Christian Cross at Austin VA “I want to reach out to personally thank you for how quickly you were able to have the giant cross at the Austin VA taken down.”

Published On: March 20, 2023|Categories: MRFF's Inbox, Top News|1 Comment|
Before and after photos of Austin VA Clinic lobby showing that cross is gone

From: (Veteran’s/MRFF Client’s name and email address withheld)
Date: March 20, 2023 at 1:42:06 PM MDT
To: Mikey Weinstein <[email protected]>
Subject: Christian Cross at Austin VA

Mikey Weinstein and the MRFF,

I want to reach out to personally thank you for how quickly you were able to have the giant cross at the Austin VA taken down. I was especially dismayed to see this huge cross displayed at a federal building that ostensibly serves ALL veterans – regardless of their faith. When I visit the VA building I am looking for medial support, not to be confronted with religious proselytizing. There was no subtlety in this display – with symbols of all branches of the military embedded into the garish cross of supposed Christianity – a clear message that only Christians are welcome. As an Air Force veteran with 16 years of active duty service, including 3 combat tours over Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan flying the mighty F-15E, I am continually disappointed to find instances in the military and other government institutions of overt preference towards the Christian faith. While it’s bad enough that the VA had this cross on display in a clearly non-religious setting, more telling is the lack of even the slightest mention or consideration of any other faith or non-faith. Shame on the Austin VA for not realizing the message being sent with this display and not acting until being approached by the MRFF.

The work of MRFF is so absolutely critical in the public defense of the basic separation of church and state. No other organization is able to respond as quickly and decisively as the MRFF! I continue to be a huge supporter of your work – keep it up!

Best,

(Name withheld)
USAF Veteran

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One Comment

  1. A.L. Hern May 23, 2023 at 3:04 pm

    To put it most simply, there are those, like that group of Republican congressmen, who believe that secular spaces — whose construction and operations are paid for with the taxes of ALL Americans, whose religious preferences are deliberately and constitutionally unknown to the government — should be employed as a government-funded mechanism for turning heathens into Christians.

    If tax monies should therefore be withheld, it should be, first and foremost, from the salaries of said members of Congress who have clearly never grown up from the kind of selfish child we all knew from our own childhoods, whose attitude was always “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.”

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