WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SIGN ON THE BASE IN HAWAII? (with MRFF responses)

Published On: September 27, 2015|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|1 Comment|

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Are you people so scared of God you do not want his word passed along.

(name withheld)


 

Dear (name withheld),

No, we’re not scared of your god, or any for that matter.  What is wrong with the sign is easy to answer though.  It promotes a religious message.
Imagine a Satanist commander ordering a comparable sign that simply invoked Satan’s blessings and guidance for all military members, their families, and the civilians which work with them.  How would you respond to such a sign?  If you answer this question directly you will be the first from this wave of hate mail to do so.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Blake A. Page
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
Special Assistant to the President
Director of US Army Affairs


Seems as though you have jumped off the deep end with one easy question.  First and foremost we are a country founded on the principles of God.  Can you deny that?

 

Why do you hate God?

 

What wave of hate mail?  I ask a very simple question and you go to defending yourself.  That tells me you do not believe in your cause.

(name withheld)


 

Dear (name withheld),

I vehemently contest that we are a country founded on God.  Our laws are based on pluralism, not religious supremacy.

I don’t hate God any more than I hate Vishnu or Buddha.  I just don’t believe it exists. 

Now can you answer the question?

Blake Page


 

Vehemently do whatever you like.  As I said we are a country founded on God’s principles.  Read the constitution where it mentions where our rights originated.  You can spew your sissy ass bullshit and suck cock all you want, but The reason you will never see a Satanist Commander is simple.  Devil worshipers are junkies and you cannot get into the military if you are a junkie.  You can however join the bullshit organization you belong to.

(name withheld)


 

There are two ways to approach this conversation from my end.  The long way, and the short way.  I prefer not to invest too much time with anyone who can’t have a civil discourse, so the short way works.

Here’s a link:  http://www.alternet.org/story/155985/5_reasons_america_is_not_–_and_has_never_been_–_a_christian_nation

You’re 100% wrong on the foundation of our country.  Facts are facts, regardless of your belief structure.

As far as Satanists being junkies…well you’re obviously steadfast in your ignorance and don’t understand the point I was making.  There are people of various religions in the military, and not all of them involve your god.  Bury your head in the sand if you must, but non Christians serve just as honorably as Christians.

Blake Page


Dear (name withheld),
No one here is “so scared of God you do not want his word passed along.”
We are not an atheist organization nor are we anti-Christian. Mikey is Jewish (and prays to the same Father we do 3 times a day) and 75% of the Board, Advisory Board, volunteers and supporters of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) are Christians. We outnumber Mikey. In fact, 96% of our 41,600+ soldier clients are Christians. So, we fight for the rights of Christians more than any other religion.
 
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) does NOT act on its own but at the request of our soldiers’ and their complaints of the blatant disregard and trampling of the Constitution and the Military Code of Justice; blurring the lines between the separation of church and state. Every complaint is vetted by Mikey who was a JAG lawyer at the Air Force Academy for 10 years; worked in the West Wing under Ronald Reagan; and held positions in private practice. 
Our military is secular – which includes those of other faiths or no belief system – and it must not advance one religion over another according to the Constitution, Supreme Court rulings and the Unified Code of Military Justice. Religious activities must be in the hands of the Chaplains on Chapel grounds, not in the hands of the Commander on base-wide grounds.
As defenders of the Constitution we fight for the separation of church and state.
 
“…but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” (Article I, III)
 
This means that from the President to Congress to the military – no one’s job is based on their religion.
 
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (Establishment Clause), or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (Free Exercise Clause).”(First Amendment)
 
The Establishment Clause means that you cannot favor one religion over another even though it is in the majority. This clause respects the RIGHTS of all religions. Our military is SECULAR and there are people of other faiths that don the uniform that love this country. 
 
The Free Exercise Clause means that our soldiers are free to exercise any religion they want or no religion at all but cannot elevate one God above others.
 
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled unanimously in an 8-0 decision and set the guidelines for what is prohibited by the Lemon Test:
 
Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it:
1. Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose,
2. Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and
3. Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion.
The sign violates all 3.
 
