Appalled
Accessibility Notice
This post was created on the previous version of the MRFF website, and may not be fully accessible to users of assistive technology. If you need help accessing this content, please reach out via email.Dear Mikey Weinstein,
As an American citizen I’m appalled to learn of your anti-Christian bigotry and bullying tactics in an attempt to silence chaplains and American soldiers who hold to their beliefs. I have to ask, have you never heard of the First Amendment? Are you not aware that we have freedom of religion, not just freedom of worship? My grandfather died in WWII fighting bigotry and tyranny such as you are promoting. And now the same military that he fought with is pushing the same type of oppression he fought against.
It is an insult that your organization is called The Military Religious Freedom Foundation. You should rename it The Military Anti-Christian Foundation, because based on your actions and words, that is what your true agenda appears to be.
Know this, I and millions of others will not sit still for this. I will contact my representatives and ask for your immediate removal unless an apology is publicly issued and you stop these political bullying tactics.
Respectfully,
(name withheld)
Whoa, (name withheld)!
I will contact my representatives and ask for your immediate removal…
“Immediate removal” from where?
Contrary to the lies you’ve read and swallowed whole, Mikey DOES NOT work for Obama nor is he a consultant to the Pentagon. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is a private organization founded by Mikey Weinstein. Neither you nor anybody else can have him “removed.”
You can contact your representative all you want but you have to let me know how long he laughed at you for even suggesting this. I wouldn’t make this phone call if I were you want to spare yourself from looking like a conspiracy believing fool.
You, sir, have been duped into believing the lies, omissions and distortions about us.
The people involved with the MRFF are made up of many religions and those of no faith who work harmoniously together because we believe strongly in defending the religious rights of all of our soldiers guaranteed to them under the Constitution, Supreme Court rulings and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/about/our-mission/
We are neither anti-God nor anti-Christian. Mikey is Jewish and prays 3 times a day to the same Father we do. A full 75% or more of the Board, Advisory Board and volunteers with the MRFF – which totals 240 people worldwide – are Christian. Out of our 42,000+ military clients 96% of them are Christian. If anything, we represent Christians more than any other religion but you won’t hear about it because that wouldn’t make a Christian angry against us.
We also rely on our honorable and distinguished military personnel on the Board and Advisory Board for their expertise regarding religion in the military.
https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/about/foundation-voices/
We DO NOT act on our own but on the complaints from soldiers who contact us because their chain of command has failed them.
The majority of Christians abide by the Constitution, Supreme Court rulings and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but there is a small sect of Christianity called Evangelical/Fundamental/Dominionists (not all Evangelicals are Dominionists but all Dominionists are Evangelicals – I am an Evangelical) that have managed over the past three decades to hijack our military. It is this sect we fight against.
US Army chaplain MAJ James Linzey, who, in a 1999 video, described mainstream Protestant churches as “demonic, dastardly creatures from the pit of hell “that should be “stomped out.”
This is the thinking of the military of today throughout the chain of command all the way to the Pentagon. They believe that the only “true” Christian is one that is “born-again” and has a “spiritual birthday.” All mainline Christians (see above) and those Christians born before 1952 when Bill Bright made up the 4 Spiritual Laws are destined to hell.
This thinking is destroying our military from the inside and it is being perpetrated from the Pentagon down to the lowest soldier in a leadership position. It has taken “morale, good order, discipline and unit cohesion” and shredded it beyond recognition – all in the name of religion.
If you belong to a mainline Christian church then, we are fighting for you, too.
The religion of the majority in our military does not rule over other religions or those of no religious preference, under the Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment (Establishment Clause) of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise (Free Exercise Clause) thereof . . . “(1st Amendment)
The Establishment Clause comes before the Free Exercise Clause for a reason; the Free Exercise Clause is subservient to the Establishment Clause – not the other way around as some Christians would like it to be.
The Supreme Court heard the Lemon v. Kurtzman case in 1971 and ruled in favor of the Establishment Clause.
