NAE Intervenes in USAF Academy Case Challenging Religious Freedom
by Chad Groening
February 16, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The National Association of Evangelicals will intervene in a lawsuit filed by a former Air Force Academy cadet, which could have serious ramifications for the religious expression rights of U.S. military personnel. The lawsuit stems from a complaint that evangelical Christians at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, were overzealous in sharing the gospel with others on the campus. Kyle Fisk, executive administrator for the Colorado Springs-based National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), says his organization has petitioned to intervene in the case. The Christian organization has become involved in this matter, he notes, because the group wants to protect the rights of current and future Christian leaders in America's armed services.
"We are in this case to defend the rights of military officers to authentically worship according to their conscience, without fear of reprisal that their personal worship could be somehow deemed coercive," Fisk notes. In this important legal challenge, he points out, the opposition is even asking the court to squelch the right of evangelical chaplains to hold private services.
"This is the first time in American jurisprudence that a court has ever been asked to regulate and restrict voluntary worship by a member of the clergy," the NAE spokesman says. "The radical extremism that we are seeing in the complaint of this plaintiff is really quite farfetched."
Fisk says even though the suit is based on complaints at the Air Force Academy, its implications are not restricted to that venue. He explains, "While some of the examples in the plaintiff's initial complaint that he filed back in September included allegations of inappropriate behavior happening at the Air Force Academy, he certainly has other examples, and his request to the court for injunctive relief would go Air Force-wide."
What this means, Fisk adds, is that the decision in this lawsuit "most likely has ongoing ramifications across all of our military services." Therefore, he says, "this is a big issue," the resolution of which may turn out to have a broad impact on religious freedom in the military.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