Parker v. Levy: 
“This Court has long recognized that the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society… While the members of the military are not excluded from the protection granted by the First Amendment, the different character of the military community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections. … The fundamental necessity for obedience, and the consequent necessity for imposition of discipline, may render permissible within the military that which would be constitutionally impermissible outside it… Speech [to include religious speech] that is protected in the civil population may nonetheless undermine the effectiveness of response to command.  If it does, it is constitutionally unprotected.” (Emphasis added) Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 1974
 
Our military consists of those of other beliefs and by putting up this sign– which gives the impression to the world that we have a Christian military – demeans the morale of those of other faiths. This sign – written speech – is “constitutionally unprotected.”
 
Our military is a government entity and must remain secular. Any person that wants to don the uniform of a branch of our military is free to do so with the express admonition from the Constitution to not exalt one religion over another.
 
Here are a few of the people involved with the MRFF that you think are afraid of God:
Board Member – Major William E. Barker
Board Member – Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV
Advisory Board Member – Lawrence Wilkerson – Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff (2002-05).
 
Advisory Board Members (Past and present military personnel):
Edie Disler– PhD, Lt Col (Ret), is a 25 year veteran of the Air Force who served as an ICBM crewmember, an Executive Support Officer to the Secretary of Defense, a conventional arms control inspector, a speechwriter, and USAFA faculty professor.
 
Robert S. Dotson–Retired brigadier general.
 
Robert T. Herres– A Naval Academy graduate with a 36 year career in the United States Air Force, he also served a three-year assignment as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first to hold that position. (December 1, 1932 – July 24, 2008)
 
Kristen Leslie – An Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Yale Divinity School and consultant to the United States Air Force Academy on religious matters.
 
Eagle Man, Ed McGaa – Is an enrolled Oglala Sioux tribal member, OST 15287. After serving in Korea, he earned an undergraduate degree from St. Johns University, MN. He then later rejoined the Marine Corps to become a fighter pilot.
 
Rev. MeLinda Morton – An ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She is a former Chaplain in the United States Air Force, most recently serving at the United States Air Force Academy.
 
George Reed – A faculty member in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego. Before joining the faculty in 2007 he served for 27 years as a military police officer including six as the Director of Command and Leadership Studies at the U.S. Army War College.
 
AA “Tony” Verrengia  – A retired Air Force Brigadier General, He was a Master Navigator that served in air transport operations positions for many years.
 
John Whiteside – He is one of only a few military aviators to possess both Senior Command Air Force wings and aircraft carrier qualified Naval Aviator wings, in addition to having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in combat during Operation Desert Storm.
 
Lawrence Wilkerson – Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. His last position in government was as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff (2002-05).
 
We rely on these honorable and distinguished military personnel for their expertise concerning religion in the military. I’m sure they’ll be happy to know what you think of them.
 
We are not asking to take God out of the Marines, but to obey the laws set down by our country and the Uniform Code of Military Justice by moving the sign to chapel grounds where it belongs.
 
Pastor Joan
MRFF Advisory Board Member

Dear Joan,
#1 America is an English speaking Nation – Learn it
#2 – America is a Christian nation founded with God’s principles in mind.  Hence – Money – In God we Trust
Who were the founding Fathers speaking of when they mention “their creator”  Hence In God we Trust
#3 Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

You fight your evil fight to remove God from America and I will fight to keep him alive and well.  Yes…he is a living God.  Ask the Jew why did his people kill Jesus.  The answer is so the priest could maintain the power.  But the only way though the Father is through Jesus.
(name withheld)

Dear (name withheld),
#1 – I speak English
#2 – America is NOT founded as a Christian nation with God’s principles in mind. Most of our founding fathers were Deists.
#3 – The Declaration of Independence is an historical document but not the law of the land.
Most of our founding fathers were deists.
Deism:
“The belief that God has created the universe (thus the word Creator) but remains apart from itand permits his creation to administer itself through natural laws.Deism thus rejects the supernatural aspects of religion, such as belief in revelation in the Bible, and stresses the importance of ethical conduct.”
The history of Christianity trying to force its beliefs in America fills volumes of books and is too long to get into here. Suffice it to say that it was an abysmal failure in making the Colonies a Theocracy. One sect of Christianity was murdering another sect. The Salem Witch Trials, caused by mass hysteria and lies, was the death knell of any attempt to force Christianity on the nation.
“More than once it has been said, too, that the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered.” George Lincoln Burr (January 30, 1857 – 1938) Professor of History and Librarian at Cornell University
Our Constitution was written explicitly to base America on secular rule free from religious tyranny.
The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, ratified June 21, 1788 and went into effect on March 4, 1789.
As for the separation of Church and State not existing in the Constitution, the words may not exist (neither do the words Jesus or Christianity), but the idea is there and those words were used by some of the founding fathers.
Let’s go back 218 years, shall we?
The Treaty of Tripoli was signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796.It was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, receiving ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797, and signed by Adams, taking effect as the law of the land on June 10, 1797;a mere 8 yearssince our Constitution went into effect. If what was written was wrong in anyway, there would have been uproar. But, it passed unanimously and confirmed that America was not founded on Christianity.

