Air Force retreats from religious guidelines after Religious Right push.

Under withering assault from Religious Right organizations, the Air Force has retreated from its plans to introduce tough new guidelines dealing with proselytism and sponsorship of religious activity.

Last year, the Air Force issued a four-page set of interim guidelines to cover religious activity in the service. The guidelines warned superior officers not to pressure subordinates on religion and advised chaplains to use "non-sectarian" prayers when addressing large groups. The guidelines also called for tolerance of religious "diversity" and labeled as "unacceptable" disrespectful conduct based on religious beliefs.

The new guidelines, only one page long, omit that material. They no longer discuss religious coercion by senior officers and give chaplains a green light to use sectarian prayers, stating, "We will respect the rights of chaplains to adhere to the tenets of their religious faiths and they will not be required to participate in religious activities, including public prayer, inconsistent with their faiths."

Americans United criticized the new guidelines, saying they emphasize the alleged right of chaplains to proselytize. "They focus heavily on protecting the rights of chaplains while ignoring the rights of nonbelievers and minority faiths," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

Evangelical groups have been pressuring the White House to allow sectarian prayer in the military. U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) took up the cause last fall. Jones wanted President George W. Bush to issue an executive order guaranteeing the right of military chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus, but Bush was unwilling to go that far. He did, however, promise to bring the matter up with Pentagon officials.

Claude Allen, White House domestic policy advisor, told The Washington Times in January that Bush asked Jones if he would accept less than an executive order, and Jones said yes. Bush, Allen said, would raise the issue himself with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Pressure from the White House apparently led the Air Force to water down the guidelines.

The controversy over religion in the Air Force is an outgrowth over a flap at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Mikey Weinstein, an Albuquerque businessman whose son attends the Academy, asserts that the Academy has shown preference toward conservative Christians and that the atmosphere was frequently hostile to non-evangelicals. In response, Air Force officials drafted new guidelines governing religious activity. The guidelines were portrayed as a model for the other branches of the service.

Religious Right groups are pleased with the new, weaker guidelines. Employing generous amounts of hyperbole, Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy for Focus on the Family, said the new rules will "bring an end to the frontal assault on the Air Force by secularists who would make the military a wasteland of relativism."