By Colby Itkowitz. Published by The Washington Post on 18 March 2014.
A congressional hearing on the Air Force budget turned into a debate about religious freedom on Friday when some Republicans demanded to know why a cadet was made to erase a religious message he’d written on a dry-erase board in his Air Force Academy dorm.
Randy Forbes (R-Va.) jousted with Secretary of the Air Force Deborah James over the facts of the incident, which Forbes originally heard about from news reports (our Google research shows this story was mostly covered by right-leaning outlets).
As the story goes, a cadet had written on a whiteboard: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
In the version Forbes relayed, the “entire” Air Force chain of command told the cadet to erase the quote from his whiteboard in his private room. James said it was her understanding that another cadet, who felt uncomfortable went straight to the source, and the cadet who wrote it voluntarily took it down.
At the House Armed Services Committee hearing, Forbes asserted that religious freedom “is not to make sure no person on the planet is offended, it’s to say that cadet ought to have the right in an own personal board to put that verse up there.”
Gen. Mark Welsh III, chief of staff of the Air Force, jumped in and said the whiteboard in question is not located in the cadets’ rooms, but rather in a shared hallway. There have been “hundreds of quotes” removed from the public board, he said.
“What you said is absolutely true. Every cadet has a right to free religious expression, but if someone else comes to him and says that bothers me, and they have that discussion — if that’s happened, I would compliment both of them,” Welsh said. Then added, “We’ve got to get the facts straight.”
Forbes told the Loop in an e-mail that he remains “deeply concerned” that the Air Force is teaching that religious expression is “incompatible with effective leadership.”
After Friday’s hearing, the Air Force Academy sought to clear up the facts. On its own Web site the academy clarifies that the cadet was not ordered to take down the message, but did so on his own after a conversation with the chain of command.
Not every Republican was so dour about the situation. Providing some levity to the hearing debate, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), asked the secretary, “if I am offended by your budget, will you take it down?”
The President of the Catholic League has called for a boycott of Guinness, Heineken and Sam Adams for pulling their sponsorship of St. Patrick’s Day parades in New York and Boston that barred LGBT groups from marching.
In a statement issued Monday calling for a boycott, Donohue called the beer makers bullies and said groups shouldn’t be allowed to march under their own banners in St. Patrick’s Day parades.
“The parade is quintessentially Catholic, beginning with a Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It is this Catholic element that angers those who are engaged in a bullying campaign against the St. Patrick’s Day parades. The bullies also have nothing but contempt for the constitutional rights of Irish Catholics.”
Catholic League President Bill Donohue’s statement came after Guinness and Heineken withdrew their sponsorship of New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, and the maker of Sam Adams decided not to sponsor the Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade. Both parades refused to let LGBT groups openly march.
“Guinness has a strong history of supporting diversity and being an advocate for equality for all. We were hopeful that the policy of exclusion would be reversed for this year’s parade. As this has not come to pass, Guinness has withdrawn its participation,” Guinness said in a statement. The mayors of Boston and New York, Marty Walsh (D) and Bill de Blasio (D) also boycotted the parades.
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