the religiously insane's successful coup on the Air Force Academy

[donsu]

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=6737

Focus on the Family 1, Air Force Cadets 0



The Air Force has apparently neutered their previously released religious guidelines to stop coercion by Evangelicals:

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The Air Force, under pressure from evangelical Christian groups and members of Congress, softened its guidelines on religious expression yesterday to emphasize that superior officers may discuss their faith with subordinates and that chaplains will not be required to offer nonsectarian prayers.

“This does affirm every airman’s right, even the commanders’ right, to free exercise of religion, and that means sharing your faith,” said Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, the Air Force’s chief of chaplains.

The guidelines were first issued in late August after allegations that evangelical Christian commanders, coaches and cadets at the Air Force Academy had pressured cadets of other faiths. The original wording sought to tamp down religious fervor and to foster tolerance throughout the Air Force. It discouraged public prayers at routine events and warned superior officers that personal expressions of faith could be misunderstood as official statements.

But evangelical groups, such as the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, saw the guidelines as overly restrictive. They launched a nationwide petition drive, sounded alarms on Christian radio stations, and deluged the White House and Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne’s office with e-mails calling the guidelines an infringement of the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and free exercise of religion.
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-snip- this holds comments by the blogger and many responses
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you are watching the crumbling of our air force

[Warpy]

1. They just don't "get" that sharing means answering questions.

What they want to do is bully people into mouthing the catch phrases that make them feel comfortable with their own particular fairy stories.

This isn't freedom of religion. It's religious fascism.

[DBoon]

2. and will we face a more literal "coup" in the future?

When the officers of this major branch of the military decide that an elected government is insufficiently "christian"?

[tabasco]

3. It's no coincidence that this is a scandal-plagued academy.

Fundies have been in charge of this place and turned it into bible camp. The result is multiple, embarrassing sex and abuse scandals. They should concentrate on producing quality officers and not shoving religion down cadets' throats.

[undergroundpanther]

4. how long until the religious

veneer is denied these assholes?

How long until these zealot bullies start killing gays,heretics and pagans? And when will we have to fight back and destroy them and thier organizations to save ourselves from these fucked up evangelicals usurping power, taking our freedoms away, making us second class citizens, imposing biblical law over all of America including unbelievers ,taking over the world to force Jaysus down every throat so he will to return to kill 3/4 of all jews and kill all the people "god does not like" as the bible idol of the evangelicals define them?And make is christofascist empire and the fundies get to smash thier enemies like clay pots and get thier little crowns and lord over everyone else except jaysus and nothing for them is different, or uncertain or out of control ever again..

[BR_Parkway]

5. Joining the military is voluntary - and the UCMJ proscribes how you

will live - including restrictions on otherwise Constitutional issues, such as Freedom of Speech. How can these fundies make a case that something is an infringement of Constitutional liberties that you've volunteered to serve under. Once again, it's all about the persecution. Are lions native to Colorado?