Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing backlash after the Pentagon sparked outrage by leaving Mormonism off a newly proposed list of religious identities for U.S. service members.
The controversy erupted after a Department of Defense spokesperson announced that the agency planned to shrink the number of religious identities service members can list on their personnel records from more than 200 to just 31.
But the streamlined list quickly blew up in the Pentagon’s face.
Of the 22 Christian denominations that remained on the list, Mormonism was not included. That triggered fury from Mormon Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and condemnation from other GOP leaders.
By Monday, the official DOD Rapid Response account on X was trying to clean up the mess.
But even the attempted fix appeared rocky.
The account first posted, then deleted, a message claiming the proposed list of simplified faith codes had been “leaked” to the media. The problem was that the agency had announced the list itself.
The Pentagon later replaced the deleted post with a new message acknowledging that changes had been made.
“Last week, a proposed list of simplified faith codes was released to the media,” the updated post said. “The Pentagon list included redundant and unnecessary labeling, and the mistake has been fixed. The goal of this effort is to simplify a previously out-of-control ‘belief’ coding system that had ballooned to over 200 codes.”
The spokesperson insisted the Pentagon was not trying to referee religious disagreements.
“In order to clarify the work of chaplains, and simplify the work of commanders, the Pentagon has consolidated and simplified the list to roughly 30 codes — using the previously used labels for faiths,” the post continued. “The Pentagon’s job is not to adjudicate theological debates, but instead to ensure sincerely-held faith is respected and encouraged in our ranks.”
The updated list now includes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church.
Lee, who had blasted the original move, quickly praised the reversal.
“I agree with this statement, and am grateful to Secretary Hegseth for correcting the error,” Lee wrote on X Monday afternoon.
That was a dramatic shift from just one day earlier, when Lee posted a furious video demanding the Pentagon reverse course.
“It’s just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations,” Lee said.
He then appealed directly to Hegseth.
“I’m imploring people at the Pentagon to reconsider this — and not just reconsider it, but undo it,” Lee said. “Secretary Hegseth: tear down that wall! This is not cool! Get rid of it, get rid of it now!”
After the Pentagon’s walkback, commentators noted how quickly the agency appeared to revise the plan once political pressure mounted.
Political commentator Brian Kaylor wrote that after complaints from members of the LDS church, including Utah’s U.S. senators, the Pentagon edited the religion codes by removing the “Christian” label from all codes that previously had it.
That change appeared to avoid suggesting that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not Christian.
“Already making edits suggests this hasn’t been thought out very carefully,” Kaylor wrote.
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