Pentagon Pete Scrambles to Fix ‘Repugnant’ Religion Move
Pete Hegseth is scrambling to do damage control after enraging top Mormon officials.
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Hegseth’s Department of Defense sparked outrage after a spokesperson announced the agency would slash the number of religious identities service members can register on their personnel records from more than 200 to just 31. Of the 22 Christian denominations that remained, Mormonism was not one of them—triggering a full-blown meltdown from Mormon Republican Sen. Mike Lee and swift condemnation from other GOP leaders.
On Monday, the official DOD Rapid Response account on X attempted to rectify the situation—but not without a few blunders.
Initially, a DOD spokesperson claimed in a now-deleted X post that the proposed list of simplified faith codes had been “leaked” to the media—despite the agency announcing it itself.
The post was later deleted and replaced with a similar message announcing yet another updated list of religious identities.
“Last week, a proposed list of simplified faith codes was released to the media,” the post now reads. “The Pentagon list included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed. The goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control ‘belief’ coding system that had ballooned to over 200 codes.”
The spokesperson further insisted that the DOD has no intention of wading into religious debates.
“In order to clarify the work of chaplains, and simplify the work of commanders, the Pentagon has consolidated and simplified the list to roughly 30 codes—using the previously used labels for faiths. The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks,” the post continues.
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The DOD also included an updated list of Religious Affiliation Codes, which now includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e., Mormons. A DOD spokesperson did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Lee was quick to praise the DOD’s reversal.
“I agree with this statement, and am grateful to [Secretary] Hegseth for correcting the error,” he wrote on X Monday afternoon.
Just a day earlier, however, Lee had raged against the move in a video posted to the platform. “It’s just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations,” Lee said.
“I’m imploring people at the Pentagon to reconsider this—and not just reconsider it, but undo it,” he continued. “Secretary Hegseth: tear down that wall! This is not cool! Get rid of it, get rid of it now!”
Following the DOD’s walkback, political analysts and commentators were quick to point out how haphazardly the situation appeared to have unfolded.
“After complaints by LDS members (like Utah’s U.S. senators), Pentagon changed new list of religion codes by removing ‘Christian’ label from all codes that had it, so now no longer implies LDS isn’t Christian,” political commentator Brian Kaylor wrote on X. “Already making edits suggests this hasn’t been thought out very carefully.”
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