As previously noted, the Colorado Springs Gazette has reported that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation will present an “alternative view” on Islam and the War on Terror at the Air Force Academy on April 9th.

As one of the speakers, Weinstein has maintained that the military is overrun with fundamentalist Christians, who he recently referred to as

homophobic, misogenistic (sic), anti-Semitic and Islamophobic [with] a virulent desire to subordinate the Constitution … to…the weaponized gospel of Jesus Christ. (the Aspen Times).

To counter this, he plans to show portions of a soon-to-be-released documentary (in which he and his family play a role), which focuses on

Christian anti-Semitism as the model for all religious hatred, exposing the cross as a symbol of a long history of violence against Jews and Moslems.

Reza Aslan, another invitee, is also on the record sharing Weinstein’s beliefs.

The Academy forum is being held under the auspices of academic freedom.

According to the Associated Press, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that has lambasted the Air Force for allegedly supporting evangelical Christianity, is being invited to the AF Academy to present its view of Islam.  This follows the previous panel on terrorism, which had three panelists that the MRFF criticized for being Christian and unqualified.  (See previous posts, 1 & 2.)

Two invitees are members of the MRFF board.  Joseph Wilson was a Clinton era consultant on African affairs and acting ambassador to Iraq.  Reza Aslan is an academic teacher and writer on Islam.  Aslan recently went on the record (on a CNN blog) criticizing the Academy for hosting “fundamentalist Christians” during the last panel.

The third and final invitee is Weinstein himself, a Reagan era lawyer and founder of the MRFF. It is unclear what his qualifications are to speak as an “expert on Islam.”

Just as the MRFF accused the three “former terrorists” of ulterior motives, it seems unlikely that the MRFF–which has expressed no interest in Islamic issues–would be a legitimate source of “balance” for a previous panel on Islamic terrorism.  The MRFF has a political agenda centered on evangelical Christianity.  According to a San Diego news site (which implied that the MRFF was getting “equal time”), Weinstein has indicated that “deprogramming” may be a part of their upcoming panel–even though no accusations of religious impropriety occurred after the previous panel.

What is clear is that non-Islamic religious issues will be a focus of Weinstein’s visit.

As reported on the ADF and Religion Clause.

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.

As part of the academic environment at the Academy, policies on forums and speakers often result in “unusual choices” for speakers, some of whom are not even favorably disposed to the military.  According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, the AF Academy has invited three former Islamic terrorists who have converted to Christianity to speak as a portion of an annual political forum.  One of the speakers has “criticized Palestinian sympathizers,” and has been accused by Eileen Fleming, a freelance blogger and Palestinian advocate, of fabricating his terrorist past.

Michael Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation was quick to criticize the decision to invite Christian speakers.  Said David Antoon, MRFF board member:

What’s troublesome to me is this is pure ideology and it has nothing to do with academics…This is the Air Force Academy. It used to be an academic institution of excellence. It has become a political Bible college with the evangelicals holding so much influence with what’s going on there.

The criticisms come even though the MRFF didn’t know the men, hadn’t researched their background, and did not address the other people, topics, or ideologies of the forum.  Apparently, the only issue with which the MRFF was concerned was the men’s Christianity.

Update: In response to concerns that the three men were Christians, another Gazette article notes that the Academy said the three would constrain their comments to, shockingly, the topic of the forum (terrorism).