Pete Hegseth’s repugnant cuts to the Pentagon’s list of recognized religions
Thanks to Pete Hegseth, some U.S. service members lost full freedom of religion
The Pentagon’s sharp reduction of its list of recognized religions is both morally and constitutionally repugnant.
By Lt. Col. Rachel E. VanLandingham (ret.)
There’s an old saying: There are no atheists in foxholes. Faith plays a large role in the lives of many service members (including, yes, uniformed atheists). The U.S. military has long provided religious support to service members who are naturally often far from home and their faith communities. Given that the First Amendment prohibits the government both from establishing a religion and from preventing its free exercise, the military’s formal provision of chaplains and religious services to those in uniform is understood to balance these competing constitutional demands.
Until now, that is. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently slashed the list of Pentagon-recognized religions and belief systems that service members can have reflected in their personnel records from more than 200 to just 31, with the majority of the remaining being Christian religions. Those who ascribe to one of the 180-plus now-deleted belief systems must instead list in their records either “no religion” or “other religion.” This change tilts military policy toward the unconstitutional establishment of religion and simultaneously limits its members’ free exercise of their chosen faith.
The list of recognized religions grew from 100 to more than 200 during the first Trump administration when the Pentagon’s board of chaplains “recommended adding new faith and belief groups to standardize and better identify religious preferences recognized by the Military Services” in response to legislation mandating improved religious liberty protections. Despite such rationale, Hegseth says this larger list was “infected by political correctness and secular humanism” under previous administrations.
The defense secretary is now using the Pentagon’s previous rationale for expanding the list to drastically shrink it instead, stating that his purge is about “giving chaplains clear, usable information so they can minister to service members in a way that aligns with that service member’s faith background and religious practice.” Echoing the secretary, the Pentagon says this massive cancellation of faiths is simply an administrative exercise, one designed to allow chaplains “to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups,” and to “provide the best data to support our chaplains in that effort.” Yet how does no data — indeed, deliberate ignorance of service members’ faiths, if they ascribe to one of the 180 now-cancelled religions — equate to better support?
Religious resources aren’t merely a nice bonus for service members that the Pentagon chief can do away with by snapping his fingers. Reasonable access to well-rounded military chaplains is a traditional component of military life, allowing soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen to freely practice their religious beliefs even if deployed to foreign battlefields.
Play
John Kirby calls Hegseth’s D-Day speech a ‘slap in the face’: ‘I was embarrassed’March 30, 2026 / 09:55
It’s impossible for the Pentagon to provide a specific “religious military professional” — the phrase military regulations use for chaplains — for every possible faith; service members don’t have a right to a chaplain of their particular belief system. But military chaplains are expected and required to support the spiritual needs of all service members, not just those who hold one of the faiths the Pentagon still recognizes.
Specifically, the Pentagon’s regulation governing military chaplains states that their primary mission is to “meet the religious requirements and care for the spiritual needs of Service members” (and others, including family members). This regulation is grounded in the First Amendment and explains that the position of military chaplain “directly and indirectly supports the free exercise of religion by all Service members.” Religious ministry professionals must be “able to personally meet the religious requirements of persons in their assigned military units, potentially in isolated or combat environments.”
Yet how can military chaplains meet the religious needs of their units’ members when they won’t know what faiths are actually represented, outside of the recognized few? Among faiths no longer recognized by the Pentagon are the Unitarian Universalist religious movement (to which John Adams belonged), deism (to which Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson subscribed), atheism, the Dutch Reformed Church, paganism, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Native American Church. These faiths count millions of Americans among their members.
Since when is ignorance “the best data”? Resources can’t be adequately structured to support service members of all faiths when the Pentagon is burying its head in the sand regarding the faiths of the U.S. fighting forces. The lack of information does not equal “useful” information — except if the intended use is to stop supporting those service members’ minority faiths and practices.
While service members can reportedly still list their faith of choice on their dog tags, that doesn’t mean a chaplain can understand their spiritual needs while they’re still alive. As religious military professionals, chaplains can’t best support those they are being essentially ordered not to see. It’s also unclear how this policy cancellation will affect the qualifications of already serving chaplains; their eligibility depends on the endorsement of religiously affiliated organizations, and surely some of those organizations are tied to religions that have lost Pentagon recognition.
