{"id":15816,"date":"2012-01-31T01:46:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T04:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=15816"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:14:11","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:14:11","slug":"general-boykin-withdraws-from-west-point-prayer-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/31\/general-boykin-withdraws-from-west-point-prayer-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"General Boykin Withdraws from West Point Prayer Breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Associated Press reported<\/a> a West Point press release indicating General Jerry Boykin had withdrawn from the upcoming West Point National Prayer Breakfast<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Late Monday afternoon, West Point issued a brief statement saying Boykin had decided to withdraw speaking at the Feb. 8 event and that another speaker would be lined up in his place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The choice of Boykin<\/a> to speak at the event was criticized by several groups<\/a> because of his prior statements<\/a> about Islam:<\/p>\n

CAIR also asked West Point officials to retract Boykin’s invitation<\/p>\n

“It gives Islamophobes a platform at the nation’s most prestigious military academy. And I doubt that they would invite a KKK speaker and claim that they want to expose the students to a variety of opinions,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Awad’s jump to the KKK belies the fact neither his group nor any other have demanded that other speakers of likewise controversial opinions be prevented from speaking to military audiences.<\/p>\n

Michael Weinstein has already claimed credit for the “victory,” though he was late to the party in this “manufactured<\/a>” controversy.<\/p>\n

The articles also note General Boykin recently gave an address to a similar audience; the event was non-controversial, with Boykin focusing on prayer and not mentioning Islam.<\/p>\n

A West Point cadet is quoted<\/a> in the New York Times <\/em>questioning the invitation of someone who has previously criticized beliefs held by members of the military:<\/p>\n

“They\u2019re inviting someone who\u2019s openly criticizing a religion that is practiced on campus,\u201d he said. \u201cI know Muslim cadets here, and they are great, outstanding citizens, and this ex-general is saying they shouldn\u2019t enjoy the same rights.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seems like there was recently another story about someone being invited to a voluntary meeting at a military base who openly criticized religion<\/a> practiced on the facility.<\/p>\n

Think the logic will flow to other military-associated events<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Also at ABCNews<\/a>\u00a0and Stars and Stripes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Associated Press reported a West Point press release indicating General Jerry Boykin had withdrawn from the upcoming West Point National Prayer Breakfast: Late Monday afternoon, West Point issued a brief statement saying Boykin had decided to withdraw speaking at the Feb. 8 event and that another speaker would be lined up in his place. The choice of Boykin to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[331,5284,96,44,2824,85,2,5218,7,422,11,10,171,231,101,1007],"class_list":["post-15816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-cair","tag-chaplain","tag-christian","tag-islam","tag-kkk","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-nihad-awad","tag-prayer","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-usma","tag-west-point","tag-william-boykin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}