Lawsuit Seeks Stop to Chaplains' Faith-Sharing in Air Force
by Jody Brown
October 12, 2005
(AgapePress) - If a Jewish man in New Mexico has his way, Christian chaplains in the U.S. Air Force could be prohibited from evangelizing among the ranks. And apparently the Air Force is willing to consider the man's suggestion.According to an Associated Press report, Mikey Weinstein of Albuquerque -- a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and father of two Air Force cadets -- has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that senior officers and cadets at the Academy illegally impose Christianity on others at the elite school. Now comes word that the Air Force has withdrawn from use by its chaplains a code of ethics that endorsed the evangelizing of troops who are unaffiliated with any religion.
The code, which was issued by the Air Force Chaplain Service in January, states: "I will not actively proselytize from other religious bodies. However, I retain the right to instruct and/or evangelize those who are not affiliated." An Air Force spokeswoman says the code of ethics has since been withdrawn "for further review."
Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff is a retired Navy chaplain who is now a special advisor to the secretary of the Air Force. Resnicoff tells The Washington Post that the code of ethics was never an official directive of the Department of Defense, but that the service may have given that impression when it was distributed at the chaplains school in Alabama.
The rabbi adds that the "amazing, positive thing that people are missing" about the code of ethics is that "even the most evangelical chaplains are agreeing not to try to change the religion of a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu -- anyone who has a religious faith."
Weinstein's Argument
Hours after filing his lawsuit, Weinstein told an audience on the campus of the University of New Mexico that his sons, one of whom has already graduated from the Academy, were "constantly accused of being utterly complicit" in Christ's execution and "told that all of their forebears were burning eternally in hell."
According to AP, Weinstein claims to have no specific problem with religions per se -- "even evangelical Christianity" -- but that "whenever a religion -- in this case a group of people -- tries to engage the machinery of the state, it is constitutionally repugnant and violative." Weinstein's lawsuit names the Air Force and acting Air Force Secretary Pete Geren as defendants, and asks the Air Force to prohibit its members, including chaplains, from trying to "involuntarily convert, pressure, exhort, or persuade a fellow member of the USAF to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty."
AP notes that earlier this year an Air Force task force reported that it found no overt religious discrimination at the school. But Weinstein tells the Daily Lobo that the problems began in the early 1980s when evangelical Christians began "coming like moths to a light" to the school in Colorado Springs.
Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, which is located near the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, has some advice for Weinstein. He tells the Post that even though the Academy graduate may not like it, "... it is the job of an evangelical Christian chaplain to evangelize. It's protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of free exercise of religion."
Associated Press contributed to this story.
