Special to WJW

The United States Air Force's recently released revised guidelines for religious expression are not just a terrible disappointment. They are a colossal, constitutional step backward in the struggle to protect members of the U.S. Armed Forces from religious coercion.

Moreover, the guidelines make another uncomfortable truth clear: To appease powerful voices on the religious right, the Air Force ‹ almost unimaginably ‹ made a political decision to tread upon sacred constitutional safeguards intended to protect those who follow nonevangelical Christian sects and minority religions, including Jews, as well as those who choose to follow no faith at all.

Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, Air Force chief of chaplains, has been quoted as saying that the revised guidelines made public Feb. 9 "affirm every airman's right, even the commander's right, to free exercise of religion, and that means sharing your faith."

I support the free exercise of religion and the right to express one's faith. But Maj. Gen. Baldwin's concern for the rights of commanders is both disingenuous and misguided because of the unique circumstances that prevail in the Air Force and other branches of the U.S. military.

In the sensitive arena of personal religious beliefs, it is not the commanders, but those who serve under them, who need special protection from draconian command influence over constitutionally guaranteed personal religious freedoms.

The military is not a social club in which members of equal standing have the collegial latitude to disagree respectfully with each other without fear of retribution. Rather, it is a rigidly hierarchical organization in which subordinates who disagree with superiors do so at great risk. Careers have been destroyed by a single impolitic word or the mere tacit nuance of a perceived action or reaction.

To allow chaplains to say public prayers "in the name of Jesus Christ" at mandatory Air Force military formations ‹ as the revised guidelines now allow ‹ is knowingly to subject to religious coercion junior officers and enlisted men and women who do not ascribe to that particular fundamentalist Christian doctrine and have absolutely no recourse.

That is clearly unconstitutional, not to mention detrimental to military unit cohesion, discipline, good order and morale.

The Air Force interim guidelines on religious expression released initially last August (which now have been superseded by the revised guidelines), though better, also fail to protect sufficiently against religious coercion.

That is why I filed suit in October to halt rampant proselytizing throughout the Air Force ‹ including at my alma mater, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where this now widespread contagion first came to my attention two years ago.

Given this latest development, I understand that the situation is even worse than I thought. There can be no remaining doubt that on this issue, the religious right is fully committed to riding roughshod over the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.

This disgrace cannot be allowed to stand. Truth must be spoken to power when power violates the highest law of the land. That is why I am compelled to speak out.

Mega-religious right organizations such as Focus on the Family and the National Association of Evangelicals have the constitutional right to flood the Congress, the White House and the Pentagon with "emergency" messages alleging that their majority rights are being threatened.

But make no mistake: Religious right organizations are powerful interest blocs capable of exerting great political pressure in support of their agenda irrespective of the Constitution. This is what we are up against.

In a democracy, however, it is the clear responsibility of the government and its representatives to stand firm. The hallmark of our nation's greatness is its tolerance of diversity via its treatment of its racial, ethnic and religious minorities. Sadly, Maj. Gen. Baldwin, as the head of the Air Force Chaplain Corps, instead of upholding the Constitution, chose to cave in to pressure from those he characterized in The Washington Post as "my evangelical friends."

The revised guidelines show that the Air Force has little concern over ensuring that its members are treated equally, regardless of religious beliefs.

It is because of these now formally institutionalized offenses and the deliberate disregard shown for the treatment of all Air Force personnel, including Air Force Academy cadets, that I am compelled to pursue the religious freedom federal lawsuit that I have instituted.

How tragic that, at a time when the world seems to be on the verge of explosion because of religious intolerance, the United States Air Force, an institution that I and others in my family through multiple generations have served proudly, and which I love dearly, chooses to turn an unconstitutional blind eye to the religious intolerance within its very own ranks.

An Air Force Academy graduate and an Air Force veteran, Mikey Weinstein served as White House counsel in the Reagan administration. He is the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

NOTE: WJW invited the Air Force to submit a companion piece to appear with this article. The offer was declined.