MRFF Demand Quickly Ends Use of Christian Nationalist Imagery at Ft. Riley & Ft. Huachuca

April 26, 2024

MRFF President/Founder Mikey Weinstein and MRFF have a long history of responding to the blatantly unconstitutional activities surrounding the naked hijacking of the public National Day of Prayer (NDP) by the private NDP Task Force.  While the NDP is ostensibly a national ‘call-to-prayer’ and publicly ‘sold’ as an inclusive non-sectarian call to national prayer, the NDP Task Force’s clear sectarian Christian Nationalist mission for the NDP is provided on their website (https://www.nationaldayofprayer.org/about):

It exists to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, to create appropriate materials, and to mobilize the Christian community to intercede for America’s leaders and its families. The Task Force represents a Judeo-Christian expression of the national observance, based on our understanding that this country was birthed in prayer and in reverence for the God of the Bible.

In her DailyKos article on April 25, 2024, MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda succinctly described the unconstitutional history of the NDP:

It’s that time of year again – time for the National Day of Prayer – that day set aside each year for the government to completely unconstitutionally tell everybody to pray.  This national day of flipping-the-bird-at-the-Constitution takes place annually on the first Thursday in May, which this year is next Thursday, May 2.

Chris Rodda provided significant additional details of MRFF’s history with the sordid Christian Nationalist activities surrounding the NDP as well:

The National Day of Prayer (NDP) Task Force is not in any way an official organization connected to the government, but does its best to present itself as such, giving many the impression that this private fundamentalist, dominionist, Christian nationalist organization’s theme and graphics are officially sanctioned by the government.

During the twenty-five year reign of Focus on the Family’s Shirley Dobson as Chair of the NDP Task Force from 1991 to 2016 and for a few years after that, the NDP Task Force’s main event was a big 4-hour-long Christian nationalist extravaganza in Washington, D.C., but during the COVID pandemic the event became a video broadcast and has continued as a video broadcast since then.  During its years as a live, in-person event in Washington, D.C., the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) regularly went after the military’s participation in the NDP Task Force’s Washington, D.C. event, which included military color guards, military bands, and high-ranking military speakers in uniform, all in clear violation of a plethora of military regulations. Most notably, in 2010 MRFF, acting on behalf of a group of Muslim Pentagon personnel, successfully got that year’s NDP Task Force honorary chairman Franklin Graham disinvited from speaking at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer event because of his history of virulent Islamophobic remarks. 

National Day of Prayer events also take place on most military bases, and while the day is supposed to be for members of all faiths, and absolutely should be in our pluralistic military, many military base events use the NDP Task Force’s exclusively Christian, dominionist, Christian nationalist theme, and promote their events using the NDP Task Force’s Christian nationalistic graphics (complete with the NDP Task Force’s logo, which constitutes an additional violation of the DoD’s prohibition on endorsing non-federal entities).

With this history in mind, the 2024 NDP Task Force produced logo for the 5/2/2024 event has outdone itself (…as pointed out in Chris Rodda’s article) with its militaristic Christian nationalist graphic, which is comprised of a hand holding up a sword with a Christian cross on it and “sacred heart” on its hilt, with a shield behind it covered with Christian symbology, and an American flag as the sky in the background. The NDP Task Force   

In response to this disgustingly IN YOUR FACE Christian Nationalistic imagery being pumped out by the NDP Task Force, MRFF stepped in to assist a total of 185 active duty United States Army soldiers and Army civilians stationed at Fort Huachuca (29 clients) and at Fort Riley (156 clients) due to the unconstitutional civil rights violations generated by the official promotions at these installations’ of the “National Day of Prayer” event taking place on the morning of Thursday, May 2, 2024.  While the unconstitutional use of this imagery by other governmental entities (civilian & military) is likely rampant, MRFF has currently only received client complaints from these two installations.

On April 25, 2024, Mikey emailed the Commanding Generals at Fort Riley, Kansas (Major General John Meyer III)  and Fort Huachuca, Arizona (Major General Richard Appelhans) on behalf of MRFF’s 185 clients demanding an immediate end to the utilization the NDP Task Force imagery reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian nationalism paradigm.  Specifically MRFF demanded the image be quickly removed from any websites or other social media and any and all other communication mediums used at the respective installations. 

Within 3 hours of MRFF’s email, the image was removed from the Ft. Riley website and Ft. Huachuca removed the image the following day!

MRFF commends these leaders at Ft. Riley and Ft. Huachuca in quickly responding to the concerns of our clients made up of overwhelmingly Christian faith troops as well as Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Native American, Old Norse and Non-faith tradition (including Atheism, Agnosticism, Humanism, and Secularism) troops. The overwhelming number of Christian clients deserve special recognition in recognizing the truly OUTRAGEOUS nature of the repulsive, bigoted image being used to promote a supposedly non-secular event at these military installations.

One of our many clients at Ft. Riley emailed their observations regarding some reactions to MRFF’s quick victory there:

From: (Active Duty U.S. Army Officer’e E-mail Address Withheld)
Subject: Thank you to the MRFF from FORT RILEY, Kansa
Date: April 29, 2024 at 8:26:25 AM MDT
To: Mikey Weinstein [email protected]

To Mr. Weinstein and to the MRFF fighters:

My wife and I just wanted to very much thank all of you for getting that too obvious Christian Crusader imagery for this Thursday’s Nat’l Day of Prayer (NDP) breakfast taken down so quickly. I am an active duty officer in the U.S. Army and we are also practicing Catholics. Every year we face the same dilemma as this NDP event has become a true litmus test for our Army leaders to figure out which of us supports their extremist Christian agenda and who doesn’t.  It just gets worse each year and especially this year with the election so close and the really bad tensions in our country. We experience it in the military as well and it just divides soldier against soldier.

Our family just wanted to thank all of you at the MRFF for moving so quickly and efficiently to force our many (unfortunately!) Fort Riley Christian extremists to pull that NDP image off of our official website. 

I can tell you that there was much gnashing of teeth and major anger about your quick and sudden success here. You jacked up the senior command staff to adhere to your removal demands within just a very few hours of receiving  it. In fact as a personal witness to their reaction some of our leaders here in the 1st Infantry Division (1 ID) were actually “throwing things” in anger. 

Good on you all @ the MRFF!  Thank you for all that you at the MRFF do to help our soldiers and fight those who would force their divisive view of their Christian faith upon those of us who are beneath them in our chain of command. Especially other Christians like our family. My wife and I would like to say “bless you all” for your outstanding service to our troopers.

(U.S. Army Officer’s name, rank, MOS, unit and installation all withheld)