WASHINGTON (ABP) — A chaplain at the Air Force Academy is seconding accusations that there is a bias at the school in favor of evangelical Christians.
According to news reports, Capt. Melinda Morton spoke out publicly May 11, as a special task force appointed by Pentagon officials arrived on the Colorado Springs, Colo., campus to investigate similar charges.
Morton, a Lutheran minister, said there is a pervasive atmosphere of coercion in favor of evangelical Christianity among cadets, faculty and administrators.
She echoed some accusations that had earlier been detailed, in a late August letter to Pentagon officials, by the Washington advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The report said administrators, faculty members and upper-class cadets at the government institution had inappropriately used their authority to push their evangelical beliefs — thus violating the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion.
Morton also claimed that academy officials had weakened a curriculum she designed to help educate cadets on religious tolerance and respect. That claim was similar to one made in the Americans United report.
According to a May 12 report in the New York Times, Morton screened her initial version of the program — called “Respecting the Spiritual Values of all Persons,” or “RSVP” — for Air Force officials last fall. She said the Air Force's head chaplain, Gen. Charles Baldwin, reacted to a section of the program that dramatized good and bad ways for cadets of different religions to interact.
“Why is it that the Christians never win?” Morton said Baldwin asked her after the program. He acknowledged asking that question, according to the Times.
“It was obvious to us that he had missed the point of the entire presentation here,” Morton told the paper. “It wasn't about winning or losing — some kind of cosmic battle. It was about helping our folks at the Air Force Academy understand the wonders of the whole range of religious experiences.”
Several alumni, parents and former cadets at the school have come forward in recent months to make similar accusations, as well as accusations of harassment and epithets used against cadets who are members of minority religions or are non-believers.
Air Force officials announced May 3 the creation of the special task force to investigate the complaints. A press release announcing the task force said the allegations “are being taken very seriously by the Air Force.” It continued: “This newly appointed task force will assess the religious climate and adequacy of Air Force efforts to address the issue at the USAFA.”
However, it also noted, “Considerable efforts have been made during the past several months at the USAFA to address issues of religious tolerance and respect.”
The task force is supposed to issue a preliminary report by May 23.
Baldwin said the report would investigate whether academy officials really crossed the constitutional boundary between church and state. “Because we have committed ourselves to look at every allegation, we will find out what really happened at that moment and evaluate that,” he told the Times. “The tension always is, when is a person crossing the line, or when are they being a positive person of faith, like our President [Bush]?”
But Morton told the newspaper that she had witnessed clear incidents of coercion of cadets to adopt evangelical Christianity. “It's the Constitution, not just a nice rule we can follow or not follow,” she said. “We all raised our hands and said we'd follow it, and that includes the First Amendment — that includes not using your power to advance your religious agenda.”