OK, that's a bit of a New York Post headline--one designed to leap off the page at places like NWPortal and ORBlogs. There is not, to my knowledge, a non-Christian purge going on at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. On the other hand, it doesn't appear that Academy leadership will be sponsoring a big Passover blowout next Monday, either. Picking up on an LAT story this morning, the helpfully non-subscription Baltimore Sun reports that the Academy has received as many as 55 recent complaints concerning religious intolerance towards non-Christians:
"Some complaints had to do with people ... saying bad things about persons of other religions or proselytizing in inappropriate places," said academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker. "There have been cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness and attacking or baiting someone over religion."
About 90 percent of the 4,300 cadets at the academy identify themselves as Christians.
The school's leader, Commandant Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, describes himself as born again.
Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and lawyer in Albuquerque, N.M., said his son, Curtis - who is in his second year at the academy - had been called a "filthy Jew."
"When I visited my son, he told me he wanted us to go off base because he had something to tell me," Weinstein said. "He said, 'They are calling me a [expletive] Jew.,and that I am responsible for killing Christ.' My son told me that he was going to hit the next one who called him something."
An interesting sidenote that appears in the shorter AP version of this story is that not only is Weinstein's son attending the Academy, another son and Weinstein himself also attended. Either they are simply used to antisemitic epithets, or they're gluttons for punishment. Anyhow, for more details on the practices of the Academy and their self-proclaimed born-again commandant, here's another perspective from "The Daily Gazette"-- a source whose origin I must admit I cannot identify.
Back to Weinstein's comments for a minute: he's suspicious that in the wake of the sexual assault scandal that recently plagued the Academy, school leaders are preparing very public but superficial responses to the charges of religious intimidation, in hopes of avoiding the perception of a cover-up. I might call this the "if you must do something, do anything" construct of modern public relations. To be fair, the Academy has taken steps to curb some practices (like the Christmas ad in the Academy paper declaring Jesus the one true savior), and it's not like they can start kicking out evangelical students to bring better balance--but things like these are rarely solved by by a tolerance class; there must be a conscious change of culture that comes from the top. Since my new axiom these days is "hope not cynicism," I look forward to seeing signs of that culture change in the future.
What you may not realize--I didn't--is that Colorado Springs is pretty much Ground Zero for many of the evangelical advocacy organizations so often in the news these days. Focus on the Family is probably the biggest, and they make sure to levy their own comment:
"If 90 percent of cadets identify themselves as Christian, it is common sense that Christianity will be on evidence on the campus," [VP of public policy Tom Minnery] said. "Christianity is deeply felt and very important to people ... and to suggest that it should be bottled up is nonsense. I think a witch hunt is under way to root out Christian beliefs. To root out what is pervasive in 90 percent of the group is ridiculous."
In the AP version he goes even further, claiming "there is an anti-Christian bigotry developing" at the Academy. Now THAT is some expert spin--clearly, the problem with a 90% Christian student body is that it's 10% short of the goal, and anything preventing such natural accordance can only be described as anti-Christian bigotry.
PS--I picked this up off the wire, but Balloon Juice has about the right tenor on things, with a similarly NYPost-y headline...
--TJ
Comments