This story by Bob Allen of the Baptist Center for Ethics reports that a Memorial Day weekend event in Stone Mountain Georgia may have been receiving official endorsement form the U. S. Air Force.
The Air Force denied it was a sponsor of a Memorial Day weekend festival at Stone Mountain, Ga., honoring the military and featuring introduction of a new paperback Bible designed for military personnel published by the Southern Baptist Convention
This "denial" seems ambiguous in the light of this:
The Air Force responded with a statement saying it was "not a sponsor" of the event and was "not aware until recently of the religious connotations surrounding Task Force Patriot's participation."
After seeing the schedule, the statement said, "Air Force officials began taking steps to avoid the appearance of any endorsement or preferential treatment of any religious faith or worship service."
An Air Force spokesman said in the Washington Post that at the Air Force's request, Task Force Patriot agreed to delete all references to Air Force sponsorship and removed an "unauthorized" photograph of Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, from its Web site.
The military said it would continue plans to provide music, exhibits and flyovers during the Memorial Day celebration, but they would not be timed to coincide with religious services.
The Air Force cut back the nine flyovers it had planned early last week to two. A spokesperson for the park told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the reason the military gave her was the number of requests for flybys at other Memorial Day events around the country.
You can find our more about Task Force Patriot here.
The hero of the story is Michael Weinstein:
Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, called attempts by the military to distance itself from the controversy a "weed-whacking machination" that "knocks the weed down on Friday morning, but by Tuesday morning it's back again."
Weinstein, who sued the Air Force in 2005 claiming Air Force Academy senior officers and cadets illegally imposed Christianity on others at the school, said his organization was preparing a comprehensive federal lawsuit against the Department of Defense for "likely countless constitutional violations" being perpetrated by Pentagon leadership.
Weinstein called military participation in the Stone Mountain festival a clear example of "pernicious religious predation by the U.S. military command structure." He said his foundation was "officially" renaming the Pentagon the "Pentecostalgon."
Weinstein said writing letters doesn't go far enough to fight what he called a "tortured and twisted blending of fundamentalist, dominionist Christianity with the foundational missions of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army."
"The only way to grab this thing and get rid of this unconstitutional darkness is going into federal court and ripping it out by the roots," Weinstein said in a video clip, "and that is what we're going to do."
Weinstein put Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on notice not to destroy e-mails or letters, which he warned would be "viewed as obstruction of justice, which is a felony."
Stay tuned for more from Mr. Winstein. For more on his organization see
here.
See the press release from Americans United for the Separation of Church and State here.