The Air Force Academy, still recovering from rape and sexual harassment scandals, is facing charges that some Christian cadets have bullied and berated Jews and students of other religious backgrounds.
School officials said Tuesday they had received 55 complaints over the last few months and were requiring students — and eventually all employees — to attend a course on religious tolerance."
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% of the academy's 4,300 cadets identify themselves as Christians; the school's commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny A. Weida, describes himself as a born-again Christian.
Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and a lawyer in Albuquerque, said that his son Curtis — a sophomore at the academy — had been called a "filthy Jew."
I doubt if this would be happening if there weren't a climate that supports this kind of behavior. The climate, sadly, is widespread.
This is all so incredible I found the Bill of Rights just to make sure I remembered the first amendment correctly. For anyone who also wonders if they remember it correctly, I am including it. Maybe the catch is in the first five words, “Congress shall make no law”. They haven’t made a law yet, but when they are making or trying to make political decisions based on a particular religious belief, I can’t help but wonder when the laws are going to come. Why wouldn’t these students be harassing other students based on their religious beliefs? When our political leaders have very much let it be known that the only “correct” religions are those belonging to the fundamentalist right, how can we expect our youth to know any different? I believe with all my heart we are headed towards a very dark place as a nation, and the acts of these students are just one of the many symptoms. Unfortunately, I have no answers—I wish I did. Carolyn L.
ReplyDeleteAmendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.