Who Gets to Be A Conscientious Objector?
The Washington Post reports on a Quaker who, with the help of the ACLU, is suing the U.S. Government for not providing a way to note conscientious objector status when fulfilling the requirement to register with the Selective Service System.
“The United States, which has an all-volunteer military, has not had a draft since 1973. But the Selective Service System collects information from men ages 18 to 25 in case Congress reinstates conscription into the armed forces. [Tobin] Jacobrown, of Indianola, Wash., said he has not filled out his Selective Service forms, as required by law, because they do not have a space for him to indicate his status as a conscientious objector. As a Quaker, he said, he cannot sign the forms without such a provision. Although Quakers do not have a specific creed, pacifism is a long-standing belief.”
The ACLU points out that adding a line to state a desired CO status would be “easy as pie”, and that Selective Service forms up till 1980 provided a way to record conscientious objector claims. It is currently against the law for any male to refuse to participate in the Selective Service process (and those who do are denied government benefits). It should be interesting to see how this plays out, suing the government into doing anything, no matter how easy it may be for them to accomplish, is a slow and difficult process. As for Tobin Jacobrown, he is already well-positioned to avoid military service in the event of a draft. The Quakers (aka the Religious Society of Friends), with their Peace Testimony and long history of active resistance to military service, are usually given CO status when brought before their local Selective Service board. The contentious issue here, and why I think the government will fight making this “easy” change, is how adding this line might assist members of other religious groups who embrace some form of pacifism, like certain Catholics or various Pagan individuals.
Currently, if you want to get CO status for ethical or religious reasons (CO status isn’t granted for political reasons) you have to appear at a Selective Service board hearing, and you are expected to prove a long-standing commitment to non-participation or resistance to war in all forms. Many religious groups, in anticipation of a new draft, have instructions and forms to prepare in the event that a draft is called and you must prove your CO status. Gathering the proper documentation can be difficult, and division over the issue within religious communities have been used against aspiring objectors. Recent court cases have moved things further into the direction of individual (rather than institutional) matters of conscience that don’t require proof of “rigorous study”, but that doesn’t mean the process is a cake-walk. Allowing teens to indicate a CO claim on the Selective Service form would establish a definable paper-trail of anti-militaristic intent, and could bolster CO cases if a new draft should ever be called. At this time, would-be COs who write objector statements on their Selective Service forms create no paper-trail as the forms are destroyed after the information is recorded.
“Other Quakers, he said, write that they are conscientious objectors on the forms, even though the information is not collected by the government and the documents are discarded. The objectors keep copies of the forms to prove that they raised the issue when they registered.”
For modern Paganism, which encompasses many different religions and traditions, and many different attitudes towards military service, being able to make the government record your individual beliefs regarding service is important. Otherwise a pacifist Pagan could be confronted with the fact that many Pagans serve in the military and that our communities have been very active in having Pagan soldiers acknowledged and honored. As we move away from top-down hierarchical religious institutions, getting to acknowledge that a single religion (or interconnected group of religions) can encompass both pacifists and warriors (and various shades in-between) is an important step, a step that may be taken by Mr. Jacobrown and the ACLU.
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