In July, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty hosted its annual “Torch Bearer Award” ceremony honoring this year’s recipient – Virginia Congressman Steve Forbes – for his strong support of religious liberty in the military. During that event, the chief of Air Force chaplains, Maj. Gen. Dondi Costin, appeared in uniform to deliver the benediction (above). An Army chaplain was on hand to deliver the invocation.

Col. Ron Crews (USA-Ret.) is executive director of the Alliance. He tells OneNewsNow that Mikey Weinstein with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation complained about the chaplains’ involvement in the ceremony.

“His organization asked for the IG [inspector general] to investigate about these chaplains appearing in uniform at our event,” he explains. “And they have subsequently asked for the Department of Defense IG to now investigate – and so Mikey is just going to make an issue [of it], quite frankly to raise funds from his donors.”

Is Crews concerned about Weinstein’s demands? “His call for us to be banned from military installations is absurd,” he responds. “We are chaplain endorsers and we visit our chaplains on military installations all the time – that’s who we are.

“Secondly, his call for Chaplain Costin, the Air Force chief of chaplains, to be investigated is also just ridiculous.”

Crews is hopeful the Department of Defense inspector general will simply ignore Weinstein’s latest demands.