Pentagon reworks ‘offensive’ policy affecting LDS after Mormon lawmakers loudly protest
Defense officials said the reduction will help chaplains better target spiritual support, while Utah lawmakers called the LDS reclassification unacceptable.
- The Pentagon sharply revised its newly introduced list of recognized military religious codes on Monday, moving quickly to defuse a massive political backlash sparked over the weekend by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- The controversy began Friday when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slashed recognized faith categories from 211 down to 31, an administrative overhaul aimed at helping the chaplain corps streamline logistics. However, the system classified the LDS Church under a standalone category entirely separate from its 21 designated "Christian" sub-groups.
- Mormon lawmakers led a fierce, public rebellion against the policy, with Utah Republican Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis, alongside Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, blasting the omission as "unacceptable" and demanding Hegseth immediately fix a classification that explicitly defied the church's core identity.
- In modifying the policy, the Department of Defense completely removed the overarching "Christian" label from the tracking system, instead opting to list all 31 recognized faith groups—including specific Protestant denominations, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, and the LDS Church—as flat, independent choices.
- Despite the adjustment, the wider policy remains under intense fire from civil liberties groups, who note that the streamlined layout completely erases the distinct identities of minor beliefs by pushing Unitarian Universalists, Wiccans, Pagans, and Atheists into broad "Agnostic" or "Other Religions" brackets.
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26 Articles
Pentagon updates list of recognized religious affiliations after backlash from Mormon lawmakers
The Pentagon has updated its list of verified religious affiliations for service members used in HR systems and removed the “Christian” designation from several faiths after facing backlash over the weekend that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not designated as Christian.
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ussanews.comMAGA senator erupts at Pete Hegseth for excluding Mormons from Christian categories
Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, is celebrating after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth corrected an error that left out Mormons from a simplified faith code. Lee, like many people from the state, is a follower of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he was disheartened to see that Hegseth had left Mormons off the list of Christian faith groups used by the U.S. military following a recent policy revision. He took to X to express his displea…
Department of War not categorizing Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as Christians in new religious list
The Department of Defense faces bipartisan backlash after slashing recognized military religious choices from 200 to 31 and reclassifying the Latter-day Saints faith. FOX 10's Andrew Christiansen learns more.
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