WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — A North Carolina-based Marine will now get to challenge a court-martial conviction that raises tricky questions about military discipline and religious freedom. Reinforced by members of Congress and some leading conservative lawyers, former Lance Cpl. Monifa F. Sterling this week convinced the nation’s highest military appeals court to hear a case that started with a biblical quote and led to a demotion and orders for a bad-conduct discharge. Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces will weigh whether the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act should shield Sterling’s defiance of a command that she remove the biblical quotes from her Camp...
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