Liberty Bell

“How can we ask our men and women in uniform to give their lives extending freedom and civil liberties to oppressed people across the globe while they are denied the very freedoms they are fighting to secure for others?”

In my previous post, Mikey’s Mission: The Facts, I told the story of Mikey Weinstein, who is suing the United States Air Force, claiming senior officers and cadets illegally imposed evangelical Christianity on others at the school. This post gives my opinion on his story.

In my opinion this case presents two questions:

1. What (in the Air Force) counts as illegally imposed?

2. Which freedom is more important, the right to express your beliefs or someone else’s right not to have to listen to them?

The answer to question no. 1 has changed, even during the lawsuit. On February 9th, the Air Force issued new guidelines on religion. The guidelines drop a requirement for chaplains to respect others’ rights to their own beliefs and no longer caution top officers about promoting their personal religious views. They also say superiors must be “sensitive to the potential that personal expressions of faith might appear to be official or have undue influence on subordinates.” With these new guidelines, the Air Force has avoided the strictness that caused problems in regards to the August edition.

It makes you wonder if there is a policy of unconstitutional religious coercion.

Air Force officials acknowledge that the guidelines were revised following an angry response from Christian groups and from 72 members of Congress who sent a letter to President Bush in January. “We didn’t like what came out in August, but this is a public retreat from where they were before,” said Mikey Weinstein.

The Air Force’s filing said the guidelines reaffirm its commitment “to protecting the free exercise of religion, prohibiting governmental establishment of religion and defending the nation.”

Question no. 2, poses a different problem. I believe you can’t label one freedom more important than another. The right to express your beliefs must be equal to another’s right not to listen to them.

In a place where rank is prominent, equality is hard to inforce - even with the guidelines.

Bregman points out that what an evangelical officer may feel is a reasonably sensitive discussion, an enlisted atheist may feel is completely unreasonable.

“Will he (the enlisted man) open his mouth and tell him that with the risk of a repercussion down the road?” he asked.

Bergman also rallied against the new guidelines saying that dismissing the lawsuit would be “ridiculous in light of what the new guidelines say.”

“They completely, thoroughly violate the Constitution of the United States,” he said.

So naturely, I went to the Constitution, via Yahoo! Encyclopedia, to see exactly what it says:

Amendment 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.

(I assuming that’s where Bergman was talking about.)

Now my thoughts are starting to circle, and I’m wondering whether I actually had a specific destination to this train of thought. Since I nearly always do, I’ll assume I did. If you figure out what it was please let me know.

*collecting thoughts again*

My straight opinion: Nobody should have religion forced on him/her. Freedom of speech and Freedom of religion are equally important - just as the right to express your beliefs is equal to the right not to listen to them. How the Air Force should go about this issue, I’m not exactly sure. I suggest another set of guidelines.

A bit of irony to end this post - when I looked up the Constitution online, the main advertisement on that page was for the Air Force Academy.