It’s not just the Republican addition to the Pledge, it’s not just the Ten Commandments on courthouse walls and lawns and in lobbies; it’s not just the religious phrases on our coins and bills, it’s the Air Force Inquisition.
CBS News brings us the latest in the saga of the Air Force Academy acting as the indoctrination center and heretic persecution agency for Evangelical Christianity. A suit has been brought against the Secretary of the Air Force in Federal Court by Albuquerque resident and Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein.
Weinstein claims that evangelical Christians at the school have coerced attendance at religious services and prayers at official events, among other things. He is not the first to make such allegations.
According to CBS, there have been complaints at the academy that a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and that another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet. A banner in the football team's locker room read: "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ." Also, there have been complaints that cadets were pressured to attend chapel, that academy staffers put New Testament verses in government e-mail, and that cadets used the e-mail system to encourage others to see the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ."
Of course the Air Force denies that there is a problem. An internal investigation has been widely faulted for not having spoken to those who have complained. Capt. MeLinda Morton, a chaplain who spoke out against what she considers strident evangelizing on campus, said she was interviewed for a scant 15 minutes on the task force's last day of investigation. A Yale Divinity School professor who helped flag the religious problems at the academy was never contacted. The official report found little to worry about, but I’ve seen first hand the number of religious posters, placards and other imagery at Army facilities I’ve toured and heard the frequent reference to God and the divine mission to an extent I’ve never seen or heard in the private sector. Whether I’m seeing an artifact of a volunteer military or just a cross section of America, I’m bothered by the idea that we have a potential conflict between Civilian control, Constitutional allegiance and religious authoritarianism of the Fundamentalist kind.
Jesus is said to have admonished us to love our enemies, the atheist Nietzsche warned us against becoming the enemies we fight against. Militant American Fundamentalists don’t seem to listen to either of them
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2 comments:
Reporting for duty Capt. Fogg.
Religion needs to be kept completely out of government. Period.
People are free to believe as they will in this country. I’m a member of the military and would fight for our citizens right to their beliefs. But we are increasingly living in a society where ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ are more important that action, reason and inquisitive skepticism.
I’m not a Christian… the government forces these beliefs on me in enough ways. To hear that a military academy allows such behavior pisses me off more than you know.
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