Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Politics


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 04-19-2005, 08:17 PM   #1 (permalink)
Somnabulist
 
guy44's Avatar
 
Location: corner of No and Where
Does anything go right at the Air Force Academy?

Oy:

Quote:
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) -- Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.

There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

The 4,300-student school recently started requiring staff members and cadets to take a 50-minute religious-tolerance class.

''There are things that have happened that have been inappropriate. And they have been addressed and resolved,'' said Col. Michael Whittington, the academy's chief chaplain.

More than 90 percent of the cadets identify themselves as Christian. A cadet survey in 2003 found that half had heard religious slurs and jokes, and that many non-Christians believed Christians get special treatment.

''There were people walking up to someone and basically they would get in a conversation and it would end with, 'If you don't believe what I believe, you are going to hell,''' Vice Commandant Col. Debra Gray said.

Critics of the academy say the sometimes-public endorsement of Christianity by high-ranking staff has contributed to a climate of fear and violates the constitutional separation of church and state at a taxpayer-supported school whose mission is to produce Air Force leaders.

They also say academy leaders are desperate to avoid the sort of uproar that came with the 2003 scandal in which dozens of women said their complaints of sexual assault were ignored.

''They are deliberately trivializing the problem so that we don't have another situation the magnitude of the sex assault scandal. It is inextricably intertwined in every aspect of the academy,'' said Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, N.M., a 1977 graduate who has sent two sons to the school. He said the younger, Curtis, has been called a ''filthy Jew'' many times.

The superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Rosa, conceded there was a problem during a recent meeting of the Board of Visitors, the civilian group that oversees the academy.

''The problem is people have been across the line for so many years when you try and come back in bounds, people get offended,'' he said.

The board chairman, former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, warned Rosa that changing things could prove complicated. He said evangelical Christians ''do not check their religion at the door.''

Other critics point to a series of incidents, including:

--The Air Force is investigating a complaint from an atheist cadet who says the school is ''systematically biased against any cadet that does not overtly espouse Christianity.''

--The official academy newspaper runs a Christmas ad every year praising Jesus and declaring him the only savior. Some 200 academy staff members, including some department heads, signed it. Whittington noted the ad was not published last December.

--The academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, said in a statement to cadets in June 2003 that their first responsibility is to their God. He also strongly endorsed National Prayer Day that year. School spokesman Johnny Whitaker said Weida now runs his messages by several other commanders.

--Some officer commission ceremonies were held at off-campus churches. In a letter dated April 6, Weida said the ceremonies would be held on campus from now on.

Rosa and other academy leaders say some among the large number of Christian cadets -- nearly 2,600 are Protestant and some 1,300 are Roman Catholic -- may not realize that evangelism is unwelcome among their fellow students. The rest of the corps includes 121 Mormons, 44 Jews, 19 Buddhists and a few Muslims, Hindus and others. There are 15 chaplains and one rabbi.

Rosa himself intervened when Christian cadets began promoting ''The Passion,'' Mel Gibson's movie about the crucifixion of Christ. He told cadets they should not use government e-mail or other facilities to promote their personal agendas.

Two of the nation's most influential evangelical Christian groups, Focus on the Family and New Life Church, are headquartered in nearby Colorado Springs. Tom Minnery, an official at Focus on the Family, disputed claims that evangelical Christians are pushing an agenda at the academy, and complained that ''there is an anti-Christian bigotry developing'' at the school.
I'm really beginning to think that the Air Force Academy is some sort of repository for all the terrible, stupid, and evil behavior that exists in the military. Hazing, sexual harassment, rape, religious bigotry...

And, as a side note, I think this whole thing perfectly illustrates the insanity of the religious right noise machine (not individual members of the religious right, necessarily, but the institutions.) A bunch of Christians engage in religious bigotry and rather than condemning the acts, or even acknowledging that there may be a problem, the Focus on the Family reflexively declares that there must be an anti-Christian bigotry developing there. The degree to which many loud-mouthed religious right individuals like to pretend that there is some sort of anti-Christian anything in this country is ludicrous. I mean, even as Jews and Hindus and Muslims and atheists get harassed at the AFA, they claim some sort of anti-Christian bias! Arg.
__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"
guy44 is offline  
Old 04-19-2005, 09:15 PM   #2 (permalink)
Junkie
 
Seaver's Avatar
 
Location: Fort Worth, TX
Decades of the AF Academy simply hushing those who break the rules instead of punishing led to a condition in which corruption was commonplace. Suddenly the floodgates opened and all these are spilling out.

Hopefully they wont be able to ignore or hush it anymore and will lead to the same massive upheavals of change the Navy Academy went through a decade earlier and will end for the better.
Seaver is offline  
Old 04-20-2005, 04:42 AM   #3 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands (find it on a map, it is there (somewhere))
Glad to be a non practising wasp. Seriously though, are these people going to lead the migthiest airforce in the world? And the word tolerance is that left out of the new translation of the good book?

It is mind boggling that the major religions all say that they respect other religions, but when it comes to the line there is only 1 god and 1 religion.

On the other hand what are good god fearing believers doing on an institute that propagades war, death and violent behaviour?
__________________
Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnus lemures, portentaque.
Horace

Last edited by energus; 04-20-2005 at 04:43 AM.. Reason: stubby fingers (typo's)
energus is offline  
Old 04-20-2005, 08:10 AM   #4 (permalink)
....is off his meds...you were warned.
 
KMA-628's Avatar
 
Location: The Wild Wild West
maybe an interesting side-note to this topic.

Guess what is pretty much across the street from the AF academy?



Global headquarters for Focus on the Family (huge, huge building/complex)
__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.
KMA-628 is offline  
Old 04-20-2005, 09:24 PM   #5 (permalink)
Crazy
 
Location: S. Korea
The whole city of Colorado Springs is pretty right wing. There are the two evangelical organizations mentioned above, but there are also 4 other military installations nearby in addition to the academy. I haven't seen an officer come out of the academy yet that I thought was better than any other officer coming through ROTC or OTS. It seems to be mostly an old boys club with one of their favorite statistics being how many of our general officers came up through the acadmeny.
__________________
d^_^b Got my headphones on.
mazagmot is offline  
 

Tags
academy, air, force

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 06:06 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360