Air Force leaders hammer helpless subordinates with Evangelical “Gospel Explosion”
Daily Kos
Air Force leaders hammer helpless subordinates with Evangelical “Gospel Explosion”
by Mikey Weinstein
Ho hum, just another fundamentalist "Jesus Freak” day of joy in the U.S. Air Force, spewing out another major illicit act of despicable denigration towards the Constitution of the United States. This latest anti-Constitutional outrage comes to us from Cannon Air Force Base (AFB), host to the USAF’s 27th Special Operations Wing (SOW), which lies on the outskirts of Clovis in my home state of New Mexico near the border with west Texas. -snip-
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At the beginning of this month, the 1st of July, 2015, USAF Master Sergeant Keith L. Lucas e-mailed a flyer to his subordinates promoting an on-base, sectarian religious proselytizing event called “Gospel Explosion” and explicitly "requested” (in other words, ORDERED in military chain-of command parlance) that they “please post everywhere and spread the word… thanks!!” In the email thread forwarded to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (the sole civil rights organization devoted to fighting violations of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state in the U.S. military), various additional senior USAF leaders at Cannon AFB effusively affirm MSgt. Lucas’s original “Gospel Explosion spread the word” directive, with Master Sergeant Marvin Jimerson Jr. even instructing all 27th SOW First Sergeants on base to “Please disseminate within your units.”
(As an aside, this isn’t even Cannon’s first time stumbling through the “minefield”; see the case of the 523rd Fighter Squadron AKA the “Crusaders.”)
Now, taken on its own, we have absolutely NO problem with "Gospel Explosion”(s), implosions, propulsions, or eruptions. “Gospel Explosion” is clearly an Evangelical Christian proselytizing event, and that’s perfectly fine and dandy. ... (Fun Fact: MRFF has had very senior DoD installation commanders directly reach out for our advice and counsel about how to manage such sectarian religious proselytizing events on military bases, well before they even occur, without running afoul of the Constitution and/or the full spectrum of DoD regulations. Whenever we have been asked to provide counsel in managing events just like “Gospel Explosion”, there have NEVER been any issues of unconstitutional breaches at all, and all of these Christian proselytizing events have transpired completely devoid of any MRFF client complaints or incidents.)
However, what we DO have a MAJOR problem with is the fact that the Air Force command leadership has grown accustomed to brazenly violating numerous Department of Defense and Air Force directives, regulations, and instructions in an airy, willy-nilly fashion. If the Master Sergeants at Cannon AFB want to promote participation in decidedly Christian gospel events, they need to leave this task to the USAF chaplaincy rather than unconstitutionally misappropriating that role for themselves. -snip-
Our civil rights foundation has already been contacted by 7 Air Force NCO/Officer clients at Cannon AFB – 6 of whom are of the Christian faith, the seventh of whom was raised in Christian faith traditions – regarding this outrageous travesty. The fact that they reached out to MRFF, rather than to their own USAF chain of command, indicates the pathetically sorry state of the command climate on base.
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... On September 1, 2011, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, never one to willingly court even an iota of “religious” controversy, nevertheless issued a truly watershed memorandum for all USAF commanders that stated plainly:
“Although commanders are responsible for these programs, they must refrain from appearing to officially endorse religion generally or any particular religion. Therefore, I expect chaplains, not commanders, to notify Airmen of Chaplain Corps programs.”
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Look, our fight isn’t to remove all vestiges of religious faith from the ranks of the United States Armed Forces, as our deliberately lying, fundamentalist Christian foes claim. No, our fight remains one for democracy, fairness, equal protection and justice in the face of those who viciously abuse our servicemembers and the sanctity of the oaths taken by those sworn to protect and defend our Constitution. ...
Of course MRFF’s aggressive civil rights activism infuriates those hordes in the Christian Taliban. Lest we forget, these religious fanatics are wholly (and “Holy”) devoted towards the furtherance of their seditious agenda of maintaining, at all costs, the unmitigated supremacy of unlawful, theocratic, Christian fundamentalist arrogance, primacy, and oppression. Behold the egregiously unconstitutional time, place, and manner breaches by the Cannon AFB command leadership in promoting “Gospel Explosion”!
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http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/23/1405068/-Air-Force-leaders-hammer-helpless-subordinates-with-Evangelical-Gospel-Explosion?detail=email
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