Comments Re: Air Force Academy

Mr. Farrell:

I found your recently published comments regarding the oath at the Air Force Academy to be very disturbing. This country was founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic and is absolutely “One nation, under God”. If you do not wish to live in a nation supporting the freedom and liberty the USA offers, I would suggest you relocate to a country more in accordance with your beliefs. God bless and educate your spirit.

Sincerely,
(name withheld)

Dear (name withheld),

I’m not sure where any comments of mine were published. It would be interesting to know and be able to put them in context, since I’ve only communicated on this subject with people in response to what have most often been scurrilous attacks. Most of these attacks appear to be attempts by people who subscribe to a certain religious belief and feel impelled to launch ugly, bitterly defensive personal assaults on Mr. Weinstein and/or the MRFF out of a misunderstanding of what is at issue. Some of them, of course, are simply profane, hate-filled screeds from deeply ignorant and fearful people who want to believe that the MRFF hates God or is somehow trying to take something away from them. Many of these messages, interestingly, eventually devolve into a political attack on what the authors wrongly assume are the political positions of the MRFF and its members/supporters.

Having said that, I’m sorry to hear that you found what I wrote to be disturbing.

You’re quite wrong, by the way, about the founding of our country if you are asserting that because of what you presume to be the belief systems of the founders that ours is a Christian country. I know many want to cling to that idea. While it is true that the predominant religious choice of the people in the U.S. is to identify with one of the many sects or branches of Christianity, the founders were quite clear that ours was to be a free country, one in which people of all beliefs were to be honored and treated with the same level of respect and dignity as whoever happened to be in the majority. For that reason they established a principle of the separation of church and state, meaning that no one representing the government could or should attempt to propagate one belief system over another.

It is, therefore, the mission of the MRFF to protect the rights of belief or non-belief of all members of the U.S. military, and that is what has apparently caused to current kerfuffle.

You are welcome to your belief that ours is “One nation, under God.” That’s your choice and you have every right to it. I trust, however, you’re aware that the “under God” phrase was only inserted into the pledge of allegiance in the 1950s when the Red Scare was asserting that Godless Communists were threatening to take over the world. But for you to take the next step and suggest I should “relocate to a country more in accordance with (my) beliefs” because of what you assume and assert by implication are my unacceptable beliefs, is to arrogate to yourself a level of rectitude that would be laughable if it were not so heartbreakingly narrow minded.

I’m quite happy living in a nation that supports the rights of all, thank you, and I find myself reminded, when receiving messages from people like you and your ilk, of how important it is for us to be constantly aware of the danger to those rights presented by those who would attempt to corrupt them through the tyrannical power of a self-proclaimed majority.

Mike Farrell