The ritual of dipping the American flag before the altar at
the Naval Academy Chapel has come under fire, and one group plans to
ask a federal court to put an end to the practice.
In the only known ritual of its kind in the Navy, the color guard at
the Naval Academy Chapel dips the American flag and the academy flag
when they are carried before the altar cross during the 11 a.m. Sunday
Protestant service.
Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, who became academy
superintendent in
June, considered the ritual to be inappropriate and stopped it in
October.
He reinstated it last month after some churchgoers
complained.
Now, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group
established
to protect religious freedom in the military, plans to ask a federal
court to ban the practice.
"Fowler had the chance to do something
great and instead he did something of monumental cowardice," Mikey
Weinstein, president of the New Mexico-based foundation, said yesterday.
Mr.
Weinstein described himself as a conservative Republican attorney who
thinks church and state should remain separate. He graduated from the
Air Force Academy in 1977 and worked for H. Ross Perot and President
Ronald Reagan, he said. His father graduated from the Naval Academy. [Annapolis
Capital]
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