Sukhbir Singh Toor . (Sikh Coalition)
By Asia Samachar | United States |
US Marine artillery Captain Sukhbir Singh Toor and three other Sikhs are suing the Marine Corps in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, for the corps’s refusal to grant a religious waiver, claiming that it was arbitrary and discriminatory, and violates the constitutional right to free exercise of their religion.
The filed their action yesterday (April 11).
“I just want to move on, so I can do my job,” Captain Toor, 27, told the New York Times said in an interview from his base in Twentynine Palms, Calif., before the suit was filed. “There is no reason I should have to sacrifice my faith in order to serve my country.”
The Marine artillery captain has been on a mission over the past year to become the first Sikh in the United States Marine Corps allowed to openly practice his religion while in uniform.
During that time he has won a string of victories against the strict dress standards of the Marine Corps, and he can now wear the beard, long hair and turban required of a faithful Sikh while on duty. But recently, the Marine Corps dug in, refusing to allow him or any other Sikh to wear a beard on a combat deployment or during boot camp, saying that beards would hinder the corps’s ability to function and put lives at risk, the newspaper reported.
Joining him in the lawsuit are three prospective Marine recruits who have been told they must shave their beards and cut their hair for boot camp, where all Marines receive basic training, and only afterward would be able to apply for a religious exemption.
“This afternoon, we joined our partners Winston & Strawn LLP, Becket, BakerHostetler, and SAVA – Sikh American Veterans Alliance to file suit against the U.S. Marine Corps on behalf of one active duty and three recruit clients,” The Sikh Coalition said
The lawsuit is emblematic of the larger struggle the tradition-bound military faces in trying to attract personnel in an increasingly diverse nation, while preserving practices that took root when its ranks were almost entirely white, male and Christian, the NYT report added.
At issue is the long-simmering tension between constitutional guarantees of individual rights and the military’s need to maintain an effective fighting force that at times must impinge on those rights. The back and forth over religion has been evolving since at least 1981, when an Orthodox rabbi serving in the Air Force sued the service over the right to wear a skullcap. Current law requires that the military not restrict individual exercise of religion except when a “compelling government interest” is at stake, and in those cases, to use the “least restrictive means” possible, it added.
In prior administrative decisions concerning Sikh turbans and beards, the report noted that Marine leaders have cited two interests it said were compelling. One is uniform appearance in the ranks, which the corps argues is crucial to good order and discipline.
“Uniformity is more than the mere outward expression of unity with the team; it is a tool that constantly reminds each Marine of the team to which they are committed and a signal to other Marines of the depth of that commitment,” the Marine Corps said in response to Captain Toor’s first request for an accommodation in June. Tampering with that commitment, it warned, could cost lives.
Second, the Marine Corps has said, beards might hinder Marines’ physical ability to do their duties by keeping them from safely wearing gas masks.
On Sept. 23, 2021, 1st Lt. Sukhbir Toor possibly became the first Marine to lawfully wear a turban in a Marine Corps uniform.
The Marine Corps granted Toor the ability to wear his turban, uncut hair and a beard in uniform, in accordance with his Sikh faith, unless he deploys to a combat zone or while he is wearing a dress uniform in a ceremonial unit, The New York Times first reported.
RELATED STORY:
A Sikh Marine is now allowed to wear a turban in uniform (Asia Samachar, 6 Oct 2021)
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