Pete Hegseth vows to protect airmen who deliver religious greetings at Air Force base

WASHINGTON, DC: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed this week to defend military members who use religious greetings at New Mexico’s Kirtland Air Force Base after an advocacy group intervened to halt the practice.

The Pentagon will “never cave” to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the nonprofit that led the effort, setting up a fresh clash over religion’s place at US military installations, Hegseth wrote on social media on Friday, September 4.

He also described the nonprofit as a "radical anti-Christian, pro-atheist group that attacks any/all faith inside" the Defense Department. 

Military Religious Freedom Foundation announced end to a 'weeks-long blitz' of religious greetings

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation announced Thursday that it put an end to a “weeks-long blitz” of religious greetings from guards at the front gate of Kirtland.

The press release included two emails that a member of the Air Force wrote to the nonprofit’s president, Mikey Weinstein.

The initial email sent Wednesday morning read, in part, “I’m writing because something is happening at the front gate of my base that is absolutely unacceptable, and frankly I’m stunned it’s been allowed to continue.”

“For multiple days over the last couple of weeks, the guards have been greeting me with ‘God bless you’ every single morning as I come through. Not once, not twice... repeatedly, consistently, as if it’s an officially sanctioned script,” it added.

But the issue of religious greetings at Kirtland is far from over, with Hegseth now interjecting. 

Military Religious Freedom Foundation president threatens legal action

“Just tell it to the judge, little Petey,” Weinstein told The Independent in response to Hegseth’s X post.

He called Hegseth a “Christian nationalist” whose “favorite thing to do is to defecate all over the US Constitution.”

The nonprofit pointed to a clause in Air Force Instruction, which states, “Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for free exercise of religion and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion.

Weinstein has threatened legal action against the federal government if the religious greetings continue, and against Hegseth himself, claiming libel over his X post calling the nonprofit “anti-Christian” and “pro-atheist.”

The group says it has assisted nearly 100,000 people, including active-duty service members and veterans, with religious freedom issues in the military, and that 95% of those it has helped identify as Christian.

Hegseth has signaled that the Air Force will “confront” the group, and Weinstein has threatened litigation, so the fight over religious expression at Kirtland appears far from over.