August 31, 2002
Catholic Air Force Captain Sues Military Service Over Accommodation
by Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS) A U.S. Air Force captain who once served on missile
combat crews filed suit Thursday (Aug. 29)against the Air Force,
claiming the military service punished him for requesting accommodation
of his religious beliefs.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is defending Capt. Ryan Berry, saying he was suspended from certain duties and later permanently decertified because he had asked for accommodation of his belief that as a married Catholic man he should avoid situations where he had to spend 24-48 hours in a small underground bunker with a woman.
"Capt. Berry is married and believes that he is required by his faith to avoid situations in which he may develop inappropriate intimacy
-- even platonic -- with a woman who is not his wife," according to the
suit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
"Capt. Berry was therefore concerned about the intimacy that would naturally develop with a female officer given the work conditions in the
underground bunker."
The suit, which also names the Department of Defense as a defendant,
alleges the Air Force terminated the religious accommodation after
previously agreeing to grant it to him. Subsequently, it alleges, the military service suspended him from missile alert duties and permanently
decertified him from the Personnel Reliability Program, effectively
demoting him.
The suit also claims Air Force officials made false claims about him
that affected his performance report and quoted him out of context in a 1999 press release about his desire for religious accommodation. In that
press release, the Air Force chief of chaplains said the accommodation
was ended because it was creating morale problems among those involved
in mission crews.
"This suit is not about whether Ryan Berry is entitled to an
accommodation," said Christine Lockhart, a lawyer with the
Washington-based Becket Fund who is handling the case. "It is about
whether he should be punished just for asking."
The Air Force had no immediate comment on the case, said Maj. Lindsey Borg, a public affairs specialist with the military service.
The suit asks the court to declare that the Air Force's actions were
unconstitutional and to order the service to remove false and negative
statements about Berry, who is now on active reserve status, from its
records.
