{"id":17513,"date":"2012-04-27T01:45:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T04:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=17513"},"modified":"2012-04-27T21:10:24","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T00:10:24","slug":"air-force-caves-to-atheists-creates-hostile-religious-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/27\/air-force-caves-to-atheists-creates-hostile-religious-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force Caves to Atheists, Creates Hostile Religious Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Fox News:<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/embed.js?id=1589575735001&amp;w=466&amp;h=263\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><noscript>Watch the latest video at <a href=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\">video.foxnews.com<\/a><\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>From the American Family Association:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>&#8220;The Air Force and its Secretary, Michael B. Donley, have created the most hostile &#8220;anti-religious&#8221; environment in the history of the United States military.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Air Force&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/20\/update-air-force-inns-and-bibles\/\">decision to remove the Bible from the standard checklist<\/a> for its military lodging facilities <a href=\"http:\/\/www.onenewsnow.com\/Culture\/Default.aspx?id=1582250\">continues to get press<\/a> (much to the chagrin of Michael Weinstein, who wasn&#8217;t involved in this story but has been trying to sensationalize <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/24\/michael-weinstein-us-marines-are-threat-to-national-security\/\">another one<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>A group of chaplains and chaplain endorsers, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.onenewsnow.com\/Culture\/Default.aspx?id=1584658\">expressed its &#8220;concern,&#8221;<\/a> saying that the decision has <!--more-->already been misinterpreted to a negative end:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The people on the ground, like at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, were interpreting this new policy as <em>Take the Bibles out of the rooms. If they&#8217;re not on the checklist, that means they&#8217;re not supposed to be there<\/em>,&#8221; [Chaplain Ron] Crews reports. &#8220;So, we&#8217;re still trying to get clarity from the Air Force as to what exactly they mean by this action.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Other than a local paper&#8217;s story, there isn&#8217;t a citation to support the characterization of the lodging facility at Warner-Robins.\u00a0 Still, the outcome is not unforeseeable, as <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/17\/air-force-may-remove-bibles-from-military-hotel-rooms\/\">previously noted<\/a>.\u00a0 It is entirely consistent with the culture of operations in the Air Force.\u00a0 (Worse, at least one atheist supporter indicated she made a point of <a href=\"http:\/\/news.gather.com\/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981291269\">tossing hotel Bibles in the trash<\/a>.\u00a0 In Air Force lodging, those Bibles would now\u00a0not be replaced, even if they weren&#8217;t &#8220;officially removed.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Chaplain Crews also highlighted that taken in context, this decision represents a data point on a continuing trend of the Air Force &#8220;bowing&#8221; to pressure to create a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alliancealert.org\/2012\/04\/23\/chaplain-endorsers-bibles-should-stay-in-air-force-lodging\/\">religion free zone<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We are concerned that it appears this is just one more incident where the Department of Defense is caving in to remove any semblance of spiritual support for our soldiers, airmen, [and] sailors in the military,&#8221; the Chaplain Alliance spokesman notes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is the same thing former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt noted on FoxNews in the <a href=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/1589575735001\/\">video above<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Congressmen have previously taken Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz to task, with US Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va) saying General Schwartz is &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/14\/rep-forbes-schwartz-is-bad-at-defending-religious-liberty\/\">as bad as I&#8217;ve seen&#8230;in defending religious liberty<\/a>.&#8221;\u00a0 The American Family Association <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afa.net\/Detail.aspx?id=2147520533\">went a step higher<\/a>, laying it at the feet of Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Under Donley, Air Force leaders have repeatedly caved to the demands of a small band of rebels who call themselves the Military Association of Atheists &amp; Freethinkers (MAAF).<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWhen MAAF speaks, the Air Force can&#8217;t rid itself of anything religious fast enough&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The Air Force has caved to every whim of anti-Christian zealots and Secretary Donley is content to allow every vestige of religious faith to be silenced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(The &#8220;small band&#8221; is actually just atheist and former US Army Captain Jason Torpy.) In its trend, the AFA notes the prior story of <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/18\/atheist-gets-secretive-agency-to-change-motto\/\">&#8220;God&#8217;s work&#8221; at the RCO<\/a>, \u00a0USAFA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/07\/did-usafa-cancel-operation-christmas-child\/\">participation in Operation Christmas Child<\/a>, and an <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/05\/liberty-counsel-defends-air-force-nuke-training\/\">ethics class in an ICBM course<\/a> &#8212; all of which the Air Force rapidly reacted to in deference to the critics.\u00a0 They left out the <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/16\/military-atheists-join-contradict-fight-against-travis-afb-nativity\/\">attack on Travis AFB&#8217;s Nativity and Menorah<\/a> last December, where the Air Force let the Christian, Jewish, and secular displays stand but allowed the addition of one mocking religion.<\/p>\n<p>CARL is the same group that called on Congress to investigate the <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/22\/chaplains-applaud-travis-afb-nativity-menorah-defense\/\">unusually free access to Air Force leadership<\/a> given to critic Michael Weinstein &#8212; which appears to have <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/23\/mikey-weinsteins-friends-and-allies-in-military-high-places-part-3\/\">included the Air Force&#8217;s top lawyer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The US military generally does an admirable job of defending the religious liberties of it troops. These organizations note, however, that the appearance of rapidly &#8220;caving&#8221; with such ease to critics, without regard to the virtue of the subject policies, may create the perception of an environment <em>hostile <\/em>to religion &#8212; which is just as contrary to religious liberty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"smallfont\">Also at <a href=\"http:\/\/radio.foxnews.com\/toddstarnes\/todds-commentaries\/a-bible-ban-on-military-bases.html\">Fox News and Commentary<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Fox News: Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com From the American Family Association: &#8220;The Air Force and its Secretary, Michael B. Donley, have created the most hostile &#8220;anti-religious&#8221; environment in the history of the United States military.&#8221; The Air Force&#8217;s decision to remove the Bible from the standard checklist for its military lodging facilities continues to get press (much [&#8230;]<\/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":[134,3151,2687,20,23,3153,5284,1998,96,82,276,253,3152,107,1058,85,2,497,2889,10,171,1997,65,980],"class_list":["post-17513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-air-force","tag-air-force-inn","tag-american-family-association","tag-atheism","tag-bible","tag-billeting","tag-chaplain","tag-chaplain-alliance-for-religious-liberty","tag-christian","tag-constitution","tag-gordon-klingenschmitt","tag-jason-torpy","tag-lodging","tag-maaf","tag-michael-donley","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-norton-schwartz","tag-randy-forbes","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-ron-crews","tag-usafa","tag-warner-robins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17513","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=17513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}