Two Wednesday nights ago, we at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), particularly myself and Mikey Weinstein, were waiting with bated breath for the release of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conference report. Would Christian nationalist Rep. Mike Turner’s amendment to shut MRFF down still be in the bill? Would it be out completely? Or would it be something in between?
Around 11 PM EST we got our answer, although it took us a few hours to fully digest it. The Senate, which had nothing corresponding to Turner’s amendment in its version of the bill, had indeed replaced Turner’s amendment, which had been Section 1045 of the House version of the bill, with an amendment of that amendment, which in the conference committee’s compromise bill was Section 1049.
At first glance, this new Section 1049, which seemed deliberately confusing, took us aback. But about a half hour or so into what would be a several hour phone call between Mikey and myself, it started to make sense, and in a very good way. It was at that point that I said to Mikey, who was also starting to grasp the beauty of this new Section 1049:
“This thing was either written by a legislative genius who really loves us or by someone as dumb as a bag of rocks.”
As we began running various common MRFF scenarios through what will be the process outlined in the section, which the NDAA orders the Department of Defense to enshrine in a new military-wide regulation within the next six months, our incredulousness that we were reading this thing right completely faded away. In many cases the procedure laid out in Section 1049 will have no effect at all, and in every case scenario that we came up with in which it would apply, this legislative work of art was our friend!
Then came an eight day wait, during which we were on pins and needles watching for the compromise bill to be agreed to by both the Senate and the House, staving off our anxiety that it would dawn on someone among our congressional enemies that this new section would give MRFF the upper hand and that its passage would somehow be derailed, as unlikely as that was to happen at this stage in the game.
During those eight days, and until the bill was signed into law, which just happened today, a bit of subterfuge was necessary on our part so as not to risk our enemies finding out how tickled pink we were, with Mikey only saying when asked, which he was by numerous people and media, that we were “cautiously optimistic,” when in reality we were downright gleeful!!!
Now that President Biden has signed the bill, with the legislative marvel that is Section 1049 being a done deal, we can let the cat out of the bag.
A fuller explanation of the myriad ways in which this section benefits MRFF will be coming soon, in a post that I’m thinking of titling “Oh, Section 1049, how does MRFF love thee? Let me count the ways,” but to put the most salient aspect in a nutshell for now, Turner's attempt to shut MRFF down has backfired bigly, with the edict to the military being changed from:
‘You can't respond to MRFF’
to
‘You HAVE TO respond to MRFF!’