Subsequent to this decision, the Supreme Court has applied a three-pronged test to determine whether government action comports with the Establishment Clause, known as the “Lemon Test”
- Any law or policy must have been adopted with a neutral or non-religious purpose.
- The principle or primary effect of any law or policy must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion.
- The statute or policy must not result in an “excessive entanglement” of government with religion.
If any government entity’s actions fit into one of these three, then it is a violation of the Establishment Clause.
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
If you believe that America was founded on Christianity, then you do not believe in our Constitution but the Constitution of the Confederate States. Perhaps it is you that is un-American.
Our Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Confederate Constitution:
We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity — invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God — do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
“The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by Founding Father John Adams
“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.”
Founding Father 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.”
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson: in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
Founding Father 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.”
Founding Father 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.”
Founding Father James Madison; Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical
Endowments
“No religious doctrine shall be established by law.”
Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, Annals of Congress 1:729-731
“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.”
Founding Father Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773
“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
“Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”
Founding Father John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88
Does Mikey understand the First Amendment? Mikey is a 1977 Honor Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and served for more than 10 years with the Judge Advocate General (“JAG”) Corps. He spent over three years working in, and for, the West Wing of the Reagan Administration as legal counsel in the White House.
https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/about/michael-l-mikey-weinstein/
No one here hates God but we must hold our military to the laws and regulations it must follow.
https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/about/our-mission/
Even God says we have to:
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
A soldier swears an oath to defend the Constitution…not the Bible…not a religion. That happens in the Middle East.
I’ll be waiting to hear the response your Representative gave you.
Pastor Joan
MRFF Advisory Board Member
Mr. Weinstein, who is quite busy protecting the freedom of religion of the women and men in our military, has asked me to respond to your message on his behalf, which I’m happy to do.
It surprises me that a person with your apparent ability to use correct spelling and proper grammar, unlike most of the detractors we hear from, can so misunderstand the work of Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF.
What is appalling, sir, is your apparent incomprehension. What you have chosen to perceive as “anti-Christian bigotry and bullying tactics” is instead a full-throated denunciation of the utterly inappropriate abuse of their position and authority by chaplains of a certain fundamentalist sect of Christians who insist on openly condemning a specific type of sexuality, namely homosexuality and lesbianism, in spite of the fact that people who fall into those categories are not only welcome in the military but are also legally allowed to marry, per the U.S. Supreme Court.
Neither Mr. Weinstein nor anyone else at the MRFF is opposed to any religious belief or the right of military chaplains to do their job. However, when one perceives the doing of that job to require the fiery condemnation of what is at the essence of a human person – an essence now understood to be both natural for those individuals and protected in the eyes of the law and military authority, it cannot be tolerated.
Had you chosen to look a bit deeper into the question instead of firing off a thoughtless condemnatory blast, you might have noted that Mr. Weinstein has also said that any chaplain who continues to embrace homophobia has every right to do so but must either remain silent about it, alter the position or leave the service.
What is clear in reading your message is that you do not understand that the hierarchical nature of the military requires, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, certain restrictions on the Constitutional right of freedom of speech for members of the military, specifically with regard to religious proselytizing.
Nothing your grandfather died fighting to protect is threatened by Mr. Weinstein or the MRFF, sir. On the contrary, our organization is founded on the premise of defending those very freedoms. It only seems to become hard to understand by those who tend to want to believe their own ox is somehow being gored.
I wish you a more enlightened understanding.
Mike Farrell
(MRFF Board of Advisors)
Dear (name withheld),
You’re welcome. While we have our differences, it’s at least easier to respond to someone who is capable of communicating relatively clearly.
As to the number and tenor of the responses you’ve received, all I know is that I was asked to do so. Perhaps others were as well, or maybe some chose to do so on their own. Please understand that the constant attacks on our organization and its work tend to inspire strong support from those of us who believe deeply in its mission.
Myopia, if you’ll pardon the pun, is in the eye of the beholder. The MRFF was formed to support the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of the separation of church and state. The perspective of the “fiery Southern Baptist minister” you posit certainly has its place in the religious world and we have no problem with such a belief system as long as, given the particular constraints of military culture and regulation, it is presented in the proper time, place and manner.
The problem we find ourselves faced with more often than not has less to do with geography or passion than it does with what I will call zealotry. Everyone, in our view, has the right to her or his own belief system, and that includes non-belief. The fact that a person of a certain faith is committed to a view that those who do not accept his or her system is damned to hell unless the non-believer repents and “is saved” often manifests itself in ways that intrude on the belief (or non-belief) system of the ‘offending’ individual. The sort of proselytization often employed in these cases, be it shaming, peer or other pressure, threatening or career-damaging actions, shunning, sneering, etc., has no place in the military or any other part of our government, which is an avowedly secular institution.
In the matter at hand, it is not the right to hold ones own belief that is being attacked by those whose faith insists they are sinful and must be condemned, it is their very essence, it is their right to be themselves.
Here, you want to suggest such condemnation does no harm to unit cohesion, one of the primary concerns in any military unit. In so suggesting, you are being willfully ignorant. If you’ll think back a few years to the time when black soldiers were deemed unfit to serve with white men wearing the same uniform, and their deeply religious leaders upheld and supported that view, I would hope you’ll find it easier to recognize the damage done by such a narrow perspective.
Is it really necessary to cite the name, rank and serial number of the victim of such bigotry, or can we agree that time and experience have taught us to value the worth of human beings independent of one’s race, creed, color or sexual orientation? I think, if you’re willing to do so, you’ll find it instructive to replace the word ‘homosexual’ with ‘black man’ in your litany of awfuls.
I can’t, as I read your list of discomforts at the idea of sharing space with people whose sexual orientation is different from yours, help but read the fear not deeply hidden there. I’m sorry it is so troubling to you that it is the case today, but the U.S. Government, the U.S. Military and the laws of most of our states now recognize that discrimination against gays, lesbians and before too long transgender people is against the law.
Your repeated skirmishes are, frankly, tiring. We are not trying to “destroy” anyone’s First Amendment right. We are recognizing, as did the U.S. Supreme Court, that the nature of the military requires the constraint of some of those rights in order to protect the rights of those who must obey the orders of their superiors. As regards “shield(ing)” soldiers “from religious rhetoric they don’t agree with,” you miss the point of freedom of religion entirely. Your attempt to disguise hateful assaults as “a little verbal static” coupled with your attempt to relate it to dealing with abuse from the enemy is childish at best, demagoguery at worst.
No, I won’t forgive your snide jab, which was neither pragmatic nor bold, but simply insulting. Your assertion that we want “to turn our military into a bunch of pansies” exposes you completely and makes it rather hard for me, as an ex-Marine, to continue pretending you deserve a thoughtful response.
So let me draw this to a close. You and anyone else who wants to hold a view of “natural marriage” that pleases you are welcome to it. Hang onto your preference for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” as well. You’re welcome, as I said at the outset, to your beliefs and have every right to comb, pet and enjoy them as our country moves on without your approval.
In the meantime, much as it may gall you and the rapidly declining population of those who think as you do, the laws of the U.S. and the regulations of the U.S. military accept gay and lesbian people as your equals. As such, they are free to be who they are and enjoy the same rights as everyone else. If that is hard for you to accept, tough. If it is hard for certain military chaplains who subscribe to a belief system that will not accept that reality, they have a choice to make. They can keep their views on the subject to themselves, they can join their colleagues who have accepted the understanding of these people’s value and their rights, or they can find somewhere else to preach their faith.
Your hypothesis about who we are and the pattern we are following would be laughable if it wasn’t so sadly indicative of the fears that cloud your thinking.
Mike Farrell
(MRFF Board of Advisors)
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