Written by Don Byrd
A church-state kerfuffle erupted last week as reports went viral claiming an Air Force cadet was forced to remove a Christian message from the hallway white board outside his room after religious freedom gadfly Mikey Weinstein reported complaints from other cadets to military officials. Dispute over just what happened and the extent of cadets’ religious freedom traveled quickly through conservative religious outlets and didn’t take long to reach Washington.
The Washington Post reports that in a House hearing about the Air Force budget Friday, the Secretary was confronted about the incident.
In the version [Representative Randy] Forbes [R-VA] relayed, the “entire” Air Force chain of command told the cadet to erase the quote from his whiteboard in his private room. [Air Force Secretary Deborah] 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.
…
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.“. . . . 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.”
The specific facts matter a lot in a dispute like this. Who has access to the boards? Where are they? What is the policy regarding the use of the white boards? Who erased it and why?
