Festivus for the Rest of Us

The Navy has recently joined the other services in encouraging observance of non-Christian holidays. I can’t imagine this is something drastically new, but it merited an article in Stars & Stripes.

“The purpose of the message was to increase commanders’ awareness about the need for religious accommodation,” Chaplain (Lt. Cmdr.) John Kalantzis, an action officer in the Navy Chaplain’s policy office, told Stars and Stripes on Thursday.

Something I found particularly interesting about the article is that they provide numbers for the different faith groups, which I have found hard to come by.

“The vast majority” of servicemembers report that they are Christian, although within that category there are dozens of different groups, Dolinger said.

About 30 percent of servicemembers report that they are Catholic, he said.

Non-Christian servicemembers include Buddhists (served by a single monk in the entire military chaplain corps), about 4,000 Jews (served by 22 Rabbis), about 3,730 Muslims (served by 11 Imams), 1,383 Wiccans, and 353 Hindus, according to statistics provided by Dolinger.

An ironic tidbit in the article is in the sidebar where they list examples of some of the holidays. One listing reads: “Shavuot (Pentacost): Begins at sunset, June 1 and ends at nightfall, June 3”.

Isn’t that like saying “Passover (Easter):”? So much for sensitivity training.