Barney Frank: “a couple of weeks ago I was disturbed to read of reports that people at the Air Force Academy were inappropriately and…”

“a couple of weeks ago I was disturbed to read of reports that people at the Air Force Academy were inappropriately and improperly putting pressure on cadets to follow certain religious practices. In this particular case, cadets who did not follow a certain brand of Christianity were being ridiculed and being criticized, and the allegations were that they were even being pressured by officials of the Academy to follow this specific set of religious practices. Obviously, we should create a situation in which people of any religious persuasion are free at the Academy to follow that. But for young men and women who were sent to the Academy to learn to lead our Air Force and defend our country in that important institution to be subjected to religious pressures, religious ridicule and criticism because they do not particularly follow one or another religion is terrible public policy, and, of course, unconstitutional. When I heard that, my reaction was to give the Air Force the benefit of the doubt. I wrote a letter to the Air Force Academy and the Secretary of the Air Force asking that the Air Force be looking into this, and I had read that in fact they were. So I thought, well, I hope we are talking with reasonable people. These allegations sounded to me like things that no reasonable person would allow to go forward. Let us see what happens. I decided I would wait to see what the Air Force did. Well, I am not waiting anymore, because the Air Force has acted.…”