Just a while back, I had to be sworn in and the judge avoided any mention of god as well
Air Force Academy makes ‘so help me God’ optional
October 25, 2013
In a victory for secular America, Air Force Academy cadets will no longer be required to say "so help me God" when reciting the Air Force Academy honor oath.
The Air Force Academy announced Friday that it will now be optional for cadets to recite “so help me God” at the end of its honor oath. The decision comes after a complaint was filed by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a patriotic organization that advocates for the separation of church and state in the military.
In a statement issued by the Air Force Academy, Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson said:
Here at the academy, we work to build a culture of dignity and respect, and that respect includes the ability of our cadets, airmen and civilian airmen to freely practice and exercise their religious preference — or not. So, in the spirit of respect, cadets may or may not choose to finish the honor oath with ‘so help me God.’
However, Military Religious Freedom Foundation President Mikey Weinstein said the academy’s decision isn't enough: “The Air Force Academy took the cowardly route,” Weinstein said after the announcement. “From our perspective, it still creates a tremendous amount of unconstitutional turmoil ... for anyone who is a religious objector.”
Previously, Weinstein told The Colorado Springs Gazette "To tie the honor code to a religious test violates the no-establishment clause of the Constitution."
Adopted in 1984 and unchanged since, the honor oath reads, via Air Force Academy's Cadet Handbook:
We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does. Furthermore, I resolve to do my duty and to live honorably, so help me God.
The academy says cadets are required to take the oath once, when they formally enter the school after boot camp.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
Its been optional in the actual service oaths for at least as long as I have been int he military since 1999 as it should be. I was on The Citadel honor court back in the day and we have a similar oath thats never had the last line.
Patroklos wrote:Its been optional in the actual service oaths for at least as long as I have been int he military since 1999 as it should be. I was on The Citadel honor court back in the day and we have a similar oath thats never had the last line.
And Wienstien is a tool.
Given what I can only call Infiltration by the psycho-evangelical churches of Colorado Springs in recent years... he might be a tool (I will remain neutral with respect to that proposition), but he is a necessary tool.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
