Air Force Sued Over Religion

October  6, 2005
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.,

A New Mexico man sued the Air Force on Thursday,  claiming Air Force Academy senior officers and cadet illegally imposed Christianity on others at the school.

The suit was filed in federal court by Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and outspoken critic of the school's handling of religion.

Over the past decade or more, the suit claims, academy leaders have fostered an environment of religious intolerance at the Colorado school, in violation of the First Amendment.

Weinstein claims that evangelical Christians at the school have coerced attendance at religious services and prayers at official events, among other things.

"It's a shocking disgrace that I had to file this thing," Weinstein told The Associated Press.

The Air Force declined immediate comment.

Cadets, watchdog groups and a former chaplain at the academy have alleged that religious intolerance is widespread at the school.

On Aug. 29, 2005 the Air Force issued guidelines discouraging public prayer at official functions and urging commanders to be sensitive about personal expressions of religious faith.

There have been complaints at the academy that a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and that another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

A banner in the football team's locker room read: "I am a Christian first and last ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

Also, there have been complaints that cadets were pressured to attend chapel, that academy staffers put New Testament verses in government e-mail, and that cadets used the e-mail system to encourage others o see the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ."

Weinstein, who is Jewish and lives in Albuquerque, said the Air Force has violated cadets' right to worship as they choose.

"My problem is not with Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity or even evangelical Christianity," he said.

"It's 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."

The lawsuit, which names the Air Force and its acting secretary, Pete Geren, as defendants, asks the Air Force to prohibit its members — including chaplains — from evangelizing and proselytizing or in any related way attempting "to involuntarily convert, pressure, exhort or persuade a fellow member of the USAF to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty."

In June, an Air Force task force said it found no overt religious discrimination but observed a lack of sensitivity among some and confusion over what is permissible in sharing one's faith.

After a July visit to the academy, a team from the Yale Divinity School issued a report last month saying it found lingering problems among the academy's chaplains, whose activities may conflict with the goals of school leaders and the Air Force overall.

VFW motorcycles drown out protestors

Originally published on Wednesday, October 12
By Linda Martin
Progress Staff Writer

CHELSEA — God spoke with the roar of revving motorcycle engines during a protest Tuesday by six members of a Kansas church that believes God is punishing the U.S. for protecting homosexuals by killing soldiers overseas.

Chelsea residents, however, believed God spoke on their behalf as the engines of more than 100 Veterans of Foreign Wars motorcycles drowned out the voices of the Westboro Baptist Church members who were allowed to protest from 1-1:30 p.m. before the 2 p.m. funeral services for Staff Sgt. John Glen Doles.

The protesters were escorted by police from the Chelsea Police Station to and from the protest site at the corner of Sixth and Vine streets a half block away. They left immediately after the protest, said Chelsea Police Chief Kenny Kelsey.

Chelsea’s main street was lined with American Flags in honor of Doles, who was killed when he and five others were ambushed by enemy fire last week in Afghanistan. He was laid to rest with honors in a small cemetery southeast of Chelsea.

Town and local law enforcement consisting of Chelsea police, the Rogers County Sheriff’s Department and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol made good their intent that nothing would disrupt funeral services for the local hero and his family.

Chelsea Mayor Kenny Weast said he received a fax last Tuesday saying church members would be in Chelsea to protest at the funeral.

Weast contacted local law enforcement and a successful plan was devised.

Said Weast: “We planned for the worst and hoped for the best.”

Weast’s own feelings about the protest, however resonated those of the town.

“What a tragedy to have a group like this protest the day of the funeral, one of the hardest days this family will have. It makes me sick,” he said.

Kelsey, Chelsea’s chief for six months, said neither set of protesters “were allowed to cross the street and every body stuck to it.”

The American Legion Riders from Southeast Kansas, which represented a number of Kansas towns and communities along with members of other organized motorcycle groups, attended the funeral to protest the protesters.

But the No. 1 reason was to show support for Staff Sgt. Doles and his family and to oppose Fred Phelps, who is the leader of the anti-homosexual group.

The bikers succeeded in keeping the protesters out of sight and sound of the Doles family but for anyone else close enough to see their brightly colored signs spoke loud and clear: “GOD IS YOUR ENEMY; GOD HATES THE USA; GOD IS AN AMERICAN TERRORIST; TOO LATE TO PRAY; THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS; YOU’RE GOING TO HELL; GOD HAS SPOKEN IT’S NOT A BLESSING IT’S A CURSE and AMERICA IS DOOMED.”

The locals had a couple of signs of their own. Three older women held up a white sheet that said “SHOW AMAZING GRACE” and two young people held a cardboard sign saying “YE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE.”

John B. Milam, a Chelsea native, said of his feelings about the protest, “I have no respect for anyone who has no respect for the dead.”

Wilma Fraley said, “I just think the family deserves a quiet, peaceful funeral for their hero. Thank God for the (local) people coming out to do this (show their support).”

At the cemetery, which was void of protesters, Doles’ team leader and 14 other fellow soldiers from Fort Polk in Louisiana who either trained or served with Doles attended the funeral.

Staff Sgt. Adam Oliver, Doles’ team leader, said, Doles “was the hardest worker I’ve ever seen in my life. He was one of those guys that everybody liked and probably the best soldier I’ve ever been in charge of. He was always willing to go the distance and beyond without ever being asked.”

Staff Sgt. Stephen Podymaitis, said “I’m just a better man for having known him.”

Podymaitis said he and his family lived next door to Doles and his family and their two sons practically grew up together.

“He brought happiness to everybody’s life,” Podymaitis said. Still in disbelief that his friend is gone Podymaitis said: “He’s a brother in arms and a brother in heart.”

Catholics say The Holy Bible lies!

October 10, 2005
by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
Covenant News Wire Services

The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true!

The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.

The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US.

Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.

But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”.

The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago, Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible.

In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.

They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.

The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”

They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.

“Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”

Of the notorious anti-Jewish curse in Matthew 27:25, “His blood be on us and on our children”, a passage used to justify centuries of anti-Semitism, the bishops say these and other words must never be used again as a pretext to treat Jewish people with contempt. Describing this passage as an example of dramatic exaggeration, the bishops say they have had “tragic consequences” in encouraging hatred and persecution. “The attitudes and language of first-century quarrels between Jews and Jewish Christians should never again be emulated in relations between Jews and Christians.”

As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.

Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the Lamb.

The bishops say: “Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.”

In their foreword to the teaching document, the two most senior Catholics of the land, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, and Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh, explain its context.

They say people today are searching for what is worthwhile, what has real value, what can be trusted and what is really true.

The new teaching has been issued as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council document explaining the place of Scripture in revelation. In the past 40 years, Catholics have learnt more than ever before to cherish the Bible. “We have rediscovered the Bible as a precious treasure, both ancient and ever new.”

A Christian charity is sending a film about the Christmas story to every primary school in Britain after hearing of a young boy who asked his teacher why Mary and Joseph had named their baby after a swear word. The Breakout Trust raised £200,000 to make the 30-minute animated film, ‘It’s a Boy.’ Steve Legg, head of the charity, said: “There are over 12 million children in the UK and only 756,000 of them go to church regularly.

That leaves a staggering number who are probably not receiving basic Christian teaching.”

Comment: The Catholics are showing considerable reason and commonsense while the Pentecostals are displaying the exact opposite achievements. After all, they believe ‘Sponge Bob” and the “Teletubbies” are gay and that very soon, all of the True Believers will be elevated to Heaven by Celestial Rocketpower. Unfortunately, not soon enough. Ed.