Thank you MRFF!
From: (Military chaplain’s name withheld)
Date: March 24, 2023 at 10:44:29 AM MDT
To: Mikey Weinstein <[email protected]>
Subject: Thank you MRFF!
Good afternoon Mr. Weinstein.
Please keep my name private. I didn’t want another day to go by without saying Thank you!! I’m a gay military chaplain facing some incredible hardships at the hands of conservative chaplains. They don’t want me here because I’m gay/married/pastor from the most conservative parts of the American Church. I juxtapose the very system that they protect because I used to be one of them, a conservative evangelical pastor. I’m facing brutal accusations, credentials revoked (though still very active- just not in the military), extreme isolation, family and financial hardship, extra duty. I’ve been forbidden to see my husband overseas. I haven’t even been charged with anything because there is no crime. I had hired a great attorney but still felt that I needed support. When my endorser mentioned you, I called late on a Saturday evening. Much to my surprise, you picked up the phone. I’ve felt very alone and scared in this process but knowing that your team and you are advocating on my behalf has helped me wake up with a clear and focused head. It’s a lonely place to be progressive, gay, and in this chaplain corp. Knowing that you are there and walking beside me has helped me see things better, perhaps even a light at the end of this tunnel. Moreover, you heard my story and read through the lines of how the military has been treating me. You have only just begun working on this and I feel the atmosphere changing. I’m a little bit more hopeful than I have for a while. Please keep fighting the good fight and causing the good kind of trouble. No one else is. You and your work is much needed and appreciated. I need you and I appreciate you.
Blessings to you,
a queer military chaplain.
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Dear Letter Writer,
I am a 63 year old woman, whose only connection to the US military is that for the first 11 1/2 years out of university, I was an engineer working on flight simulators, my employer was a military contractor, and I had lots of encounters with end users. Although they weren’t all that younger than me, I began to think of them as “my kids”. Those kids have probably all retired, but still. I have had family and the family of friends serve, and my experiences with those folks have convinced me that service members, especially those that don’t fit into the religious boxes of the 1950s, deserve all the help they can get. And so I am an MRFF supporter.
As a chaplain, you are the ultimate supporter of service members, wherever they are in terms of their mental health and such. My heart goes out to you, you are undoubtedly a mensch, a term I acquired from Jewish friends (I’m Catholic/Christian turned atheist, myself). I applaud your choice of vocation, and I truly hope that most of the service members who need your help can ignore the irrelevancy of your personal life. It isn’t that I don’t celebrate LGBTQ service members, but honestly, why the heck should anyone care who you go home to at night??? I’ve been having this fight, off and on, in Silicon Valley almost since I started in 1981. I am straight, cis, married. I honestly don’t get how my orientation/marital status matters. I don’t get how yours does, either.
I don’t believe in deities, but I believe in blessings, having been the recipient of many. May you be incredibly blessed.
Good words Karen. Thank you for sharing!