Religious Freedom at the Air Force Academy V

I’ve read the Executive Summary of the Air Force Report on religious discrimination at the Air Force Academy. (Click here for a pdf file.)

I agree with Outside the Beltway that Rocky Mountain News gets it about right:

"Those who have argued that the academy is in the grip of evangelical zealots will not see a great deal to vindicate their thesis in the report. Similarly, those who dismiss any concern regarding religious intolerance as part of a "long war on Christianity," to quote one particularly ill-informed Indiana congressman, will discover that their assessment has been rejected, too.
…

At the same time, the report demystifies a number of the more breathless claims regarding religious intolerance. It notes that a "widely reported" figure of 55 complaints was in fact "a collection of observations and events reported by about 13 people" over four years. It properly balks at endorsing a Yale Divinity School team's apparent view that evangelical chaplains should refrain from expressing their religious views even in voluntary Protestant services. And it concludes that the nickname "heathen flight" for cadets who preferred to march back to their dorms during basic training rather than go to religious services, "while clearly inappropriate," was developed by cadets and generally treated as a joke."

On the other hand, I think the Rocky Mountain News is off base here:

"It is equally hard to believe that an officer who reaches the rank of brigadier general could be so insensitive to the diversity of cadets that he would send an email, as their commandant, suggesting they "ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to discover the right." Yet that happened, too."

I don’t see how it is out of line to echo Lincoln’s second inaugural urging us to act “with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right”

As to the question of the AFA football coach and how we ought to approach the question of political discussion at work, see my posting on Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs.

Comments

[Karen Shelton]

It is all well and good to express an opinion on what one thinks is good and best; however, I would look to what the law states in regards to these specific quotes, emails, and events. The law does not allow for good intentions or for what was okay during Lincoln's day. If the students felt harrassed and believed that they were being discriminated against and they have specific examples of how their rights have been violated and how they have been harrassed I can hardly see how by the law that those in authority have not truly abused their position. The church is either separated from the state or it is not. There is no intent in that. Only what is lawful and what is not lawful. If the academy wishes to be a school with christian ties then it needs to become private, not accept federal funds, and create a mission statement that says so, otherwise they have no business witnessing to, demeaning, and harassing others who attend the academy and have different beliefs. I cannot imagine a way that referring to others even in jest as those in a "Heathen Flight" is well meaning or even funny. Those who laughed at it were either those who made the joke or those who tried to make lite of a heavy situation. The weight of it being on their shoulders. The Christians are not the only game in town and the Air Force Academy would do well to remember that!