Play
Hegseth’s Christian rhetoric raises alarm among military leaders, veteransMarch 30, 2026 / 09:55
Couple Hegseth’s and the Pentagon’s nonsensical reasons for this new policy with the secretary’s penchant for proselytizing his Christian faith to service members, and it’s clear that this massive purge isn’t about streamlining data or structuring resources. It’s about the Trump administration’s desire to support only certain religions, and therefore only certain service members. This move hinders other service members’ free exercise of religion, at least compared with those whose beliefs are represented. And it takes a large step in the direction of unconstitutionally “establishing” (by discriminatorily supporting) the religions that remain recognized by the military.
The Pentagon’s new policy means that some military members are now sacrificing to ensure that their fellow Americans enjoy a freedom of religion they no longer fully possess. That is not just deeply ironic; it is morally and constitutionally repugnant. And it should be added to the ever-growing list of mistakes by this White House that a future president and Congress will need to rectify.
Trump is accelerating our Social Security insolvency crisis
A new report lays out how Trump’s policy decisions are hurting a valuable part of the American social safety net.
Trump is speeding up the Social Security insolvency crisis with his right-wing policies.Anna Lefkowitz / MS NOW; Shawn Thew / EPA / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Getty Images
Jun. 10, 2026, 5:50 PM EDT
By Zeeshan Aleem
The date when Social Security’s trust fund is expected to run out of money just got bumped up. The fund is now projected to empty in 2032, according to a new report released by Social Security’s trustees.
The new depletion date isn’t an earth-shaking change — it’s only a quarter earlier than the estimate in last year’s report. But it illustrates how President Donald Trump’s policies are degrading a program he promised to never jeopardize — and accelerating an approaching crisis in how our government will assist the elderly and disabled.
The report names three factors that contributed to the earlier insolvency date. One is a declining fertility rate, but the other two drivers can be traced back to Trump: a drop in immigration into the country, and the “substantial effect” of the tax policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last summer.
Reduced immigration during Trump’s second term — especially when coupled with a declining fertility rate — strains Social Security because the program is funded through payroll taxes. Those come out of people’s paychecks, and fewer workers supporting an aging population means the program receives less revenue. Indeed, Social Security already has been tapping its trust fund for the better part of the past two decades because the program’s costs have exceeded its cash income. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out last year, last year’s tax cuts were a boon to the rich but a bust for the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.
To be clear, if the fund is depleted, Social Security won’t go belly up. Benefits will continue to be paid out, but there will be a large drop in the amount. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the “average monthly cut would total $500, which is more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month.”
Play
‘Worst case scenario’: Whistleblower on how DOGE put social security data at riskMarch 14, 2026 / 05:44
That would be a huge blow to the budgets of many older Americans. Social Security is a major source of income for most retirees, and roughly 40% of beneficiaries over the age of 65 rely on it for most of their income. And it would mark the destabilization of the sole source of retirement security for most Americans that is supposed to be insulated from ups and downs — unlike 401K plans. As the CBPP has pointed out, Social Security is “most workers’ only source of guaranteed retirement income that is not subject to investment risk or financial market fluctuations.”
Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities. His cuts to the Social Security Administration have left offices understaffed, increased wait times, and reduced quality of customer service.
Ultimately, Trump is exacerbating a colossal social safety net problem that predates him, and the trust fund will hit dire straits after he has left office. Democrats need to have clear plans for shoring up the program and making it robust for the future — which will require not being sheepish about taxes as a tool for renewing the social contract. And when Republicans try to claim that they, too, are champions of Social Security, all Democrats need to do is point to the truth.
My wife framed me for abuse to win full custody of our daughter. She thought she had the perfect case, until our 10-year-old stood up in court and played a hidden video that turned the entire trial into a criminal investigation. - Royals
My wife framed me for abuse to win full custody of our daughter. She thought she had the perfect case, until our 10-year-old stood up in court and played a hidden video that turned the entire trial into a criminal investigation.
The gavel banged down like a gunshot in the suffocating silence of the family courtroom.
My wife, Sarah, sat across the aisle, her face an unreadable mask of cold triumph. Next to her, her high-priced attorney filed another motion to strip me of my parental rights, paints me as an unstable, unfit father who deserved absolutely nothing.
