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USAFA’s excuse is ridiculous

Published On: March 6, 2013|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|0 Comments|

This email was sent to MRFF by a former Protestant Chaplain at USAFA:

USAFA saying that “the link to jewfaq was meant as a resource for our Airmen on this holiday and nothing more”. Is like saying segregated lunch counters were “dining opportunities….nothing more!”

Of course segregated lunch counters were symbolic of the pervasive racial apartheid rigorously practiced in the south and tolerated in the north.

Just so, the Academy chaplain’s official recommendation of the jewfaq website rebutresses homophobia with religious rhetoric creating an environment of hostility, which actively empowers the denigration of same sex desire and condemns expressions of gender difference.

The choice of such a website is symbolic of the cultural exclusion and professional rejection experienced daily by gay, lesbian and bi-sexual cadets.

If the selection of this website by the HCX (Wing Chaplain’s Office) was simply “a lack of attention to detail” more’s the pity. Regulations regarding the dissemination of religious material insist that “information will not denigrate other religions or cultures”…this website certainly fails in that regard. Either the HCC was ignoring the regulation, or demonstrating an astonishing lack of pastoral care and professional competence. Or sadly…just engaging in the same engrained bigotry which reinforced racial segregation in the past, and which now seeks to demean the relational integrity of same sex desire and discount the worth of gender difference.

How much longer will gay, lesbian, and bisexual cadets have to receive religious sustenance from the back alley doorway….when will they sit with fellow cadets at the lunch counter of military community, respected and supported as colleagues, cadets, and military professionals?

Surely the Academy ought make a better effort at inclusiveness than this.

[name withheld]

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