Free Exercise of Religion and the Military

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Unfortunately, the Air Force Academy has decided that they are going to run roughshod on the free exercise of religion in the halls of their institution.  As seen in the article, this cadet had the unmitigated gall to post a bible verse on his personal whiteboard and met the immediate ire of supposed cadets and instructors who were so enraged by his actions that they bypassed the normal chain of command to air their complaints to Mikey Weinstein. 

The Academy itself stated that although there was no violation of policy, they still opted to remove the verse.  It seems that if anyone should receive disciplinary action, it should be the officers who took action to remove a personal expression of religion that violated no governing Air Force or DoD policy.  Not only that, it would be interesting to see the personnel involved in this action from the top down after Mr. Weinstein made his call into the Pentagon.  Thank goodness the Air Force General Officer population has so much free time that they can take calls from civilian action groups and order decisive action to remove a threatening bible verse in just over two hours.  If only they could act so decisively when real issues affecting the safety and welfare of troops were at stake.  Hell, if we had this sort of rapid action in Benghazi we might have actually saved a few lives instead of spending resources and time soothing the hurt feelings of a few cadets(if they even exist).  

On a more positive note, after the removal of the verse, others rallied around their fellow cadet and posted bible verses and other religious texts on their own whiteboards.  My prediction is that it is now only a matter of time before all personal expressions are removed from the whiteboards thus stifling the personal freedom of all cadets because of the action of Mr. Weinstein and his ilk.