This just makes me so sad. Yet again, the Air Force Academy is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.

There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.
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Critics of the academy say the sometimes-public endorsement of Christianity by high-ranking staff has contributed to a climate of fear and violates the constitutional separation of church and state at a taxpayer-supported school whose mission is to produce Air Force leaders.
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"They are deliberately trivializing the problem so that we don't have another situation the magnitude of the sex assault scandal. It is inextricably intertwined in every aspect of the academy," said Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque, N.M., a 1977 graduate who has sent two sons to the school. He said the younger, Curtis, has been called a "filthy Jew" many times.

The superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Rosa, conceded there was a problem during a recent meeting of the Board of Visitors, the civilian group that oversees the academy.

"The problem is people have been across the line for so many years when you try and come back in bounds, people get offended," he said.

The board chairman, former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, warned Rosa that changing things could prove complicated. He said evangelical Christians "do not check their religion at the door.

His attitude was what kept the Armed Forces segregated until post-WWII. Change a few words there, and you can just hear the good ol' boy in him talking about how we just couldn't make those changes to let the "coloreds" into the service, because "southern gentlemen just don't check their prejudices at the door". Fuckwit.

The USAF is still the younger step-child in DoD. Where the other branches have traditions and processes, not all good, not all bad, the AF from my experience working with them, has few. They are making it up as they go along. Literally.

In the Navy, there were two subjects taboo in the Wardroom (and indeed in many social and work situations) Religion and Sex. Both were considered too personal for discussion. Despite my personal dislike for organized religion, I have to say I never met a Navy Chaplain I did not like and respect. They did good work, and were dedicated to seeing to the needs of those who wanted their ministry. They never interfered with those of us that didn't.

I think the AF Academy could learn a little something by not just forcing it's cadets and staff to go a 50-minute seminar, but by rethinking their approach to allowing Evangelical Christians to actively engage cadets on campus. They might, IMHO, want to remember what happens when one of these hot-shot little shitheads gets to their version of the "fleet" and starts his/her own personal crusade in a unit that's not as receptive or homogenous as the Academy. What do they do when their CO and other officers are of another faith? Begin a whisper campaign against the CO? Trash their department heads? Yeah, there's some good military order and discipline.

The Air Force and especially the Academy is doing these cadets a disservice by not putting a halt to this now. Fuck Gilmore and his wishy-washy mealy-mouthed approach. He already ruined an entire state (Virginia) by sucking it dry of revenue, now he's going to get to ruin a branch of the military too?