Air Force Academy evangelical bias ’systemic,’ group says

[rainbow4321]

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?secid=2


A religious liberty watchdog group Thursday condemned the Air Force Academy’s “pervasive and systemic” bias toward evangelical Christianity as violating the U.S. Constitution.

-Recently, senior academy officials, including Weida, during duty hours attended an evangelical Christian meeting that identified secularism and pluralism “as specific threats to the followers of Jesus,” a message that contradicts the academy’s religious respect training.

- Prayer is a part of mandatory functions, including awards ceremonies and training dinners. Courts have ruled prayer in most government settings unconstitutional

- Christians are given passes to attend Sunday services off-campus; those celebrating their faith on other days are not. Mandatory training, parades and football games are held on Saturdays, preventing cadets who observe their religion on those days from practicing their faith. Such mandatory events are not scheduled on Sundays.

[Roland99]

1. "The academy has said the problem isn’t deeply rooted "

uuhhh... WTF do they consider deeply rooted??? :scared:

[DBoon]

2. I think they mean they don't see this as a problem

In their pervasive Christian evangelical world, their beliefs are not a problem - it's the secular, pluralistic world that is.

"problem? What problem?"

[Demeter]

38. They Had the Same Attitude to Tailhook

Took a major outcry to get any action on that scandal; too bad this one won't get it.

[CO Liberal]

3. I Guess This Can Be Expected....

...since the headquarters of FoKKKus On The Family is right across the Interstate from the Air Force Academy's southern entrance.

[edhopper]

4. Religious fanatics flying airplanes,

Geez, where have I seen that before?

[Grins]

9. What a GREAT line!

"Religious fanatics flying airplanes..."

Loved it!

[fishwax]

18. bravo!

great line :toast:

[progressivejazz]

27. Best line of the day!

Kudos!

[geniph]

31. Hammer-nail-head, my friend!

Well put!

[bobthedrummer]

5. A USAF/INSS Ocassional Paper from 1996 looked at the efficacy of US

military coup.

Revolution in Political and Military Affairs/RPMA
http://www.guerrillacampaign.com//coup.htm

I believe BFEE LIHOP largely because the USAF has a lot of unanswered questions about their behavior on 9-11-2001.

Maybe they are our Taliban that wears US military uniforms even though they are fascists.

[TahitiNut]

6. It's absolutely no surprise that authoritarians ...

... subscribe to both highly dogmatic religious ideologies and military ideologies. Following the "leader" is a LOT easier than thinking for one's self.

Been there. Done that.

[dArKeR]

7. "Liberals are going to destroy America" or pretending the truth is a lie?

Everyone knows the NeoCon type Christians are 99% immoral liars. Either they're pretending to be Christians (for positions of power) or they are agents of Satan or they are Taliban/Al Qeda Christians. They're completely intolerant to any view but theirs. So you have all these types running the military and running the NeoCon leadership in the Repuke party.

Just as they pretend only a few soldiers acted alone to torture Iraqis and Aghans they pretend that their absolute positions of power in the academey have not corrupted the institution.

Just think what convicting a few soldiers who were following orders have done to the moral of the military in Iraq! The soldiers know the orders came from Bush and Rumsfeld but they're commanders let them take the blame. Such digraceful immoral leadership!

How does an African American make money in America? Pretend they're NeoCon Repukes and sell their souls to Satan and start going on American TV spewing views which you don't believe but get you a good pay check.

[atreides1]

8. My Wife found this

"There have been witchhunts throughout time. Here, in Europe, in every corner of the world. Even when most stopped believing, or
admitting to a belief in witchcraft, there were hunts. Nazism, McCarthyism, the KKK, and so on.

Nothing more than fanatics, with power, pushing their own agendas and
finding enough weak minds to do the dirty work."

In my opinion every member of any military academy that fosters this type of behavior is a traitor, and falsely swore to defend a document
that they do not believe in. And as a result, should meet the fate of all traitors.

