Today, the US Air Force announced the release of the report on their investigation into religious discrimination at the USAF Academy in Colorado. The results were unsurprising: rather than focus on the very significant culture issues surrounding overt Christianity in the Academy, the USAF brass focused instead on a handful of actionable instances of discrimination.
In closely related news: USAF Capt. MeLinda S. Morton, the Academy chaplain removed from her position earlier this year for whistleblowing, resigned her commission yesterday in advance of the release of the report. It's my belief that she did so after reviewing a final copy of the report and concluding that she would not be able to make headway in reforming the Academy.
For those of you not familiar with the story, numerous allegations have surfaced that the USAF Academy is dominated (Dominionated?) by overtly proselytizing evangelical Christians. It's no coincidence that wingnut James Dobson's operation is headquartered in Colorado Springs, a stone's throw from the Academy.
Continued after the break.
I was originally going to post a diary on this as a straight Theocracy/Dominionism news item -- then I noticed something
very interesting about the news coverage regarding the report.
What I found interesting was the VERY wide divergence of interpretation of the report's meaning by the press, as can be clearly seen by the headlines and coverage:
NYTimes
Panel Finds No Overt Religious Intolerance at Air Force Academy
A military panel looking into complaints of religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy found no instances of overt discrimination, officials said today, but concluded that the academy failed to accommodate the diverse religious needs of cadets and staff.
...
"The team found a religious climate that does not involve overt religious discrimination, but a failure to fully accommodate all members' needs and a lack of awareness where the line is drawn between permissible and impermissible expression of beliefs," the report says.
The inquiry was ordered after an Air Force Academy chaplain accused superiors of improperly promoting evangelical Christianity among cadets. The Lutheran chaplain, Capt. MeLinda S. Morton, submitted her resignation from the military on Tuesday.
Contrast the NYT headline and article treatment with the very different converage by Bloomberg:
Bloomberg
U.S. Air Force Academy Details Pattern of Religious Intolerance
Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado have been subject to religious intolerance, including banners, e-mails, speeches and advertisements promoting Christianity, military officials reported today.
The 100-page report by the Air Force cites incidents that include the academy's commandant repeatedly giving a ``J for Jesus'' hand signal to cadets, the hanging of a ``Team Jesus'' banner in the football team's locker room, and the placement of leaflets promoting the ``Passion of the Christ'' movie at all 4,000 place settings in the academy dining hall.
...
The report also described incidents that included top Air Force personnel signing a December 2003 advertisement in a campus newspaper declaring Jesus is the ``only real hope for the world,'' and cadets who decline to attend religious services during Lent being sent back to their dorms in what was commonly labeled the ``heathen flight.''
I'm no expert on Theocracy or Dominionism -- Frederick Clarkson's the go-to guy around dKos on matters such as this. In my opinion, however, this is some seriously scary stuff.
It seems clear to me that an institution I formerly respected, the USAF Academy, has been infected by a culture of arrogant, right-wing Christianity. These are not individual incidents, nor are they something that can be dealt with piecemeal.
It's time for a house-cleaning at the Academy. This is intolerable, and it's a corruption of the Republic. I have no faith that this den of well-meaning iniquity will be cleansed under Bush's watch, but I still hold out hope that the USAF career officers will see that it's in their best interests to deal with this sooner rather than later.
More links:
Guardian Unlimited, UK: Religious Insensitivity Cited at Academy
Miami Herald/AP Newswire: Religious insensitivity cited at academy
Washington Post: Air Force Academy Chaplain Resigns