wrong path

After reading your impressive bio, it is extremely difficult to understand your motives and destructive actions.  Thank you for your service.  I hope someday you’ll realize that you have taken the wrong path.  Your current path has people who are doing good things being viewed and accused of doing something wrong because they disagree with your extremely narrow viewpoint.

(name withheld)

Dear (name withheld),

…excuse me, but what specifically are you talking about?

Mikey Weinstein

Thanks for your quick response.  I was referring to the Christmas toy drive for disadvantaged children.  Did the good hearted people goof.  Yes.  Did they harm anyone in their attempt to do good.  No.  If you want a real “victory” for our Constitution, get after the real violators – the Executive and Legislative branch of our government.  Keep pushing but please use your time and efforts to push the right targets, the very people who are hurting individual rights and disagreeing with our founding fathers.  Thanks for your time and good luck.

(name withheld)

Dear (name withheld),

Mikey is being inundated with hate mail and asked me to respond to your latest comment.

The story concerning the shoeboxes – based on information given to them from Christians – is full of lies, omissions and distortions.

We DID NOT stop anyone who wanted to pack the shoeboxes and those who said or hinted that we did are liars.

Mikey is Jewish (and prays to the same Father we do 3 times a day) and 80% of the Board, Advisory Board, volunteers and supporters (250 in total) of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) are Christians. In fact, 96% of our 42, 711 soldier clients are Christians. We fight for the rights of Christians more than any other religion.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) does NOT act on its own but at the request of our soldiers’ and their complaints of the blatant disregard and trampling of the Constitution and the Military Code of Justice; blurring the lines between the separation of church and state. Every complaint is vetted by Mikey who was a JAG lawyer at the Air Force Academy for 10 years; worked in the West Wing under Ronald Reagan; and held positions in private practice.

The media and Christians lied by saying no laws were broken when the Air Force broke their own rules, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, Reynolds vs. U.S., the Lemon Test and Parker v. Levy (all of which they failed to mention).

September 1, 2011, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, issued a memorandum for all USAF commanders that stated plainly:

“Although commanders are responsible for these programs, they must refrain from appearing to officially endorse religion generally or any particular religion. Therefore, I expect chaplains, not commanders, to notify Airmen of Chaplain Corps programs.”

https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/docs/gen_schwartz_letter_religion_neutralilty.pdf
In Air Force Instruction 1-1, USAF top brass laid down the letter of the law in regards to religious proselytizing:

“2.12. Balance of Free Exercise of Religion and Establishment Clause. Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for their own free exercise of religion, including individual expressions of religious beliefs, and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. They must ensure their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed to be officially endorsing or disapproving of, or extending preferential treatment for any faith, belief, or absence of belief.” (Emphasis added)”

“Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.” Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808) ME 16:320.

This is his second known use of the term “wall of separation,” here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter.

This wording of the original was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause.

Jefferson’s concept of “separation of church and state” first became a part of Establishment Clause jurisprudence in Reynolds v. U.S., 98 U.S. 145 (1878). In that case, the court examined the history of religious liberty in the US, determining that while the constitution guarantees religious freedom, “The word ‘religion’ is not defined in the Constitution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted.” The court found that the leaders in advocating and formulating the constitutional guarantee of religious liberty were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Quoting the “separation” paragraph from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, the court concluded that, “coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured.

In 1878 “separation of church and state” became part of the Establishment Clause BY LAW.

The Supreme Court heard the Lemon v. Kurtzman case in 1971 and ruled in favor of the Establishment Clause.

Subsequent to this decision, the Supreme Court has applied a three-pronged test to determine whether government action comports with the Establishment Clause, known as the Lemon Test.

Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it:
1. Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose
2. Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion
3. Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion

Parker v. Levy:

“This Court has long recognized that the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society… While the members of the military are not excluded from the protection granted by the First Amendment, the different character of the military community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections. … The fundamental necessity for obedience, and the consequent necessity for imposition of discipline, may render permissible within the military that which would be constitutionally impermissible outside it… Speech [to include religious speech] that is protected in the civil population may nonetheless undermine the effectiveness of response to command.  If it does, it is constitutionally unprotected.” (Emphasis added) Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 1974

The laws stated above did not come from the Executive or Legislative branches of our government. They came from the Air Force and the Supreme Court.

We fought the total disregard for the laws and regulations stated above and that’s what we won.

If the military would obey the laws and regulations they know exist concerning religious neutrality, they wouldn’t have to feel the full force of Mikey and MRFF.

It would be even better if Christians would stop being so deceitful.

Mikey is NOT the Grinch that stole Christmas as the media is portraying him. The kids are still getting their shoeboxes because Operation Christmas Child is now in the hands of the chaplain(s) on base, where it always belonged, and is moving forward. We have no problem with this.

I hope this clears up any misinformation you have heard.

Pastor Joan

MRFF Advisory Board Member

Thank you for the information.  I found it well worth the time and effort.

(name withheld)

You’re very welcome, (name withheld).

Pastor Joan

(MRFF Board of Advisors)

Thank you for your response.  Isn’t this a great country where we can look at the same issue and draw a different viewpoint.  Pastor Joan send me a very informative response.  Allow me to assure you that my mind, eyes and heart are open.  Again, I thank you for taking the time to share your viewpoint with me.

(name withheld)

Mike Farrell

Dear (name withheld),

I truly appreciate your response.  Thanks again for all your efforts.  Good luck with your cause. Please tell Mr Weinstein that you and Pastor Joan have shared information and clarified any misconception that I may have had.

(name withheld)