{"id":587,"date":"2020-01-24T14:30:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T20:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/?page_id=587"},"modified":"2020-02-18T16:11:30","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T22:11:30","slug":"conscientious-objection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/about-us\/conscientious-objection\/","title":{"rendered":"Conscientious Objection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cAll bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.\u201d<\/p> George Fox and others, to Charles II of England, 1660\u201361<\/em> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Friends have been known for their peace testimony since the beginning of the Quaker movement in the mid-seventeenth century.  George Fox, one of the founders of Quakerism, declared that Friends would refuse to fight in any war for any reason.  The commitment to nonviolence is based on the belief that there is that of God in everyone and that every human life is sacred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout our history, many Quakers have protested against wars,\nrefused to serve in the armed forces if drafted, and sought conscientious\nobjector status when available.  To be sure, Quakers have a wide\nrange of beliefs and practices, and many do choose to serve in the military.\nNevertheless, the peace testimony serves as a call to conscience as Friends\nconsider how best to work for a peaceful and just world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several Friends in Urbana-Champaign Friends Meeting have sought conscientious objector (CO) status over the years.\u00a0\u00a0Merlin Taber shared his experiences as a CO\u00a0(Link to Merlin\u2019s video pending due to technical issues… <\/em><\/strong>)during World War II in a talk at the Meetinghouse on November 10, 2019.\u00a0\u00a0Although he grew up in a Quaker family, Merlin\u2019s account reveals the angst of a young man faced with a difficult decision\u2013whether to fight in a war or apply for CO status.\u00a0He chose the latter and served in four different assignments in the Civilian Public Service, a program that provided alternatives to military service during World War II.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Friends in our Meeting resisted the draft during the 1960\u2019s,\nincluding the Vietnam War, each one living with great anxiety as he waited to\nhear whether his local draft board would approve his application for CO status,\nknowing he risked a jail sentence if it was denied.  One Friend spent\ntwo years in Poland in an alternative service project, teaching English to\nuniversity students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, a regular attender of our Meeting became a\nconscientious objector while on active duty in the armed forces during the\n2000s. After returning from deployment he became increasingly uncomfortable\nwith his participation in the military, and his conscience guided him to the\nconviction that war is immoral. Without prior knowledge of Quakerism and CO\nstatus, he sought help from the Center on Conscience\nand War<\/a>, a non-profit founded by Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren to\nsupport and defend the rights of all conscientious objectors to war.\nUltimately, he was given an honorable discharge from the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. replaced the draft in 1973 with an all-volunteer army,\ndue in part to the divisive Vietnam War years with many young men resisting the\ndraft and people across the country vigorously protesting the\nwar.  Currently, eighteen-year-old men are expected to register with the\nSelective Service, which exists to provide an efficient way to call up young\npeople to fight in a war if the draft is reinstated.  Serious\nconsequences befall those who fail to register; they cannot receive federal\ncollege scholarships and, in most states, cannot get a driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the Selective Service does not provide a way to register as\na CO.  Curt Torell, in his article, Why Talk\nabout Conscientious Objection with Youth<\/a> (Friends Journal, October\n2017), recommends that young people document their commitment to conscientious\nobjection in case the draft is reinstated.  The process not only\nprepares young adults for that possibility, but also helps them examine the\npeace testimony in relationship to their personal lives.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAll bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.\u201d George Fox and others, to Charles II of England, 1660\u201361 Friends have been known for their peace testimony … Continue reading Conscientious Objection<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":158,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-587","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/587\/revisions\/593"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilym.org\/urbana\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}