[Gyre]

11. I'm with you!

The Constitution is the only thing/or person they have to swear loyalty to. However, most of them are too intellectually-challenged to even be aware of that fact, as are their instructors. As good little cadet-lemmings most of them are only aware of uncomfortable consequences, nothing half as subtle as moral/ethical hypocrasy.

Treason is an interesting topic.

Gyre

[Colorado Blue]

10. Good. I'm glad they're on this. There have been abuses

against women - multiple rapes, etc., and abuses against minority religious groups at the Academy. That is exactly the opposite of what America is supposed to stand for.

Meanwhile, Colorado Springs itself is home to Dobson, Scourge of The Sponge. It's wierd.

[Unions]

25. This isn't about that

This is nothing "good". Instead of focusing on abuses against women (a minority at the academy) the white, male, christian majority is crying about how perescuted they are again. That's what's getting the attention here.

[Colorado Blue]

26. Sorry - I misread it. I thought somebody was jumping on

the Academy for being biased in favor of Evangelicals.

My apologies!

[callous taoboy]

12. The May Harper's has an excellent article related to this:

There is a mega-church in Colorado Springs, CO whose members are called "New Lifers." The air force academy in Colorado Springs feeds right into this mega-church. These folks are drawing the battle lines, people. If you live in a large city you are evil. Boys are given purity rings to signify virginity until marriage. The pastor, Pastor Ted, blends economic theory with religion so that within the church there are many different cell groups you can belong to: anti-abortion cells, anti-gay cells etc. Something for everyone. Pastor Ted would be the CEO and he has a strict heirarchy of team leaders and then people under them and so forth. New Lifers are programmed at this site, then are dispatched throughout the country to organize New Life churches. Pastor Ted talks to * or one of his aides every
Monday. It was a fascinating glimpse into one of the scariest movements on the planet.

[janx]

14. We subscribe to Harper's and have for a long time.

I haven't read that one yet. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. :hi:

[ikojo]

36. Did you read Lewis Lapham's piece in the same issue

Awesome.

The New Life article is really scary. They claim that Christianity is all about the free market.

[iamjoy]

13. Why Do All You Liberals Hate God?

Why are you picking on a good institution like the Air Force Academy? You hate God and the military.

Why are you trying to prevent these fine young men from worshipping their God as they choose? You claim to be tolerant, but you are intolerant of religious people. You claim to believe in freedom of religion, but really want no religion.

We need people leading our country who don't dislike and aren't afraid of God.

:sarcasm:

[reprobate]

19. When you make a statement like that you must specify which God.

For instance, I do not fear or dislike my god, because I created Her, just as you, in your own mind created your own god.

Please, so that we may have some common ground for discussion would you answer the following question: Since any word is just a symbol for a mind picture, when you say or think the word 'God', what is the picture you see in your mind?

For me, god is no more or less than the sum total of all intelligent life in the universe. That's it. No Designing Intelligence, no personal interest in tiny little me or you. I have yet to come to terms with the possibility of an 'overmind', or mass intelligence, but it certainly would not care whether you or I prayed to it or worshipped it.

OK, that's mine, now it your turn. Share this and lets see it we can reach some kind of concensous.

[rainbow4321]

20. Saw an awesome bumper sticker in my neighborhood last night:

"Freedom of religion means ANY religion"..

[iamjoy]

22. There Is One God...

The Almighty, who has no form.

(please don't push, I can only pretend to be one of them for so long)

[mutus_frutex]

15. This pretty much confirms what I've been thinking all my life:

Volunteer militaries and evangelical sects/religions feed from the same trough. They attract people that are violently reactionary and don't want to think for themselves.

[dArKeR]

16. This is 'Ordered' procedures coming from aWol

[davidinalameda]

17. not surprising

I'm am surprised at how long this has been under the radar so to speak

this can't be anything new

[Unions]

24. Yea can't be anything new

90% majorities are persecuted all the time :eyes:

[dArKeR]

21. I think there should an investigation into defense contractors too!

Because I have first hand knowlege of the stacking of defense contrators' management with Fundi Christians.

