One month after the U.S. Air Force suspended a controversial class taught to launch officers at Vandenberg Air Force Base, the branch’s top officer issued a memo warning leaders to avoid promoting particular religious views.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz sent the memo to units nationwide on Sept. 1, calling on officials to preserve “government neutrality regarding religious beliefs” and refrain from anything that could be construed as proselytizing.
“Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for an individual’s free exercise of religion or other personal beliefs and its prohibition against governmental establishment of religion,” Schwartz wrote. “Commanders or supervisors who engage in such behavior may cause members to doubt their impartiality and objectivity. The potential result is a degradation of the unit’s morale, good order, and discipline.”
The memo specifically targeted the Air Force’s Chaplain Corps programs, urging chaplains and commanders to refrain from appearing to endorse religion, even in general terms.
Vandenberg spokesman Jeremy Eggers said the memo had already been distributed to base personnel through the regular chain of command, but offered no further comment.
Schwartz’s mandate comes after pressure from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a watchdog group based in Texas, which objected to the use of Christian themes and Biblical passages in a briefing called “Just War Theory.” The course was taught at Vandenberg for more than 20 years to officers who might someday be called upon to launch nuclear weapons.
Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the MRFF, said Schwartz deserved kudos for issuing the statement, though it was “long overdue.”
“In baseball parlance, this is not a grand slam, nor is it a home run, double, or a triple,” he told the Sun. “It is a good, hard line-drive up the middle that we hope will start a rally for constitutional conformance in the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force, where fundamentalist Christian oppression and tyranny has trampled on the Constitution for several decades.”
Weinstein said he hopes any violators of the
directive will be prosecuted.
The MRFF issued a formal demand to the Air Force on Sept. 19 that officials distribute the memo to all Air Force Academy personnel.
This article appears in Sep 22-29, 2011.