Update: “Former Terrorists” at USAFA
Update to previous post.
The Colorado Springs Gazette has an editorial that took the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to task for complaining about the Academy’s choice of speakers in its recent political forum. The paper accused the MRFF of “scouring the landscape” to prevent religious expression and ignoring the value of academic freedom in the process.
The MRFF admitted that its primary concern was that the speakers were Christian, which is consistent with MRFF founder Michael Weinstein’s self-described blood-letting “war” with evangelical Christians.
In an as yet unpublished reply, Richard Baker, an associate of Weinstein’s, continues to accuse the Academy of using the men to proselytize, even though the forum is already complete and no such complaints have been made.
In acknowledging that the Academy should not proselytize, the paper noted that Council on American-Islamic Relations also took issue with the three speakers; however, they requested that other, more “moderate” speakers be invited to balance the “extreme” views of the three men. They did not attempt to silence them because they were Christians, as the MRFF would do. In fact, CAIR even offered to help the Academy find speakers with such a balancing perspective.