{"id":30391,"date":"2014-11-11T00:30:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T03:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=30391"},"modified":"2016-11-25T01:05:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T04:05:56","slug":"air-force-updates-religious-guidance-after-outcry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/11\/air-force-updates-religious-guidance-after-outcry\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force Updates Religious Guidance after Outcry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Air Force announced it has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.af.mil\/News\/ArticleDisplay\/tabid\/223\/Article\/554096\/air-force-updates-af-instruction-1-1.aspx\">updated AFI 1-1<\/a> &#8212; because of issues regarding religious liberty [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Air Force officials approved Air Force Instruction 1-1, Air Force Standards, Nov. 7, to <strong>clarify guidance on Airmen\u2019s religious rights<\/strong> and commanders\u2019 authority and responsibility to protect those rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The announcement contained a summary of the changes. The changes [emphasis added]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>clarify guidance for how commanders should handle religious accommodation requests or <strong>when Airmen\u2019s rights to free exercise are questioned<\/strong>. Chaplain corps officials also clarified policy language to <strong>assist commanders<\/strong> in balancing the constitutional protections for <strong>their own free exercise of religion<\/strong> or other personal beliefs with the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Importantly, General Welsh is quoted as specifically <!--more-->reversing a former prohibition [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe trust our commanders with the great responsibility of caring for our Airmen,&#8221; Welsh said. &#8220;That includes Airmen\u2019s physical, mental, social <strong>and spiritual<\/strong> health&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Previously, commanders had been forbidden from addressing Airmen&#8217;s &#8220;spiritual health,&#8221; as the former Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, had <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/14\/top-air-force-general-issues-order-on-religious-neutrality\/\">segregated that topic to the chaplaincy<\/a>, a move that was criticized by some as the Air Force <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/16\/military-professors-debate-religion-in-the-military-part-2\/\">failing to &#8220;trust&#8221; commanders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Michael &#8220;Mikey&#8221; Weinstein, a critic of religious liberty in the US military, has been lobbying against these changes for months, fearing they will protect the religious freedom of Christians.\u00a0 Weinstein has claimed credit for the Air Force publishing the religious text that has now been revised.<\/p>\n<p>For the moment, the AFI 1-1 on the Air Force&#8217;s e-publishing site is still the old version.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Air Force announced it has updated AFI 1-1 &#8212; because of issues regarding religious liberty [emphasis added]: Air Force officials approved Air Force Instruction 1-1, Air Force Standards, Nov. 7, to clarify guidance on Airmen\u2019s religious rights and commanders\u2019 authority and responsibility to protect those rights. The announcement contained a summary of the changes. The changes [emphasis added] clarify [&#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":[3492,134,5284,96,2284,85,2,5218,7,497,17,10,171],"class_list":["post-30391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afi-1-1","tag-air-force","tag-chaplain","tag-christian","tag-mark-welsh","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-norton-schwartz","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30391","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=30391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}