. "Non-theists have no recourse when religion is forced upon them in both formal and informal settings affecting their daily work and their careers and, in some cases, their safety."

According to Jason Torpy, president of the MAAF, most people who contact his organization "fear reprisals and don't speak up publicly." Prayer, he added, "bookends nearly every military ceremony...and exhortations to find faith and attend church are common."

"We need an overhaul and it needs to come from the top down," said former Army 1st Lt. Wayne Adkins, who served as a public affairs officer in Iraq and witnessed disparagement of nonbelievers by chaplains and officers to members of the press. "Atheists don't ask for much. What we do ask is that our leaders refrain from publicly disparaging us, from calling us liars, cowards, lesser soldiers, simply because we don't share their belief in the supernatural."

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