I hate it when liberals bash Christians. As a proud cultural Jew, who doesn't even go to synagogue, I am hardly a religious zealot of any sort. Yet I have, for several years, found it increasingly hard to swallow the Liberal Left's knee-jerk vilification of people of faith, especially conservative Christians. So many of them are decent, good people, who are infinitely more nuanced and diverse in their viewpoints and perspectives than Liberal Reductionists make them out to be.

That said, I'm about to go WAY off the rez here. Even as a supporter of President George W. Bush, and a "moral values" moderate conservative who's appalled by much of the laxity and decay infecting popular culture, I have nonetheless too often been creeped out by Christian zealots and the blatantly homogenous social atmospherics in Flyover Country.

The overwhelmingly Christian, totally White Bread straight conformist vibe in places like Idaho and Colorado can be daunting to outsiders, and ought not be advanced by locals. I still remember, with some disgust, picking up the daily paper in lovely Coeur D'Alene, Idaho one summer afternoon in 2000, on the way back to Seattle from a family vacation in Spirit Lake, and seeing that the color, cover photo on the county fair special section pull-out had two blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan model kids frolicking about.

This in a place near notorious Hayden Lake, where white supremicists led by Aryan Nations Supreme Creep-oid Richard Butler had ruled the roost for years, and at that very time were facing trial related to hate crimes. Political, intentional pandering to Aryans in the local paper, around a community festival, in a place then already deservedly under fire for the actions of blatant race-haters (now thankfully gone). Utterly tone-deaf. Never had I so wanted to see a dreadlocked black woman in a picture, and I usually hate that tokenist tendency on the media's part.

In Colorado Springs in 2002 for a family wedding, going all about the town and region, the same White, wear-it-on-your-sleeve Christian feel was everywhere. Colorado Springs is home to more than 100 Christian evangelical organizations, according to this Los Angeles Times article on the scandal involving religious intolerance and anti-Semitism at the Air Force Academy (about which more below).

Even the fairly appealing downtown of Colorado Springs seemed cleansed of vibrancy and any signs of real cultural diversity. The town as a whole is kind of a vast cultural wasteland, as this "lighter side" collection of reader reminiscenses in the local paper reveals (and that's taking into account the NYT-reading cowboy). As for religion - fine, Goddamit - I'm all for it, all brands; it just doesn't need to be overly advertised, and painstakingly woven into every last strand of a region's identity. That betrays spiritual and intellectual poverty.

Case in point: There's a little country town northeast of Seattle, called Darrington, where, last time I passed through I saw skinheads walking on the road, and all the workmen's roadside signs said something just like, "Bob Smith Plumbing: Praise The Lord," and so forth. If you wanted customers, apparently you had to signify. But "Rosenberg Consulting Services - Praise The Lord" just wouldn't play there, now would it?

Idaho, Colorado Springs, and Darrington remind me uncomfortably of far western North Carolina, a lovely, mountainous region that's home to many fine people and a few too many race-haters. My wife and I briefly considered moving there in the early 1990s, from our then-home in Chicago. But I wondered what it would be like to live in such a place with my very Jewish last name, a place where even then, a known White Supremacist was holed up. Not to mention what life would be like there for my kids, then not yet born. For the same reason, Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon are locations I feel I can only visit, not live, even if I might wish to relocate, with my family, to either.

And so, I am not surprised, but am greatly sickened by the reports of serious religious intolerance and discrimination at the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, practiced by evangelical Christian cadets, instructors and institutional leaders against cadets of other religious faiths, or no religious faith.

The Air Force has already essentially admitted culpability and instituted supposed reforms.

From the second-linked (L.A. Times) item in this post:

School officials say that they have received 55 complaints over the last few months and are requiring students - and eventually all employees - to attend courses on religious tolerance.

"Some complaints had to do with people... saying bad things about persons of other religions or proselytizing in inappropriate places," academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker said. "There have been cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness, and attacking or baiting someone over religion."

About 90 percent of the 4,300 cadets at the academy identify themselves as Christians; the school's commander, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, describes himself as born again.

Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and lawyer in Albuquerque, N.M., said his son Curtis - who is in his second year at the academy - was called a "filthy Jew. When I visited my son, he told me he wanted us to go off base because he had something to tell me," Weinstein said. "He said, 'They are calling me a [expletive] Jew and that I am responsible for killing Christ.' My son told me that he was going to hit the next one who called him something."

Revealingly, even the arch-conservative Washington Times currently finds itself unable to offer more than a muted, somewhat scrubbed factual report, sans refutation, or snark, of any sort.

Shame on the Air Force Academy for allowing a climate of religious bigotry. Shame, shame, shame.

I visited the Academy with my family in '02, and was tremendously inspired by the place - the sense of mission, the training program, and importance of this elite, highly-skilled branch of our nation's military. I recall also being impressed by the architectually distinctive chapel, as well. Yet now, I wonder if the chapel looms entirely too large on the campus. Perhaps they should tear it down, and have services in a mess-hall basement.

The Lord cares not about the size and splendor of your shrine, after all. You honor him with your humility, and love of your fellow man - no matter where, or how, or even whether at all, your fellow man worships God. And in a government-funded institution, or a public place, you do NOT love your agnostic, or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim brother by praying for him as a "sinner" who hasn't come to Jesus.

If the Air Force Chapel is not bulldozed, as it ought to be, then let them also build a synogogue, a Buddhist temple and a mosque.

I know all too well the arrogance of the proselytizer, like those at the Academy; he who says I will burn in Hell if I don't worship his God, his way, and starting right now. I've unfortunately met a few, including one at the Washington Monument, when I was living in Arlington, Virginia, and working on Capitol Hill for a moderate Republican congressman from Illinois, in 1983. How far removed is such a zealot from an Islamicist suicide bomber? Only by a scant degree, and then barely at all, if he pulls an Eric Rudolph on us.

Let us note, too, that the recent unpleasantness at the Academy is not the only scandal there in recent years; sexual harassment has been rampant as well, though reforms are now in place.

Seems cadets can't keep their Johnsons or their religion under control. The history of sexual harassment and the more recent religious harassment at The Academy do unpleasantly dovetail. True, false accusations of white male privilege and arrogance are to be abhorred. But so too is the real thing.

Air Force Cadets, and commanders, get your business fully in order; and soon. A staining minority of you have been a disgrace to the proud and mighty U.S. Air Force. You have been a disgrace as well to the founding principles of the country you purport to protect and defend. Are you auditioning for the Saudi religious police?

And listen, if "the Jews killed Jesus," as some of your "Christian" cadets have allegedly told other (Jewish) cadets, then "the Americans" killed John F. Kennedy. Keep your religion, and your misguided beliefs, to yourselves.

President Bush - it will soon be time to cleanse the upper management levels of the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs. Time to gather all the facts, list names, take action, and clean house. End of story.

One hopes, at least.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 4, 2005 12:07 AM

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