Treaty of Tripoli:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Mohammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

.The Constitution reflects our founder’s views of a secular government, protecting the freedom of any belief or unbelief. The historian, Robert Middlekauff, observed, “the idea that the Constitution expressed a moral view seems absurd. There were no genuine evangelicals in the Convention, and there were no heated declarations of Christian piety.”
As far as your belief that the Constitution is based on Christianity this is what our Founding Fathers said:

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
Thomas Jefferson: in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” 1787-1788
If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.
George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion” 

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.
 James Madison; Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical
Endowments
 
“God has appointed two kinds of government in the world, which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government.”
Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.

What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.
James Madison 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
The motto for America was E Pluribus Unum and was adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782. Never codified by law, E Pluribus Unum was considered the de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when Congress passed H.J. Resolution 396 making In God We Trust as our official motto.
In God We Trust was first put on paper money in 1957.
Funny how it took 174 to 175 years to figure this out.
The Declaration of Independence was against King George III and the government sponsored Anglican Church. It has nothing to do with the laws of our land currently in effect.
We are following in the footsteps of our Founding Fathers belief in the necessity of the separation of church and state, so don’t place the blame on Mikey and his organization for your perceived persecution and the false narrative of the Christian moral collapse of our civilization.
Most importantly for all Christians is that we obey those put in leadership over us.
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. (Romans 13:1-2)
To sum it all up, if we don’t follow the teachings of the Bible, then our actions are evil and we will bring condemnation and judgment upon ourselves.
I will obey our governing authorities (particularly the laws) and the teachings of Jesus. Being a part of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation founded by Mikey Weinstein gives me the opportunity to do just that.
You jump to conclusions when you state that we are trying to eradicate God from America. We are NOT!
It was God the Father’s plan for Jesus to die, so blame Him.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
And don’t you worry about Mikey. God has had a plan in place for the Jewish people for thousands of years.
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.
For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” Romans 11:25-29
You go right ahead and continue your fight against the false persecution of Christianity by us and we will continue to fight for the rights of all soldiers under the Constitution and Supreme Court rules.
Joan Slish

I do not care to have a civil discourse with a non-believer headed to hell unless I thought you would listen.  You have heard the word.  Use it or lose it.

(name withheld)


 

If your can’t have a civil discourse with people your disagree with, you’ve already lost the fight.

Blake Page


 

Good try.
(name withheld)

Dear (name withheld),
Get over yourself.
“You’re entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
You have no facts to back up your opinion, whereas I do. I have the Constitution and the Supreme Court rulings while you are clinging to the past which has nothing to do with today.
Go ahead and fight against imaginary persecution that resides solely in your head.
“From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.” Psalm 73:7
Better still; stop listening to conspiracy theories that are obviously blocking any critical thinking you may have possessed in the past.
Joan Slish

 In boot camp I only recall Catholics and Protestants as a choice on Sunday morning.  I suspect 90% of the military does not support your cause. And you know what they say about your 10%.  Post this where you wish.  I can handle your bullshit.
(name withheld)

I have answered your original email and must move on. It’s been fun!
Joan Slish

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One Comment

  1. Seth Young September 28, 2015 at 2:42 pm

    Alright. Cool. I get it. I understand what you’re doing. Good job on your part, and I can support you in most things.

    But really? Come on man; this is just an outcry of detritus. Yeah, we get it. America gets it. Yeah, the smart ones of us question religion and its….’doctrine’.

    But come on. You’re stepping in a hornet’s nest on purpose. Just let it be.

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