The US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has been embroiled in controversey for the past year, due to overzealous and inappropriate proselytizing by Christian officers and chaplains. It seemed that in late 2005, the Academy and the Pentagon had decided that such behavior must cease and desist. Well, once again, we see the administration making public claims of reform, but then, as soon as no one is watching, they offer a new gift to the Religious Right-Wingers.
The Air Force has just announced that officers and chaplians are not required to respect anyone's religion except their own. That is official policy. This veteran, who happens to be Jewish, is offended and shocked. You will be too after you read below the fold.
COLORADO: AIR FORCE REVISES RELIGION RULES The Air Force released new guidelines for religious expression, dropping a requirement for chaplains to respect others' rights to their own beliefs and no longer cautioning top officers about promoting their personal religious views. The revisions were welcomed by conservative Christians. But critics called the revisions a step backward and said they did nothing to protect the rights of most airmen. The original guidelines were created after accusations that evangelical Christians at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs were imposing their views on others. (AP)
That is the entirety of the NY Times' coverage of the story. My local AJC? Not a word. CNN? Nada. How can this be? I thought us Jews controlled the media. I guess that myth, like the story of Al Gore claiming to have invented internet, has fallen prey to reality.
Back in May, after 4 years of complaints about religious intolerance and proselytizing pressure from senior officers, the Air Force announced that "all 9,000 cadets and faculty and staff members [will] take a 50-minute course on religious sensitivity". (Much like the once-hyped ethics training for White House staff.) The Pentagon all said that a task force would be formed to investigate the conditions and the complaints fully.
CNN reported
In addition, a report last week by a Washington-based religious liberty group accused cadets and staff members of creating a climate that discriminated against non-Christians at the academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
"We have concluded that both the specific violations and the promotion of a culture of official religious intolerance are pervasive, systematic and evident at the very highest levels of the academy's command structure," said the report from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
So did the newly attentive Pentagon take care of the problem in May? No. Come October of 2005, the Air Force was defending itself against a lawsuit based on its continuing harassment of non-Christians.
The Air Force, facing a lawsuit over alleged proselytizing, has withdrawn a document that permitted chaplains to evangelize military personnel who were not affiliated with any faith, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
The document was circulated at the Air Force Chaplain School until eight weeks ago. It was a "code of ethics" for chaplains that included the statement "I will not proselytize from other religious bodies, but I retain the right to evangelize those who are not affiliated."
This suit was diaried by Elise
here.
But the religious right, to whom, they claim, Bush owes his 2004 election, would not sit by and allow their military to be sullied by non-believers. From Pat Robertson's CBN in July:
Many people will be watching the Air Force Academy as the commanders head into the uncharted territory of religious tolerance. But Christian groups have their eye on the bigger picture, the spiritual picture.
Minnery spoke to that, "People who are in harms way, in battle, will quail before the rigors of battle if they do not have spiritual sustenance, and if we tell them `it's not appropriate to engage in spirituality', we're doomed."
The uncharted territory of religious tolerance? Holy cow! Is the concept so novel that it had never been practiced prior to last summer? And the assertion that soldiers can't shoot straight without Jesus pulling the trigger just boggles the logic circuits on so many levels.
Well, it appears that the experiment didn't work, given this newest directive. Either that, or the administration has once again caved meekly to pressure from James Dobson, Pat Robertson and company. Respect for others religious (or a-religious) views? That's soooo September 10. Looks like we've got a crusade to fight in Iraq. And maybe Iran.