In recent weeks, there has been a pretty steady stream of articles reporting on the much improved religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy, many highlighting the addition to the campus of a permanent outdoor worship area for those who practice Wicca and other Earth-centered religions.
Has the religious climate at the Academy improved? Absolutely. The number of active cases at the Academy being handled by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has dropped dramatically, a trend that can be credited in large part to the highly productive working relationship forged between Academy superintendent Lt. Gen. Michael Gould and MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein -- a relationship based on a mutual respect for each other and a mutual respect for the Constitution.
The New York Times, the Associated Press, and others are all reporting the good news. With the support of Academy chaplains, Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, an Academy staff member who works in the Academy's astronautics labs, successfully led the effort to erect this new worship site, which will be formally dedicated in March. CNN even made Longcrier one of its "Intriguing people for February 2, 2010."
This all sounds great, right? Problem solved. No more Christian supremacy at the Air Force Academy. A new era of complete respect and equality has been ushered in. Well, not quite. A photo sent to MRFF tells a somewhat different story. Take a look at the message left by some of the Academy's brave, anonymous Christian supremacists who recently decided to pay a little visit to the new worship site.
"The abhorrent placing of a large, wooden cross at the official worship site of the United States Air Force Academy's earth-centered religions is nothing short of a despicable, cold and calculated hate crime of the most serious magnitude. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Academy's leader, Lt. Gen. Mike Gould, is acting swiftly and decisively on multiple levels to effectively deal with this heinous act of unconstitutional fundamentalist Christian supremacy," said Weinstein, who has been in contact with Gould since being informed of the incident. "MRFF has been advised that official investigations are underway to try to ascertain who committed this act of religious hatred, and precautions are being put in place to ensure that the chances of something like this happening again are very small. In years past, the Academy was making zero progress in the area of religious respect, often falling backwards in fact. Now, fortunately, we're in a crawl, walk, run mode; right now 'between fast crawl and slow walk.' This is progress; slow but steady. It is MRFF's reasonable expectation that every person who lives and/or works at the Air Force Academy will be swiftly debriefed as to (1) the specifics of what has, sadly, just transpired, and, (2) that there exists an absolute 'zero tolerance' policy for such disgraceful and cowardly acts of religious ambush."
In spite of the progress made under Lt. Gen. Gould's leadership, some MRFF clients at the Academy continue to harbor fears of harassment or worse for openly practicing non-mainstream religions.
As one client expressed in a recent e-mail to Weinstein:
"You should see the hate spewing on some of these websites where the 'Circle' article has been posted. These are the people I'm worried about. Do I need to warn my cadets to fear for their safety now? How sad would that be if our victory turns into a tragedy due to the ignorance and hate from the fundies!"
UPDATE: Any articles or blog posts saying that MRFF is satisfied with the Air Force Academy's response to this incident are not accurate. MRFF's expectations, given the response of Lt. Gen. Gould to previous issues and incidents, are unfortunately not being met in this case, according to reports from individuals at the Academy.
Chris Rodda: Religion in the War Zone
It's sweet that some persons anonymously gifted such a thing to this group, even IF the cross bar was connected a little high up. They should just pull it apart, reconnect it in a proper "plus sign" shape, lay it flat and secure it to the ground with some nice long nails driven through it and pack gravel around it for support. Then, on the way to worship, they can use it as a threshold and walk the length of one of it's ties to represent their passing from the mundane world into the magical one where they do their works.
There are certainly real Christian hate crimes and acts of discrimination, many far more serious than this. I'd suggest we save the heavy-duty verbiage for the heavy-duty cases.
If someone were to walk into one of your consecrated places of worship and plant a flag or symbol of another religion in it, particularly a threatening one, what would *you* call it? A nice present?
good choice of words to describe this group. Like their Islamic counterparts, these people are justified by their "faith" to wage war on "non-believers". It''s shameful all the way around. They are religious terrorists.
I love the guy, but the fans can get pretty creepy.
I heard once that 1000 years from now there will probably be a "Church of Elvis". After all, he drew multitudes, has many followers, and has been seen many times after his death. All the right elements.
A big issue right now is how it will be investigated, which will depend largely upon whether it is treated as a hate crime or reduced to an act of vandalism. If a swastika was painted on a synagogue, or a Christian chapel was defaced with satanic symbols, there would be no dispute that it was a hate crime, but, apparently, to some, the desecration of a worship site for Earth-centered religions by Christians isn't considered as serious a matter.
Today, they were finally addressed about it by the Academy’s vice commandant of operations, Col. Richard Williams.
From the article:
"Although academy officials said cadets had been briefed about the incident last week, four cadets chosen at random after today’s talk by Williams said this was the first they'd heard of it."
http://www.gazette.com/articles/academy-93565-longcrier-worship.html
Unlike armies in some countries that would refuse to fire on their own citizens, religiously motivated extremists would not have a problem with this. See "Taliban".