Source: Religion News Service
WASHINGTON, November 2010: Religious leaders and veterans called for a reconsideration of conscientious objection to war, saying military members should have the right to object to America’s wars for moral reasons. In a report issued on November 10, the Truth Commission on Conscience in War called on the military to revise its rules to include “selective conscientious objection,” and urged religious leaders to address issues of conscience during wartime.
“It denies freedom of religious practice and the exercise of moral conscience to those serving in the military who object to a particular war based on the moral criteria of just war, which the military itself teaches and upholds as important,” the report reads. The report notes that military rules dating to the time of the Vietnam draft leave no legal basis for objection for someone who believes “participation implicates them in an immoral war or in war crimes.”