For many years, staffers at Air Force Inns were required to check to make sure there was a Bible in the room. But once the new fiscal year starts, that requirement will no longer be there.
The Air Force Services Agency will remove the “Is a Bible provided?” question from its lodging checklist, according to Air Force Personnel Center spokesman Mike Dickerson.
Dickerson said after a legal review, the Air Force Services Agency determined that there was no legal reason to have the question on the lodging checklist. The checklist is used to ensure that lodging standards at all Air Force Inns are being met and maintained.
This move comes after the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers raised a stink about the requirement. Seems like simple common sense, right? Well, the wingers are up in arms about it. OneNewsNow talked with Gordon Klingenschmitt, who actually thinks this is an attack on religious freedom.
"The Air Force is apparently complicit to this. I don't know if they're removing the Bibles, but at least they're removing [them] from the checklists, [the result being that] whoever cleans the rooms is no longer required to check whether the Bible is in place," explains the former chaplain.
Klingenschmitt laments the possible fallout. "So if somebody steals one of those Bibles or if they're confiscated by atheist complainers or put in the trash, then sadly Christian people will not have access to read the Bible at night," he observes.
So riddle me this, Gordon. How is one religion's book required to be in a hotel room, but those of other religions aren't? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
While the fundies appear to be readying another astroturf campaign, a truer picture comes from an online poll at The Blaze's writeup. Over 87 percent of respondents think the Air Force did the right thing in removing the Bible requirement. This is coming from Glenn Beck's site, people.