Washington Post

Advocate for religious tolerance
finds controversy at UNM

Although one caller said he was with Campus Crusade for Christ, that group denies any involvment

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

By GWYNETH DOLAND


Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and self-described “leader of the national movement to restore the obliterated wall separating church and state” in the military, said he had received three phone calls about the appearance.

UNM Peace Studies instructor Desi Brown said in an e-mail: “Mikey has already received several threats from the public and university groups for speaking to my class and one group has tried to get Pres. Schmidley to cancel his lecture in my class so I have had to get a couple security guards for it.”

“I speak at colleges and universities all over the country and we get this all the time,” Weinstein said in a phone interview Thursday morning. He said he had received about three phone calls about the UNM event.

“One call said, ‘If you come to UNM tomorrow the wolves will be waiting for you.’” Weinstein said the comment was probably a play on the school’s mascot, a wolf, but that he was concerned enough to report it to the school.

Another call featured the voice of a child of four or five, Weinstein said.

“The child was chanting into the phone, ‘Now we lay you in your grave, there was no way you could be saved, you hate our lord Jesus and he can tell, which is why you will burn in hell,” he described. Adding that in the background he could hear an adult’s voice coaching the child.

According to a biography he provided to The Independent, Weinstein is a United States Air Force Academy graduate of Jewish faith. He is a registered Republican and worked in the White House under President Ronald Reagan, and for former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. But his advocacy for the separation of church and state has earned him the ire of many.

The third call referenced a campus religious organization.

The caller said, “This is Campus Crusade [for Christ] and if you show up tomorrow we’re going to picket and protest and we’ll go to the president and ask him to stop the event,” Weinstein related.

But Weinstein was suspicious of the caller because he misstated the name of the school, calling it “New Mexico University.” When asked, the caller could not name the president of the school. Weinstein said he suspected the caller might not have been a member of the local group.

The director for Campus Crusade for Christ at UNM told The Independent Thursday morning that his group had no plans to protest Weinstein’s appearance.

“I am surprised to hear any of this,” Jason Dencklau said in an e-mail. “Prior to your e-mail, I had no knowledge that Mr. Weinstein was even speaking at UNM. …No one has been authorized on our behalf to say anything regarding Mr. Weinstein. To my knowledge, no one involved with Campus Crusade for Christ in New Mexico, officially or unofficially has contacted him in any way, threatening or not.”

Dencklau also said he had spoken to his organization’s national public relations officer, Tony Arnold.

“To his knowledge, no one has said anything or been authorized to say anything regarding Mr. Weinstein. We are disappointed to hear any of this, but in no way have we threatened Mr. Weinstein.”


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