For months, Sarah had systematically dismantled my life, filing for a brutal divorce and demanding full custody of our ten-year-old daughter, Lily. I was drowning, my reputation ruined by a mountain of fabricated accusations.
“Your Honor, the mother is the only stable provider here,” Sarah’s lawyer argued, his voice dripping with smooth condescension. “The father is a danger to the child’s emotional well-being.”
Judge Miller, a stern woman with decades of experience on the bench, rubbed her temples and looked down at Lily, who was sitting quietly in the front row. “Before I make my final ruling on temporary custody, I want to hear from the child.”
Lily stood up. Her small frame looked tiny in the wood-paneled courtroom, but her eyes were fiercely steady. She didn’t look at her mother, and she didn’t look at me. She walked straight to the center of the room, clutching a small, beaten-up pink tablet in her hands.
“May I show you something that Dad doesn’t know about, Your Honor?” Lily’s voice trembled, but there was a strange, haunting determination in it.
Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her seat, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the edge of the table. “Your Honor, this is highly irregular,” Sarah’s lawyer interjected quickly, his tone sharp. “The child is being manipulated.”
“Sit down, counselor,” Judge Miller commanded, her eyes narrowing. She looked back at my daughter. “Lily, you may proceed.”
The bailiff stepped forward, taking the tablet and connecting it to the large courtroom projector screens used for evidence presentation. Lily hit play.
When the video started, the entire courtroom froze in absolute silence.
The shaky footage showed the interior of our family kitchen from a hidden angle. On screen, Sarah was standing by the counter, holding a small vial of clear liquid. She was carefully counting drops, letting them fall directly into a glass of water—the exact glass of water she had handed me every single night before I started experiencing terrifying blackouts and violent tremors.
The room went so quiet you could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights. My heart stopped as I watched my wife systematically poison me on camera, but the footage didn’t stop there. As the camera panned slightly, a shadow emerged from the hallway, and the real horror began.
Sarah’s face drained of color, turning a sickening shade of gray as the video continued to play on the massive courtroom monitors.
On the screen, a man stepped into the kitchen frame, wrapping his arms around Sarah’s waist from behind. He laughed, whispering something into her ear before taking a sip from his own coffee mug.
It was Detective Thomas Vance—the lead investigator who had arrested me three weeks ago for domestic endangerment based on Sarah’s frantic, staged 911 calls. The same man who had written the police reports that were currently being used to strip me of my custody rights.
“Turn it off! Your Honor, this is an illegal recording! It’s inadmissible!” Sarah’s lawyer screamed, slamming his hands onto the table, completely abandoning his professional composure.
“Silence!” Judge Miller roared, her voice echoing off the walls. She didn’t look at the lawyer. Her eyes were glued to the screen, watching a decorated police detective conspire with a cheating wife to medically incapacitate a husband and frame him for a crime.
On the video, my voice could be heard from upstairs, muffled and slurred. Sarah? Can you bring me some aspirin? My head is spinning.
Sarah on screen looked directly at the hidden camera location—a nanny cam Lily had hidden inside a stuffed animal on the shelf—and smiled a chilling, wicked smile. Coming, sweetheart, she called out. Then, she turned to Detective Vance. The doctors said three more weeks of this dosage and his liver will fail. It’ll look like chronic alcoholism. The estate is ours, Tom.
I sat in the witness box, my chest heaving, tears of absolute betrayal and shock blurring my vision. The blackouts, the sudden hospitalizations, the moments I woke up on the floor with no memory of how I got there—it wasn’t a mysterious neurological disease. It was my wife. And the system I trusted had been weaponized against me by the very man who wore a badge.
Detective Vance, who had been sitting arrogantly in the back row of the gallery as a star witness for Sarah, stood up slowly. His hand instinctively hovered near his service weapon as he eyed the courtroom exits.
“Bailiff, lock the doors,” Judge Miller ordered, her voice deadly calm. “No one leaves this courtroom.”
Two armed court officers immediately stepped in front of the exit doors, their hands resting on their holsters. Vance stopped, his eyes darting around like a cornered beast.
Sarah turned on Lily, her eyes wild with rage. “You little brat! Look what you’ve done to our family!” she shrieked, lunging toward our ten-year-old daughter.
