Should soldiers be worried about senior officers wearing their religion on the sleeves, promoting theirs?

There is an important difference between someone who is passionate and open, perhaps even outspoken about his or her religion and someone who promotes their religion in an innapropriate way. The former is perfectly acceptable but can potentially be annoying. The latter is a clear violation and is unacceptable at any level. What some people need to understand is that simply speaking about religion isn't a problem. A flag officer speaking about being a Christian, Agnostic, Athiest etc. is no different than talking about the joy of collecting baseball cards. I may not care for baseball cards, but as long as I have the freedom to not join that club, then nobody's rights have been violated. We do not have a right to be free from hearing, seeing, or otherwise being exposed to religion, we have a right to not have it forced upon us or having religion sponsorored or promoted by the government or its representatives. People in general need to get over being so easily offended, so very sensitive, and so politically correct. Just my humble opinion.

It depends on the context. If someone is at a national prayer event, clearly the subject is about religion and being open about your beliefs is expected. For the 70-ish% of people that identify with the same religion as the speaker, I'm sure it's a feel-good rally and a great time.

If this it were a mandatory event or one where attendance was "highly encouraged" it becomes inappropriate to endorse your brand (or lack of) religion.

I don't wear my atheist dog tags so that everyone can see nor do I mention it unless someone asks. As silly as I find believing in supernatural entities and goat sacrifices are, I've had to correct a subordinate when he was openly badmouthing religion in the office even though I agreed with what he was saying 100%.

People tend to take things out of context far too often and are quick to assume bad intentions.

We are an all volunteer force. We choose to serve and to follow the rules of the Military, some of these recent events definitely damage good order and discipline.

Let's have this conversation without the Religion part, using something way less important. Sports. Imagine you get to a unit, and the first time you encounter your senior leader they ask you "What's your favorite Sports team?" Now for this exercise, they pick a rival team, if you don't like sports they are surprised that you don't like their team, and can't believe that you don't follow their favorite sports in general. Now someone else who just arrived at the unit says they do like whatever team, and your senior leader shows that they have a chain with the logo, a tattoo, and immediately invites your peer who also just arrived to an game on Sunday, to build unit cohesion. How do you feel about this? Does it violate good order and discipline? Imagine if it is something more important, like religion, now what do you think?

MAJ Carlos "CAP" A Puentes Sr