CV NEWS FEED // “Pride” events continue to be held on Air Force bases, and Airmen in the heavily-conservative state of Nebraska fear job repercussions if their dissenting opinions are revealed.
As reported by CatholicVote in May, the United States Air Force has been organizing and funding “Pride” events for several years. Even in a conservative base, senior leadership continues to support and organize these events.
The Airmen of Offutt Air Force base, 10 miles South of Omaha, in Eastern Nebraska, are the most recent to fall victim to events celebrating “Pride” ideology. While attendance for these events is not mandated, Airmen who communicated with CatholicVote feel the base and their service is being disgraced by their occurrence.
As one of the servicemen requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation explained, “a ‘Pride Parade’ at my Air Force Base’s parade ground is an utter smack in the face,” he writes. “This base’s parade ground has hosted ceremonial parades for only high-level events since the B-29s were first built and flown here during WWII.”
“Are ‘Pride’ celebrations now not only accepted, promoted, and funded by our military, but are actually considered equally as important as celebrations of our country’s heroes?” he asked.
CatholicVote contacted the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Program Director Matthew Silpasornprasit at the base, who coordinated the event, but claimed not to have “the jurisdiction” to answer any questions regarding “Pride” events on the Offutt base.
David Hopper, Public Affairs officer at the base, confirmed to CatholicVote that along with celebrations of events such as Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and the 4th of July, these ‘Pride’ celebrations are just “…events trying to celebrate the culture throughout, just trying to get a good representation of America as a whole.”
The representative also stated that dissenting members of the base need not fear repercussions for their opinions: “If you don’t want to attend you don’t have to,” he states. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”
Despite the apparently voluntary nature of participation, members of the Offutt base are not so sure. As one Airman put it, “I’m a single income supporting a family, so I fear reprisal and the loss of my job. That aside, I fear being silent is tacit consent as well.”
The Public Affairs representative also told CatholicVote that, “the whole reason why we have events like this is to raise morale….”
In reality, dissenters’ morale has plummeted under the weight of witnessing their Air Force degraded, the fear of job repercussions for speaking out, and of being simultaneously reluctant to remain silent in acquiescence.
An Airman at Offutt base insisted to CatholicVote that the news about the Pride events must be spread, and that people must know “…what’s going on in the public sphere, supported by taxpayer dollars, at a military base in a relatively conservative part of the country… I cannot believe what my Air Force is doing and other citizens need to know.”
The post Nebraska Air Force Base ‘Pride’ events spark outrage and fear among Airmen appeared first on CatholicVote org.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Rachel Quackenbush
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://catholicvote.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.