Wounded Marine, 1st Lieutenant Clebe McClary, ‘Too Evangelical’ For Air Force Academy

Sad Hill News ^ | 01.22.2011 | Sad Hill

[Sad Hill]

Marine 1st Lt. Clebe McClary Next, they'll be trying to snuff out officers who are too straight, or too white...

(Gazette) A religious rights group is calling for the removal of the Air Force Academy’s top officer after a flap over a speaker planned for a February prayer luncheon at the school.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation says the academy’s choice of retired Marine 1st Lt. Clebe McClary shows that superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould remains tilted toward evangelical Christianity and tolerates an environment where proselytizing is accepted.

Lt. Gen. Mike Gould

“We’re done,” said academy graduate Mikey Weinstein, the foundation’s founder and a frequent foe of religious practices at the school. “Gould needs to go.”

An academy spokesman, Lt. Col. John Bryan, defended the choice of McClary and said the planned prayer gathering is optional and inclusive of a broad spectrum of religious views.

“Nobody is being forced or coerced to go to this luncheon,” Bryan said.

McClary is a wounded Vietnam veteran who overcame his disabilities and now says he’s in the “Lord’s Army.”

Bryan said he’s heard McClary speak and came away with inspiration for overcoming obstacles rather than religious philosophy.

“He’s a nationally recognized motivational speaker,” Bryan said.

McLary’s website lists testimonials from celebrities including The Rev. Billy Graham and former Denver Broncos coach Dan Reeves.

The academy first sought retired Army general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell to speak at the luncheon, but when he couldn’t make it due to schedule conflicts, McClary was picked to keynote the annual event. He’ll be paid $2,500 and airfare reimbursement.

Weinstein points to McClary’s website for evidence that the speaker is too evangelical for the academy.

“To him, USMC will always mean a U. S. Marine for Christ,” McClary’s website says.

“Such statements are not only antithetical to the clear mission of the United States Air Force Academy, they are totally anathema to the purportedly globally inclusive purpose of this National Prayer Luncheon,” Weinstein wrote in a letter to Gould and Defense Department officials.

Several groups, including the Colorado branch of the American Civil Liberties Union have written Gould in support of Weinsten’s effort.

Weinstein has battled the academy in recent months over the school’s failure to include him in a conference on the school’s religious tolerance practices and the academy’s initial failure to release results of a survey that showed concerns about prosyletizing there.

Gould hasn’t responded to Weinstein’s latest letter.PLEASE let the United States Air Force Academy Public Affairs know what's on your mind. Tell 'em Sad Hill sent ya...:

Mailing Address HQ USAFA/PA 2304 Cadet Drive Suite 3100 U.S. Air Force Academy, CO 80840-5016

Phone: 719.333.7731 Fax: 719.333.4094

Community Relations: pa.comrel@usafa.af.mil Media Relations: media.pam@usafa.af.mil

[LomanBill]

>>the Navy bent over backwards to ensure tolerance.

 

The Naval Academy doesn't have jackwagons like this...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard

 

...doing "bidness" on the temple steps in it's front yard.

 

With those kind of antics going on, Colorado Springs is becoming increasingly polarized over religious issues, and unfortunately the activists on both sides seem to have difficulty articulating the intent of the American First Principles codified into the 1st amendment prohibition against state establishments of religion.

"...fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time..."

--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html

 

 

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY

TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"
--

Thomas Jefferson

 

 

[Soothesayer]

They have to make sure that progress is made in creating America’s first dedicated communist military force. There are those “domestic terrorists” who need arresting and “curing” donchaknow.

[DesertRhino]

Former military jag lawyer, working to prevent a combat tested recon marine from speakinng to future officers? Ok, got it,,,

And i know too many ass-kicking ar force men from the old days, to even refer to mikey as “air force”.

[ScottinVA]

I`m retired AF and have met Lt McClary. He is an awesome American and a fire-in-the-heart Christian. Anyone should be honored to have him in their midst.

[americanophile]

So the suicidal secular leftist Jews finally succeed in destroying the tolerant religious Christian right, which provides the basis for the victory of the retrograde, virulently anti-semitic Muslims. Is this how it’s going to be America?

[LomanBill]

[communist military force]

Remember when the Soviets owned all the jobs and rental property... with the state economy being primarily derived from its military industrial complex...and how well that worked out [NOT]?

 

Observe the Colorado Springs Housing Authority.

Dejavu?

The politics of Colorado Springs are heavily influenced by elitists who readily identify themselves as "Progressives" - which of course is just NewSpeak for "Communists".

More than a few of those communitarians are suckling from the government teat.    It's odd to observe  McYuppymobiles driving onto base with "Save Tibet" and "Obama/Biden" and "Equality" stickers plastered all over them.

And further disturbing is the fact that they can not articulate the difference between where they work, and the reality that existed when their ideals were implemented by the Soviet State's technocratic oligarchic kleptocracy.... and its religion of collectivized Secular Humanism...

 

 

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Ba'al

--The Who?

[Sad Hill]

UPDATE: Air Force Academy Prayer Luncheon With Clebe McClary ‘A Go’ – Judge Sends ‘Speculative’ Mikey Weinstein’s MRFF Home

A federal judge in Denver last week denied 'speculative and hypothetical' charges brought on by Mikey Weinstein's Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) against the Air Force Academy's volunteer prayer luncheon featuring 1st Lieutenant Clebe Mclary. MRFF complained that the wounded Marine was 'too evangelical'.

The debunked lawsuit was highlighted by Judge Christine Arguello telling MRFF cronies, 'I'm not going to listen to it'.

If you're not familiar with Mikey Weinstein or the MRFF, they're the same group that got Franklin Graham banned from the National Day of Payer:

(Denver Post) U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello ruled this afternoon that the plaintiffs — including Air Force Academy professor David Mullin and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation — don't have legal standing to challenge the event. That gives the luncheon, which is scheduled for tomorrow, the green light to go on.