[Unions]

23. I call BS

According to these people white, heterosexual, christian males are the most persecuted people in the country. If a gay couple holds hands on the street they are being persecuted.

Who exactly is directing all this "bias" torwards them? Is the air force academy 90% muslim - all of which have a bias torwards christians? Yea, that must be it. It must suck being in the christian minority at the US air force academy.

[KamaAina]

28. Who is making all these appointments to the AFA?

Don't our Dem reps get to appoint candidates from our blue districts? Or have they found a way to get around that, too? :grr:

[MetaTrope]

29. So is this one of those Air Force bases where Saudi hijackers train?

:shrug:

[rainbow4321]

35. They did have the sexual assault scandal a few years back

What is it w/ this regime and the word "culture'???? The NASA "culture" problem, the "culture of life", and now the "internal culture" in this mess.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-academy29apr29,1,308440.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=3&cset=true

<snip>

But the academy — which is recovering from rape and sexual assault scandals that broke out there two years ago — has acknowledged that some individuals have gone too far in pushing their faith. There have been 55 complaints of religious insensitivity over the last four years, often made by cadets who feel evangelical Christians dominate the institution.


The report's authors were told that cadets who refused to attend chapel after dinner were marched by upperclassmen back to their dorms in a ritual called "heathen flight."

Last year, members of the Yale Divinity School visited the academy and said cadets were encouraged to proselytize to others, reminding those not "born again" that they faced burning "in the fires of hell."

Academy officials have said that they understand the seriousness of the problem and are working to change the internal culture

[Jacobin]

30. "Onward Christian Soooooldiers, Marching Off to War....."

What a country.

What a fucking country

[NNN0LHI]

32. Group Alleges Religious Harassment Is Widespread at Air Force Academy

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB6I9B458E.html

DENVER (AP) - A national group that monitors the separation of church and state says it may sue the Air Force Academy, claiming the school allows evangelical Christians to harass cadets who do not share their faith.

"This is the most significant, systemwide example of religious discrimination I have seen in a military setting. Every cadet should be treated as a first-class citizen but instead those who are not evangelical Christians have a lower status," said Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Lynn's group said it conducted a two-month investigation that included contacting about 15 cadets and staff, and has sent a report to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The investigation found that former and current cadets said that their fellow students, faculty, staff and members of the chaplains' office frequently pressured them to attend chapel and receive religious instruction. In one case, a professor required a prayer before a test, and faculty members have promoted their religion in class, the group said.

more

[Cha]

33. Yeah, like Jesus would have

harassed people. So who do they emulate?

[paineinthearse]

34. Who pays for federal chaplains?

Military, prison, Congressional?

Aren't those examples of federal support of religion, banned by the Constitution?

[MADem]

40. We do, but I can tell you how they get around it

The purpose of these chaplains is technically not to preach, but to facilitate the free exercise of religion. That is how they get around the rule. If they care to preach, they can, but it isn't their primary role...on paper, anyway.

We pay for these academies, the cost of the land, buildings, professors, support staffs, the tuition for the students, their PAY...it's a BUNDLE, too. And the quality of officer coming out of the academies is no better than what you get from four months of OCS, or a ROTC student at a university...in fact, the academy grads tend to be socially backward. They know the silly military facts, but at 22, they act like 18. Often they get in trouble at their first duty stations, because they haven't been out in the world, living and screwing up, like most teens/early 20's do in college.

Edit, spelling

[arwalden]

37. So Why Are So Many Christians STILL Claiming To Be "Persecuted"??

Here's yet ANOTHER example of favoritism towards them.

[screembloodymurder]

39. We cannot allow this bias in our military.

A friends son quit the Academy late in his junior year because of this type of discrimination. In his case it was racial, but then evangelical Christians are supposed to be white. It's in the bible.

[Ian David]

41. See new related thread: Navy probes Religious Discrimination

Navy Probes Religious Discrimination Claim
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1435846