A British military photographer captured a stunning and unique vista in Afghanistan, at the main British base at Camp Bastion.
Afghanistan is entering its ‘rainy season,’ and such storms may be relatively common for some time.
Of course, Michael Weinstein Read more
The Colorado Springs Gazette, local to the US Air Force Academy, noted that religious freedom critic Michael Weinstein apparently bought a billboard ad to publish Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz’s memorandum on religious neutrality, which Chris Rodda says USAFA is “withholding.”
Air Force Academy critic Mikey Weinstein, miffed that a four-star’s memo on religious respect wasn’t e-mailed to cadets at the Air Force Academy, published the 200-word memo himself Tuesday on a Colorado Springs billboard.
Weinstein is apparently relegated to billboards because USAFA won’t answer his voluminous emails or return his phone calls. Publicly, he claims he billboarded the memo because General Gould wouldn’t give in to his demands: Read more
Michael Weinstein and his associates in his self-founded “charity” have a history of being unable to defend an argument by relying on simple truth. Instead, their accusations have to be dramatized with hyperbolic language or, in some cases, the facts simply need to be misrepresented.
And Chris Rodda, Weinstein’s researcher, has done it again. And again, apparently.
Weinstein and Rodda have recently been trying to make hay out of General Norton Schwartz’s recent memorandum on “religious neutrality.” Naturally, they imply it was their eloquent arguments (and senior-leader influence) that convinced General Schwartz to issue the memo. That’s not enough glory, however.
The accusation that US Air Force Academy Superintendent Read more
General Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, has apparently issued a memorandum to his commanders entitled “Maintaining Government Neutrality Regarding Religion.” It makes what is probably the most significant official change to the religious environment in the Air Force in some years (reference the “Religious Guidelines” of 2006).
First, it notes that “leaders at all levels”
must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion.
which is substantially similar to previous military positions. Of course, the complexity of the environment prevents a detailed explanation as to what constitutes “apparent use” or what may be “apparent…preferential treatment” vice the expected (and required) accommodation of religion. This has long been an understandable challenge with regard to religion and the government, not just the military.
The memorandum then raises new content: Read more
As predicted, it wasn’t long before Chris Rodda came out in defense of Michael Weinstein’s “big victory” for his self-founded Military Religious Freedom Foundation that Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) recently seemed to undermine. From the Huffington Post:
This summer, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) scored a big victory…
Senator John Cornyn…doesn’t like the Air Force’s decision…
Rodda’s article is essentially a rehash of the prior writeups, with the addition of Cornyn’s letter. One “new” piece of information is Rodda’s claim that Read more
A few other media sources are catching up to Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) letter to the Secretary of the Air Force released on Monday.
Suspending a course like this because of references to religious texts misinterprets the First Amendment. [The Constitution] does not, as some have argued, protect them from exposure to religious references.
(Some continue to use the word “misrepresents,” though the published letter says “misinterprets.”)
Michael Weinstein’s MRFF — which claims a Constitutional Read more
Speaking for Michael Weinstein and his Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Chris Rodda recently went on the offensive against Officers’ Christian Fellowship, a Christian military ministry. (This isn’t really new. Rick Baker lists virtually every Christian ministry in existence in his frequent diatribes against religious freedom in the military.) Rodda’s write-up sounds like the intro to a Twilight Zone episode:
Throughout the US military…lurks an organization of over 15,500 fundamentalist Christian military officers who think their real duty is not to protect and defend the Constitution, but to raise up “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.” These officers belong to an organization called the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF)…
(Rodda later gives a second nod to the Twilight Zone with the Read more
A group of trainees at the US Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, was photographed in a religious training event that has raised the ire of a religious watchdog.
On the first Sunday in August a representative of Harun Yahya was allowed, following an invitation from the Muslim chaplain at Lackland, Captain Sharior Rahman, to present two classes: a morning one on “The Collapse of Darwinism and the Fact of Creation” and an evening one covering “Miracles in the Qur’an.”
Dr. Timothy Furnish of Family Security Matters has made it his purpose in life to track the “mahdi movement” (loosely paraphrased, the messianic side of Islam), of which Harun Yahya is a part. Furnish obtained photographs of basic trainees sitting through a class on these Islamic studies: Read more