Air Force Chaplain
Submits Resignation
By THOM SHANKER and
LAURIE GOODSTEIN, NYTimes on the Web, June 22, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 21 - An Air
Force Academy chaplain who accused superiors of improperly promoting evangelical
Christianity among cadets submitted her resignation from the military on
Tuesday, one day before an official task force was to report on the religious
climate at the campus, in Colorado Springs.
The Lutheran chaplain, Capt. MeLinda S. Morton, has said she was fired from an
administrative job because of her public criticism and was ordered to deploy to
Japan.
"Chaplain Morton has been an outspoken critic of the academy's willingness to
tolerate a pervasive evangelical climate that is threatening to members of other
faith groups and disregards the constitutional separation of church and state,"
her lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell, said in a statement.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Fidell said that neither he nor Captain Morton had
read the new report on the religious climate at the academy, which was written
by an Air Force panel that included chaplains and personnel officers.
The report is to be released Wednesday at a news conference held by the senior
civilian and military leaders of the Air Force: Michael Dominguez, the
acting secretary, and Gen. John P. Jumper, the chief of staff. The officer
who led the task force, Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, deputy chief of staff for
personnel, is scheduled to provide details of the report, Pentagon officials
said.
"It is clear that the academy has a lot of work to do to rectify the numerous
First Amendment problems that have become a matter of public concern over the
last several months," Mr. Fidell said. "I think Chaplain Morton, because
of her outspokenness and leadership on these issues, had concluded that it would
be difficult for her at this point to contribute in the way she would like to
the academy's transition to a better and more constitutional environment."
In an interview on Tuesday evening, Captain Morton said that she had been
offered a position on the academy staff earlier in the day, but that the job
would be guaranteed for only five weeks.
She said she viewed the offer as "not a particularly committed approach to
addressing the problem," and added that "given the lack of collegiality among
the chaplain staff, at the end of the day it was incredibly difficult to stay."
In a statement released Tuesday, the Air Force said the job offered to Captain
Morton was "special assistant for religious respect issues." In that role,
the statement said, she would help develop "our continuing religious respect
education and training programs," as well as continue her duties as a chaplain
conducting periodic worship services.
Captain Morton clashed with her supervisor, Col. Michael Whittington, the chief
chaplain, after a Yale Divinity School report on religious intolerance at the
academy was released in April. Captain Morton had helped with the report,
which found that some academy chaplains were insensitive to religious diversity
among cadets.
Among the incidents reported by the Yale Divinity School study, which said
evangelical proselytizing was rife at the academy, was one involving a campus
chaplain who warned cadets that if they were "not born again" they would "burn
in the fires of hell."
The inspector general of the Defense Department is investigating the
circumstances of Captain Morton's orders to transfer to Japan.
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