The Christian Right has tried to portray the problems at the Air Force academy as a witch hunt against Christians. They have argued that complaints about Christians' persecution of Jews is really persecution of Christians. Now, the superintendent of the Air Force Academy has admitted that there are serious problems at the school. What will Christian Right leaders do?

Yahoo News reports:

"As a commander, I know I have problems in my cadet wing," Lt. Gen. John Rosa said at a meeting of the Anti-Defamation League's executive committee. "I have issues in my staff, and I have issues in my faculty — and that's my whole organization."

He said he admonished the academy's No. 2 commander, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, for sending an e-mail promoting National Prayer Day. "We sat down and said, `This is not right,' and he acknowledged that," Rosa said, adding there had been other incidents that crossed the line. "Perception is reality. We don't have respect."

Rosa said the problem is "something that keeps me awake at night. If everything goes well, it's probably going to take six years to fix it," he added.

Christian Right leaders won't be able to continue dismissing the experiences of religious minorities now that Rosa has come forward (a bit late, to be sure) and admitted that there are problems. Some have wondered why it will take 6 years to fix things, but that doesn’t surprise me. The current batch of cadets will all have to be gone because they've been a part of the discriminatory system. Some of the teachers and commanders will have to go as well.

So often, changes like this only really take hold because all of the old people leave or die rather than because people genuinely change their minds. Sad, but true.

The Washington Post has an editorial on the controversy:

Although the task force's work should not be judged in advance, it is of concern that the group doesn't seem to have spent much time with those who have been most outspoken about the issue. Mikey Weinstein, a 1977 academy graduate who says his cadet son has been harassed for being Jewish, said his only contact with the task force was a phone call asking him to stop criticizing it. Capt. MeLinda Morton, a chaplain who spoke out against what she considers strident evangelizing on campus, said she was interviewed for a scant 15 minutes on the task force's last day of investigation. A Yale Divinity School professor who helped flag the religious problems at the academy was never contacted.

Does anyone else think that a whitewash is in the works? You should. The Bush administration has not been a friend of secularism or the principle of religious neutrality in government matters. The discrimination and bigotry at the Air Force Academy are what happens when government officials are given the green light to be partisan in religious mattes. They aren't doing anything that the Christian Right hasn't advocated for years — and the Christian Right is the primary political constituency of the Republican Party.

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Church and State News
• Secularism 101