I bolted from the witness stand, but before I could reach Lily, Judge Miller slammed her gavel down so hard the wood splintered. “Restrain that woman!”
As the bailiffs wrestled Sarah away, Lily stood her ground, looking directly at Detective Vance. “That’s not the only video, Your Honor,” Lily said softly, her voice piercing through the chaos. “Show them what happened the night Dad was arrested.”
The bailiffs forced Sarah back into her chair, handcuffing her wrists to the metal frame. She was panting, her perfect hair disheveled, cursing loudly as the reality of her entrapment settled in.
In the back of the room, Detective Vance stood frozen, his face a mask of sweating desperation. He knew that the moment he drew his weapon in a federal building, his life was forfeit. He slowly raised his hands away from his belt.
The bailiff hit play on the second video file on Lily’s tablet.
This footage was taken from a smartphone camera, steady and clear, filmed through the cracked door of my home office. It was the night of my arrest. The video showed me slumped over my desk, completely unconscious from the drugged water. Sarah was standing over me, deliberately ripping her own blouse, smearing mascara down her face, and knocking over a heavy ceramic lamp to shatter it across the floor.
Then, Detective Vance walked into the room. He didn’t look like an officer responding to a distress call; he moved with casual familiarity. He took a heavy glass paperweight from my desk, wiped it clean with a handkerchief, and pressed my unconscious fingers firmly against it. Then, he used the paperweight to strike Sarah across the cheekbone, creating a violent bruise.
“Perfect,” Vance’s voice recorded clearly on the phone. “The bruising will match his grip and the object. When the patrol units get here, I’ll handle the intake. He’ll be locked up before he even wakes up to realize what hit him.”
The courtroom was so silent you could hear Sarah’s frantic breathing. The malice was undeniable. The conspiracy was absolute. My daughter had captured the entire execution of a frame-job that would have sent me to prison for a decade while leaving my child in the hands of a monster and a corrupt cop.
“Your Honor,” my attorney said, his voice shaking with a mix of anger and awe. “I move for an immediate dismissal of all charges against my client, and the immediate remand of the plaintiff.”
Judge Miller stood up from her bench, her face pale with righteous fury. She looked down at Detective Vance. “Detective Vance, surrender your service weapon to the court officers immediately. You are under arrest for conspiracy, aggravated assault, perjury, and official misconduct.”
Vance didn’t fight. He unbuckled his holster, dropping the heavy Glock onto the wooden bench, his career and life ruined in a matter of seconds. Two state troopers, who had been called to the floor by the court panic button, marched in and forcefully cuffed him.
Judge Miller then turned her gaze to Sarah. “Sarah Larson, you are remanded into custody without bail on charges of attempted murder by poisoning, child endangerment, and conspiracy. The state will be taking over your prosecution immediately.”
As Sarah was dragged out of the courtroom, sobbing and screaming my name, the heavy double doors closed behind her. The circus was over. The nightmare that had consumed my life for six months had vanished in less than ten minutes.
The judge stepped down from her high bench, ignoring all judicial protocol, and walked directly over to Lily. She knelt down so she was at eye level with my daughter.
“Lily,” Judge Miller said softly. “You are an incredibly brave young lady. Where did you hide to take that second video?”
“In the laundry chute,” Lily whispered, her eyes finally welling up with tears. “I knew they were hurting Dad. I knew no one would believe him because Mr. Vance was a policeman. I had to save him.”
The judge looked up at me, her eyes softening. “Mr. Larson, full legal and physical custody of Lily is granted to you effective immediately. All supervised visitation restrictions are lifted. This court owes you an apology. Your daughter saved your life.”
I couldn’t even speak. I fell to my knees on the courtroom floor, opening my arms. Lily ran into them, burying her face into my shoulder, her small body shaking as she finally let go of the immense terror she had carried alone for weeks.
I held her tight, pressing my face into her hair, listening to the distant sound of police sirens taking my wife away. I had lost my marriage, my trust, and almost my freedom. But as I looked at the little girl who had stood up against the world to protect me, I knew I hadn’t lost what mattered most.
We walked out of the courthouse together, hand in hand, into the bright morning sun. The air felt clean for the first time in a very long time.
