Christmas Child

Mickey, Your recent victory in stopping the Air Force from delivering Christmas Shoeboxes assembled by Samaritans Purse to the third world children is utterly amazing. How you can put your personal agenda ahead of all the joy and happiness that these toys bring is beyond human expression. Selfish, egotistical, arrogant bigoted are a few to start with. The few of you behind this movement is completely out of step with Americans. It is all in your misguided and misunderstood interpretation of separation of state and religion – which, by the way, is not in the Constitution. Why don’t you focus on something worthwhile like fighting to legalize more people that now illegally cross our borders, or getting involved in the childhood and homes of the underprivileged that stunt the education and development of the poor neighborhoods. You call your organization freedom of religion, it should be freedom from religion. If you do not like it, then don’t join in. But don’t deny those children the happiest day of their lives. You, Mickey, are an atheist in your actions. Do you really think the God or Abraham and Isaac would smile on your action????? Why are you frightened by goodness and generosity?

(name withheld)

Dear (name withheld),

Mikey has read and asked me to respond to your email.

I’ll begin with the complete factual inaccuracy of your opening remark. Based on the significant number of emails we have received regarding this issue, I would have hoped that a medical doctor would have taken more care with the actual facts of this situation.

MRFF has done nothing to stop OCC at the USAFA. Any statement to the contrary is both ignorant of actual facts and based on a wild assumption. Absolutely no one at the USAFA is being prohibited from participating in the OCC. USAFA even has an internal (meaning tax payer funded) element that can encourage participation in this or similar activities. You may have even heard of this organization that exists within all branches of the US military, it’s known as the Chaplain Corps.
MRFF’s Founder and President Mikey Weinstein stated as much:
Thursday, November 3, 2011
UPDATE: AFA backs away from toy drive that sparked flap
Weinstein said he’d be fine if the academy was backing a secular toy drive, or if the religious charity was promoted by chaplains rather than cadet leaders. But having leaders apparently backing the worldwide evangelism aims of Operation Christmas Child is inappropriate, he said.
http://www.gazette.com/articles/religious-127840-academy-christmas.html?pic=1
Was this statement:
a) Not clear;
b) Not included in whatever source you relied on to spur you to write to MRFF; or
c) Not able to fight it’s way past your preconceptions of MRFF’s actual goals?

This position on the USAFA handling of participation in OCC which I believe was clearly and precisely stated by MRFF was quickly followed by the USAFA agreeing with MRFF 100% in a press release:
Friday, November 4, 2011
Academy responds to cadet community project — Community project will continue, led by Academy Chaplains
http://www.usafa.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123278819

MRFF’s goal is, and has always been, to uphold the military’s command structure constitutional imperative to be totally neutral on religious affairs. In fact, this imperative is of such significance as to require a very recent command directive from the US Air Force Chief of Staff:
September 1, 2011
Schwartz: Don’t endorse religious programs
Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz sent a service wide memo Sept. 1 cautioning leaders at all levels to balance the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom and the prohibition on government intrusion.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/09/air-force-schwartz-warns-commanders-on-religious-programs-091611/
Was this command directive:
a) Not clear;
b) Over 2-months old and difficult to recall;
c) Applicable to all US Air Force elements outside of the USAFA; or
d) Not able to effectively cut through an existing, and un-constitutional, command structure religious bias?

Assumptions and accusations based on factual ignorance reveal pre-conceptions and nothing else. This may create a cheap anger driven adrenaline thrill, but accomplishes nothing. As a Christian volunteer with MRFF, I find the easy willingness of many to bear false witness against Mikey or MRFF to be quite troubling.

Your insinuation that there is no constitutional separation of church of state is based on either word games, an inability to effectively comprehend compound constitution mandates, or both. The Constitutional Separation of Church and State is simply a conceptual summary of the clear/concise/direct constitutional language of Art. VI & Amend. I.
Article VI – …but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Amendment I- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…
Do you attack the conceptual construct because you can’t attack the clear/concise/on-point language and constitutional imperative upon which it is based? Is this some form of ‘GOTCHA’ word game instead? If this is the case, let’s play this one:
I will bet money against long odds that there is no place on your Birth Certificate that indicates you are a Human Being.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1482943/Sample-Birth-Certificate
However, being that you have emailed MRFF with your accusations and assuming that you are neither a computer generated spam or a alternative life form, I would look at your birth certificate and surmise that you are not just probably a Human Being…but that you are definitely a Human Being…without the words ‘HUMAN BEING’ ever appearing in the document that certified your birth. I would never accuse you of not being human simply because it was not clearly stated as such on your birth certificate. That would be intellectually lazy in addition to not being factual.

To be clear, MRFF doesn’t want to “Grinch” some toys out of the hands of children and, in fact, has engaged in several toy drives itself. Rather, through its assertions to the academy and other military commands, MRFF is trying to look out for children by assuring the most powerful military in the world doesn’t promote or disparage any religion, which, as history has shown us, can lead to horrific consequences for those, including children, who don’t belong to the “preferred” religion.

Your consideration of this information is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Andy Kasehagen