Albuquerque, N.M. – A Jewish graduate of the Air Force Academy who filed a lawsuit alleging officers and cadets at the school illegally imposed Christianity on others has offered to settle the suit if the Air Force bars proselytizing.
Mikey Weinstein said in an interview today with The Associated Press that he wants the Air Force to stop wasting “time, effort, blood, sweat, tears and money” and agree to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
Sam Bregman of Albuquerque, Weinstein’s attorney, asked the Air Force today to agree to a stipulated order in federal court that no one in the Air Force, including a chaplain, will “in any way attempt to involuntarily convert, pressure, exert or persuade a fellow member of the USAF to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty.” Bregman also asked that the service not permit or advance one religion over another, or over no religion.
He made the offer in a letter faxed to Mary L. Walker, the Air Force’s top lawyer in Washington.
“As you can plainly see, we are asking for nothing more than the Constitution already requires of the United States Air Force,” Bregman wrote.
An Air Force spokeswoman was not immediately available to take a call from the AP.
Weinstein’s lawsuit alleges that during the past decade or more, academy leaders have fostered an environment of religious intolerance at the Colorado school in violation of the First Amendment.
The Air Force has withdrawn a code of ethics issued by the Air Force Chaplain Service in January that endorsed the practice of evangelizing military service members who are not affiliated with any specific religion. The Air Force has said the code of ethics was withdrawn for review on Aug. 10, but it did not disclose that action until earlier this month after Weinstein filed his lawsuit.
The code includes the statement: “I will not actively proselytize from other religious bodies. However, I retain the right to instruct and/or evangelize those who are not affiliated.” Walker, in an earlier letter to Weinstein’s attorney, said the document “might have been understood to represent such a policy statement” on evangelizing but that “there is no existing Air Force policy endorsing ‘proselytizing’ or ‘evangelizing’ ‘the unchurched.”‘ But Bregman wrote today that based on Walker’s letter, “apparently from some as yet undetermined time period until at least August 10, 2005, the Air Force was in fact endorsing the ‘evangelizing’ of the ‘unchurched.”‘ Weinstein said his settlement offer gives the Air Force a way to “stop burning taxpayer dollars and get out of this embarrassing lawsuit.” “I don’t know that the Air Force can show a single instance of any one of its members being disciplined for proselytizing,” Weinstein said.
“If this was happening in the private sector, it would last about three seconds,” he said.
