One week after his appointment as deputy Naval Chief of Chaplains was announced, Rear Adm. Carey H. Cash is facing stiff opposition from advocacy groups who call him an “Islamophobe” and a “Christian nationalist.”
Rear Adm. Cash, currently the commanding officer of the Naval Chaplaincy School and Center in Newport, Rhode Island, was slammed by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as having expressed “extremist views” that “would prevent him from effectively serving … sailors of all faiths.”
“Chaplain Cash has every right to hold his own personal religious convictions, but he also has a civic duty and legal responsibility to ensure that all sailors who practice Islam – and sailors who follow other faiths – receive religiously-required services, resources and accommodations,” Robert S. McCaw, CAIR’s government affairs director, said in a statement.
The CAIR statement cites a 2005 book by Rear Adm. Cash, “A Table in the Presence,” in which the author reportedly labels Islam “a violent faith” that “from its very birth has used the edge of the sword as a means to convert or conquer those with different religious convictions.”
CAIR also alleges that during a 2005 Independence Day service at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Rear Adm. Cash said his goal in evangelization is that “first we get the military, then we get the nation.”
The statements attributed to Rear Adm. Cash were unearthed by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a New Mexico-based advocacy group. Its senior research director Chris Rodda published an op-ed at the Daily Kos website in which he claimed MRFF had received “about 40 complaints” about Rear Adm. Cash.
In a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon, MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein called the Cash promotion “a deliberate attempt to elevate an Islamophobe and a Christian nationalist. It’s horrendous.”
The Washington Times contacted the Department of Defense and the Navy for comment but did not receive an immediate response.