Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, December 2009: The Air Force Academy says religious tolerance has improved dramatically since allegations five years ago that evangelical Christians harassed cadets who didn’t share their faith. Even the school’s most vocal critic agrees.
“This is the first time we feel positive about things there,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which battled the academy in court over claims that evangelicals at the school were imposing their views on others.
The academy superintendent, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, says the improvements are the result of a topdown campaign to foster respect and a commitment to accommodate all cadets, even nonbelievers and an “Earth-centered” religious group that needed a place for a stone circle so it could worship outdoors.
“If we are going to have success in our primary mission of developing leaders of character, we have to do that based on respect in all things, whether we’re talking gender, race or religion,” Gould said.