Wreaths
From: (name withheld)
Subject: Wreaths
Date: December 14, 2021 at 12:38:14 PM MST
Look here, buddy! Why don’t you just keep your pie hole shut! This country was built on the Christian faith!
Wreaths Across America are neutral in politics and religion! people like you just want to make a big stink over nothing!!!
You are the typical SOB that wants to start shit! Plus you were just a JAG officer in the Air Force and didn’t do shit but push a skill craft pen behind a desk.
So why don’t you just GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!!
(name withheld)
Response from MRFF Advisory Board Member James Currie
Dear (name withheld):
I have been asked by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to respond to your recent email, though why we ever bother to answer absurd collections of insults and vulgarities is beyond me. Nevertheless, I’ll try to be reasonable in my response.
First of all, a Christmas wreath is not neutral. For hundreds of years such wreaths have been associated with the Advent season, a time of year when Christian believers celebrate the birth of their Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, you can believe in Christ or not, but it is not your privilege to force those beliefs on anyone else. As a United States Senator once famously said, “You are entitled to your own set of beliefs, but not your own set of facts.” So, we have disposed of your statement that Christmas wreaths are neutral.
Second, when the U.S. Government allows any group to place religious symbols on veterans’ graves, it is violating the First Amendment to the Constitution. I won’t try to explain this amendment to you, but will turn to someone much more authoritative than I. Here’s what President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptist congregation of Danbury, Conn., in January 1802:
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people [that is, the First Amendment] which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Please note Jefferson’s use of the phrase “wall of separation between church and state.” That is the essence of the First Amendment’s prohibition on U.S. Government mingling in religion. It simply should not be doing such. And, (name withheld), you are totally wrong about our great country having been “built on the Christian faith.” The men who wrote our Constitution and then amended it just a few years later by adding the Bill of Rights, most assuredly did not build our government on religion. Otherwise we might be like Iran or Pakistan today. Maybe you wish our country had been based on Christianity, but the historical truth is that it was not.
I will not address your gratuitous insult addressed to Mr. Weinstein, except to say that fewer than one percent of Americans ever serve in a military uniform. All who serve deserve respect, which you do not seem to want to acknowledge.
Col. James T. Currie, USA (Ret.)
Board of Advisors, Military religious Freedom Foundation
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Col. Currie,
I’m afraid your description equating the 1st Amendment to the “separation of Church and State” is completely inaccurate. Firstly, the 1st Amendment places limits on what the State may do, not the citizens.
Secondly, a civilian nonprofit placing temporary wreaths at the base of gravestones certainly doesn’t equal a violation of the restrictions laid out in the 1st Amendment.
Finally, the tired quotation of Thomas Jefferson’s “wall” is not part of the Constitution, but was a statement that can be understood in the context that he was speaking (specifically, his audience).
It appears Michael Griffin was educated by the David Barton’s revisionist history (for fun, profit, and turning the USA into a theocracy). How else to explain their boneheaded idea that the First Amendment in no way protects the rights of citizens who are not Christian.
Their morales are atrophied as a result of all that misinformation. How else to explain their belief of forcing families to accept religious icons not of their own faith is (checks notes) not a violation of the Constitution which is supposed to rule/protect us all. On government owned property no less!
Here’s a First Amendment summary: your freedom of religion rights end where mine begin. Unless you really want little Baphomet statues for all the graves of our veterans (if one faith is allowed to express their faith then what is done for one must include all).
I’m good. I like Baphomet. They’re not as pushy as some other deities.
Your call Michael.