Recent Comments
Re: “UPDATE: Air Force called out for homophobic link”
I take it that as the USAFA Chaplain’s Office prepared it’s NOTAM on various religions, the person in charge of the project just did Google searches and just posted the top links, without reading them. I just did a search on “Judaism”, and the top two results are the Wikipedia entry and the site in question www.jewfaq.org. I further assume the author of the NOTAM did not want to appear to be too lazy, so he/she skipped the Wikipedia, and just chose the one right below, www.jewfaq.org, deeming it an official website on the Jewish religion.
These lazy and careless practices are just additional indicators that USAFA’s Christian fundamentalist-centered arrogance is alive and well. I also noticed on some of the other links, the author went to the BBC, as the Buddhism link indicates. The BBC pages on religion are definitely much better that www.jewfaq.org, but again, they are not official sites of the various religions USAFA is struggling to explain. It seems to me that USAFA’s outreach to religions outside of Christianity is not going to well. Also, where was the Jewish Chaplain when this was prepared? In the case the Jewish Chaplain was in charge of the Jewish section of the NOTAM, I would have to question this person’s credibility.
Furthermore, as a USAFA graduate, I’ve noticed from the time I joined over 20 years ago to the present, many cadets come from a very sheltered small town life. In most cases, this means they have little knowledge of outside customs and traditions. If any person with a limited knowledge on religions outside of Christianity were to read from www.jewfaq.org, they could easily misinterpret its content as official Jewish doctrine. In reality most American Jews have distanced themselves from the misogynistic, homophobic, and racist views of some Old Testament passages ( by the way, commensurate with the attitudes of the time they were written), as have many Christians.
Over the past 18 months, some Christians in the military have been crying foul over the wise decision by the DoD to lift “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because allegedly it attacks their hateful convictions against homosexuality, which they pull from the same Old Testament passages cited in www.jewfaq.org. This is one of the many reasons we need to keep religion entirely separated from government. If anyone in the military has a problem with Equal Opportunity because of their religious views, they need to seriously reconsider their vocational decision. The military goes out of its way to accommodate religious needs as much as possible, but as institutions like USAFA have demonstrated, many abuse this privilege by pushing their religious views on others during their performing of official duties.
USAFA wants to portray itself as being increasingly sensitive to other religions, but the institution keeps making mistakes. Remember when the Superintendent thought Sikhs went to mosque? In addition, in trying to portray itself as religiously neutral, USAFA has forgotten that there are many cadets and permanent party who do not follow any religions. Freethinking and Atheists organizations have often been excluded from USAFA’s feeble outreach charades.
I look forward to General Welsh’s response to Mr. Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who thankfully will continue to lead the fight to keep the leadership honest.
Posted by
USAFA Red Tag
on 02/14/2013 at 9:24 AM
Re: “AFA explores religious respect”
USAFA is failing to take these conferences seriously. Any religious respect conference should include secular groups, even if they don't practice one of the pre-approved religions. There is still a subtle message sent to our cadets that religious people make for better leaders, which is completely false. I'm yet to see an intellectually and morally honest argument that religiosity makes a person a better leader than a non-believer.
In a heated electoral season, there is still a message, especially from the political right, that non-believers or non-Christian groups are somehow bad. Our new CSAF has been in his post for two months now. He has a rare opportunity to clearly and passionately articulate a message of respect and tolerance for any belief system. The AF is the most vulnerable of the services to dominionist influence because of USAFA's long-standing relationship with local dominionist organizations. Dominionists continue to cry foul, but no one is taking away their religious rights. They just need to learn that they can't push their beliefs on fellow service members.
Mikey Weinstein is correct in bringing up yet another shortcoming from USAFA when it comes to such an important subject.
Posted by
USAFA Red Tag
on 10/30/2012 at 9:11 AM
Re: “AFA's Gould refers to Sikhs as going to 'mosque'”
Come on folks, at least he is very knowledgeable about football!
As someone who has been in the AF for 20+ years, I find it more and more disturbing to see the anti-intellectualism, usually driven by religious fervor, among the certain individuals in the higher ranks. I was at USAFA during a couple of years of his tenure, and noticed he was indifferent and somewhat hostile with respect to our well-established international programs, which were a great way for our future leaders to develop foreign language skills, and most importantly inter-cultural competence. He is guaranteeing that there will be clones of himself in the brass 20 - 30 years down the road.
Posted by
USAFA Red Tag
on 08/07/2012 at 6:59 AM
Re: “UPDATE: Weinstein: State ruling has big implications for AFA”
TT has some serious issues it seems. Getting back to the main point: As a cadet in the early 1990s, I witnessed how the prayer breakfast was always hijacked by the "new lifers". At the time I was too immature to realize the unconstitutionality of such an event. It really took a tragic event - the harassment of Mikey's kids for their Jewish faith eight years ago - for many of us to realize how damaging promoting one religion over another, while in uniform, can be. Religious people in the military have access to the Chaiplains' offices to accommodate their spiritual needs. USAFA also designates times for SPIRE meetings to further help cadets who want to practice and share their faith with other WILLING PARTICIPANTS. This system works. USAFA's leadership has constantly failed to promote religious neutrality, especially by "highly encouraging" cadets and permanent party to go to events like the prayer breakfast. The current system I mentioned does not seem to be enough for them. The only way to maintain a cohesive military force is to separate religion from everyday duty. I've witnessed the problems with favoritism and nepotism at USAFA and the rest of the AF that have occurred as a consequence of past intolerance and disrespect towards members who do not belong to a particular faith. Led by brave individuals like Mikey Weinstein, the MRFF has made tremendous strides raising awareness, and most importantly putting a stop to past practices of favoring one religion over another. Religion is something private, and it needs to be that way in a diverse military.
Posted by
USAFA Red Tag
on 05/15/2012 at 11:03 AM
Re: “The roots of Romney's obsession with gays”
People who constantly preach against something, usually have some secrets, just ask Reverend Ted.
Also, Mormonism's racist mythology needs to be fair game during the election. Our President was bashed for not wearing religion on his sleeve, like it was something terrible. I would prefer they question a religion that casts blacks and Native Americans as the villains of their silly story, which was made up during the 1820s and 1830s, when racism was strong in our country.
Posted by
USAFA Red Tag
on 05/10/2012 at 11:37 AM
Re: “AFA disciplines cadets for drug use”
I'm all for legalizing drugs, especially marijuana. However, there are certain professions of trust, like the military where I proudly serve, in which drug use needs to be prohibited.
The kids knew what they were doing.
Posted by
USAFA Red Tag
on 04/26/2012 at 8:44 AM
Re: “UPDATE: Weinstein posts billboard, protest to follow”
This is exactly why religious views need to stay inside the Chapel. The USAFA Chaplain's Office screwed up by just copying an pasting links, instead of sticking to holiday explanations, as the NOTAM was supposed to do.
When I attended and taught at USAFA, I found the Chaplain's Office to had all the tools and services necessary to accommodate my religious beliefs. I never found it necessary to share my religious view outside of that space.
The lifting of DADT was a great step forward. Those who cannot deal with this need to seriously consider a new career. Promoting ancient, hateful religious views can only destroy esprit de corps.
I really look forward to the day when military ceremonies will no longer have invocations or benedictions.