US: The US Air Force, facing a lawsuit over alleged proselytising, has withdrawn a document that permitted chaplains to evangelise military personnel who were not affiliated with any faith, Pentagon officials said.
The document was circulated at the Air Force Chaplain School until eight weeks ago. The code was written by the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces (NCMAF), a private association of religious bodies that provide chaplains to the military.
It was never an official directive of the Defence Department, but the fact that it was handed out at the chaplains school at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, "might have given the impression that it was air force policy," said Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, a retired chaplain.
The air force distanced itself from the code of ethics after complaints by Michael L. Weinstein, a 1977 Air Force Academy graduate who has accused the academy's current leaders of fostering pressure on cadets to convert to evangelical Christianity.
Last week Weinstein filed suit in federal court in New Mexico, alleging "severe, systemic and pervasive" religious discrimination in the air force.
Among other evidence, the suit cited a New York Times article that quoted Brig Gen Cecil R. Richardson, the air force's deputy chief of chaplains, as saying: "We will not proselytise, but we reserve the right to evangelise the unchurched."
The Air Force has new guidelines on religious tolerance that discourage public prayers on all but rare occasions. They do not ban evangelising but say chaplains "must be as sensitive to those who do not welcome offerings of faith as they are generous in sharing their faith with those who do." - (LA Times-Washington Post Service)