Multitiudes of reasons. The new second lieutenant gets up in the ready room on Friday morning and announces that he is going to the ball game Saturday night and asks if anyone wants to come along. How many will respond? The skipper gets up and makes the same announcement. Same question. Completely different response, correct? Often command endorsement is perceived as more than command endorsement, pure and simple. So with all the history of fundamentialist religion problems at AFA we have the Supt endorsing everyone to go hear a fundamentialist speaker. It would have been oh so simple had it been simply handed over to the chapel to plan, advertise, and run. Or did the Chaplains not want to have anything to do with it? Remember that a certain Navy XO's movie nights were not mandatory either and we all know how the news media let that temper their opinions.
endoftheline, thanks for your comment. Exactly. Just substitute 'stupid' for 'moral courage'.
Your analogy is simply wrong. Atheism is in itself a belief. No different at all than Catholicism. To say you'll not allow any formal recognition of religion, and therefor aren't promoting a particular belief, actually does promote a belief. Instead, you are endorsing and promoting atheism which is in fact a belief. So basically, the plaintiffs, and yourself, are saying that the academy shouldn't endorse or promote certain beliefs; e.g. catholicism, buddhist, muslim, etc... but they should endorse and promote other beliefs such as atheism, evolution, etc... Can't have it both ways. Banning all of one, is promoting the other. One belief is the opposite of the other. But an atheist won't recognize that. They don't recognize that they in fact do have beliefs. And that belief is just as significant as a person's belief in a supreme being or power.
And unlike your navy analogy, and what you want people to believe in common behavior, the academy superintendent isn't holding it against cadets or staff if they don't go to church or go to a luncheon. I think you're way too old school. I understand politics quite well. I also understand integrity. Apparently it's different in the navy.
If the academy had a "Sports Luncheon" one time a year, and only recognized the football team, that would be wrong. If they had a luncheon, or multiple ones that recognized the different athletes and sports, that would be fine. If the academy had a special luncheon that only recognized the aeronautics department and employees, that would be wrong. If they have a recognition luncheon that recognizes employees through all departments, that is perfectly fine. If they had a luncheon recognizing only Catholics, that would be wrong. But to have a luncheon that recognizes all the religions, that is perfectly fine. And if you can't understand that, then that's you inability. If the plaintiffs truly had a complaint, the complaint SHOULD HAVE BEEN: "We're upset, because OUR BELIEFS aren't being included in this luncheon." That is the ONLY LEVEL of grief these individuals can have. Anything else is without merit. It's their denial that their beliefs are exactly the same significance as a religious belief.