“The U.S. military ordered soldiers to remove a cross and a steeple from atop a chapel and to board up cross-shaped windows at a remote American forward operating base in Afghanistan.” It turns out that a soldier complained and the president of the American Atheists sent a letter to the Pentagon. Conservatives are outraged, of course. But my question is: What is a cross doing there in the first place? There is nothing so unholy as a chapel on a military base used to ask God to bless and protect the troops as they fight unjust wars.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance