Seeking answers

Dear Mr. Weinstein,

I read the article on Fox News with regard to you blocking Maj. General Boykin from speaking at a Prayer Breakfast.  If the comments as cited are true, you said some pretty vile comments yourself.

I am seeking understanding, you wish to segregate people for their hurt feelings, yet you have no problem if these same people are subject to hate and ill will, wishing to kill there by the ones who wish to destroy the Constitution.  Are they hurt that someone would wish them dead and take away their inalienable rights?

Are not the laws of the Constitution not based upon christian principles?  Even the framers of the constitution saw that the principles outlined in scripture had merit.

I do not know M.General Boykin (and I am sure you’ve never talked directly to the man).  However, he is allowed life liberty and happiness like everyone.  The Constitution never separated itself from Faith but to state that the establishment of one recognized faith and allow all to practice “freely” without government intervention.

Are you referencing the Federalist papers when arguing the separation of church and state?  If so, that is not in the constitution.  Had the Framers of the Constitution wanted that, they would have inserted it in.  The Federalist papers were one opinion, much like a dissenting opinion given by a Justice on the US Supreme Court.  The Justice is allowed to give their opinion but a choice has to be made and followed and that will be by the Majority.

I am a disciple of Christ, I am also retired from the military.  I never gave up my faith to belong to the military.  As a matter of fact, they accepted me by the character and qualities that made me the man that I am.  “Everything that I am!”  that includes my faith!

If we are to take your position and remarks as found on your website “the Constitution….the religious scripture”, you violate the only tenet of your faith which is the separation of church and state.  Even so, the constitution recognized a “Creator” by the very virtue of its existence.

So, please help me understand your position better, because it lacks credibility and appears to want to destroy the U.S. Constitution and those guiding principles you aptly argue is the only one true religion.

Respectfully,

(name withheld)

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Dear (name withheld),

Mikey is busy so has asked me to respond to your message. I’ll try.

I don’t know what Mikey may have been quoted as saying, but given Fox News’ record I have my doubts about comments being “vile.”

How is it, exactly, that you conclude that Mikey wishes “to segregate people for their hurt feelings”? I don’t understand what that means. And then you go on to say:

“yet you have no problem if these same people are subject to hate and ill will, wishing to kill there by the ones who wish to destroy the Constitution.  Are they hurt that someone would wish them dead and take away their inalienable rights?”

I’m sorry, but the above quotation is incomprehensible. Care to clarify?

No, the laws of the Constitution are not based on Christian principles. While some of the framers of the constitution may have, as you suggest, seen merit in scriptural principles, others did not. They were of widely divergent belief systems.

I don’t know if Mikey knows Mr. Boykin personally, but even if he doesn’t his widely broadcast views are well known. But it’s fair to say we agree that he is allowed life, liberty and happiness, like everyone. He’s just not allowed to preach bigotry at a government-sponsored event.

Your next statement:

“The Constitution never separated itself from Faith but to state that the establishment of one recognized faith and allow all to practice “freely” without government intervention.”

is most confusing. The Constitution never allied itself with faith. And the Constitution certainly never established nor did it approve “the establishment of one recognized faith.”

As to your meandering around about the Federalist papers and what the “Framers of the Constitution would have” done if they truly meant to separate church and state, note the following –

“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual.

State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved … the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”
~ Founding Father Thomas Jefferson: in a speech to the Virginia Baptists, 1808

I don’t think we need to go any further, Mr. Harry, as I don’t believe you’re actually interested in “understanding (our) position better.” I think it’s clear you’re one of those people who want to argue that the separation of church and state, one of the fundamental premises of this country’s protections clause, has no place in our law. Fortunately, however, it is recognized in law and remains one of our touchstones.

Per your not giving up your religious belief when you joined the military, no one is either asked to or told to do that, as you well know. This issue at hand is our seeing to it that Mr. Boykin not be invited to speak at a military-produced event because it would carry with it an implicit endorsement of his outrageous homophobic, Islamophobic and Christian-supremacist zealotry.

Mike Farrell

(MRFF Board of Advisors)