Some of us wondered last year what the Obama administration would do once it no longer had to face the voters. One thing it is doing is to allow “Mikey” Weinstein to set policy in the military regarding the treatment of Christians. Who is “Mikey” Weinstein? A former Air Force officer and attorney he founded a group called Military Religious Freedom Foundation that exists to battle the influence of Christians in the military and alleged discrimination against non-Christians. Weinstein has made a career out of bashing Christians in the military and using the threat of litigation to bludgeon those who oppose him. Get a taste of the tactics of the man here. To demonstrate how over the top this joker is, this is from a post he wrote at Huffington Post on April 13:
In any sane administration this obvious anti-Christian bigot would not have anything to do with setting official policy, but we are not governed by a sane administration:
Pentagon officials met with Weinstein and his group were to discuss a policy called “Air Force Culture, Air Force Standards,” published on Aug. 7, 2012.
Section 2.11 requires “government neutrality regarding religion.”
“Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for an individual’s free exercise of religion or other personal beliefs and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion,” the regulation states.
Military leaders were admonished not to use their position to “promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion.”
Weinstein said it’s time for the Air Force to enforce the regulation – with zeal.
“If a member of the military is proselytizing in a manner that violates the law, well then of course they can be prosecuted,” he said. “We would love to see hundreds of prosecutions to stop this outrage of fundamentalist religious persecution.”
He compared the act of proselytizing to rape.
“It is a version of being spiritually raped and you are being spiritually raped by fundamentalist Christian religious predators,” he told Fox News.
He said there is a time and a place for those in uniform to share their faith – but he took issues with fundamentalism that he says is causing widespread problems in the military.
“When those people are in uniform and they believe there is no time, place or manner in which they can be restricted from proselytizing, they are creating tyranny, oppression, degradation, humiliation and horrible, horrible pain upon members of the military,” he said.
Perkins said the military regulations have “Weinstein’s fingerprints all over it.”
“It threatens to treat service members caught witnessing as enemies of the state,” he said, referring to a Washington Post article highlighting Weinstein’s meeting with Pentagon officials. “Non-compliance, the Pentagon suggests, even from ordained chaplains could result in court-martialing on a case-by-case basis.”
The Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that Christian evangelism is against regulations.
“Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense, LCDR Nate Christensen said in a written statement. He declined to say if any chaplains or service members had been prosecuted for such an offense.
“Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome in specific cases,” he said.
Ron Crews, the executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, warns that the Air Force policy would “significantly impact the religious liberties of Air Force personnel.”
“Saying that a service member cannot speak of his faith is like telling a service member he cannot talk about his spouse or children,” Crews said. “I do not think the Air Force wants to ban personnel from protected religious speech, and I certainly hope that it is willing to listen to the numerous individuals and groups who protect military religious liberty without demonizing service members.”
In an interview with the Washington Post, Weinstein called proselytizing a “national security threat.”
“And what the Pentagon needs to understand is that it is sedition and treason,” he told the newspaper. “It should be punished.”
Perkins said it was troubling the Obama Administration would place so much trust in someone like Weinstein.
“Unfortunately, it appears our military is on a forced march away from the very freedoms they are sworn to protect,” he said. “This language from Weinstein that Christians who share their faith or offer comfort to others from their faith in Jesus Christ is “sedition and treason” is a treasonous statement in and of itself.”
Go here to read the rest at Breitbart. An axiom of our time is that those who speak the loudest of tolerance will inevitably be the most intolerant among us. If these people get their way, the only “freedom” Christians will have is to shut up and do what they are told.
I get it that this President hates people of faith. I never bought the “closet Muslim” allegation. All evidence pointed to Candidate Obama being a man of no faith in an higher power. It does not surprise me that the freedom to do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn ‘t awaken Congress to its constitutional duties, causes the President and his lackeys to behave in awful ways.
What I don’t get is the military going like sheep led to the slaughter.
Isn’t it still true that the non-coms set the tone? Navy Chiefs were this untouchable core of professionals who seemed to thwart every stupid act of their superiors and keep the ship on an even keel.
Is this still true bit the loudmouths get the press? I sure hope so. I’d hate to think even they had been bludgeoned by a Leftish bunch of God-hating thugs.
“..a national security threat.” Honestly?
This Weinstein fellow is nuts. When an actual national security threat is taking place it will be found to have originated from skunks that hate God fearing men. Say Weinstein.
St. George, pray for us.
Every person in the military is an adult. There are no minor un-informed children in the military. If an adult person wishes to opt out of a conversation about Faith, he is free to do so. He is also free to consider and parse what he hears and sees and learns. He has this ability of his rational soul. An adult person can reason. If the person is in the military, it is reasonable to expect that he is capable of rational thought and can choose his way among the many different choices he faces. Religion is man’s response to the gift of Faith from God. God and Faith may not be removed from creation or the military. Our Constitution says so.
As far as soul rape, this can only happen to a minor, uniformed un-emancipated child. The charge of treason is for those who repudiate our founding principles.
Obama cannot afford to have God around, God gives us FREEDOM.
@David Spaulding: “thug” was the face of Weinstein. The brown shirts are coming.
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Another perfect “setup” by our Emperor who will ignore this idiot allowing him to spew his venom randomly and never be brought to task for having appointed him.
He is a master at having others do his dirty work under the cover of media inattention to the obvious damage to our society or the desired divisiveness among the people. He loves chaos, confusion, and turmoil which will require new laws and/or regulations that can call on government to further intrude into our lives.
but Bill Sr. wait….
Please don’t forget to include the throngs of twits that bow down to this “joker” and gave him another four years to plague our nation with his viruses. After all he did have help.
2016 seems so distant.
@philip: What good will 2016 do? Seriously, no Republican right now looks like they could win. Even if they did, they’ve just spent the past couple of weeks showing how “tough” they are by loudly insisting that we trash our whole judicial system AND torture a man without even the scant justification that he might know something useful. Even if they don’t persecute Christians, they’re setting up a thugocracy that will surely be turned against us.
Torture who?
I assume he’s referring to the Boston Bomber. I have not heard a single conservative advocate torturing the man, although I’m sure you can find one on twitter here or there. But facts rarely get in the way of a good rant.
Howard.
Excuse me sir, what torture-what man are you referring to? And by the time 2016 comes around my poor guess is that the hole oblunder dug U.S. into will be filling in with past supporters of o-care-less healthplan.
Just a guess.
Lawyer question for those of you in that particular venue:
1) Given that the 1st Amendment contains not only the “Establishment Clause” preventing a state-declared religion, but also the “Free Exercise Clause” preventing the government from stopping religious expression…do not these same guarantees apply to our servicemen? I know that there are some limits, such as free speech prohibitions against the Commander in Chief, but how would this work out for a chaplain? This reminds me of this particular issue, where individual Marines (not the fort) built a memorial. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/12/marines-fight-to-protect-crosses-at-camp-pendleton-as-atheist-groups-seek/
2) Could it be argued that atheism/”freedom from religion”-types, who argue that religion has no business being in the same room as anything with respect to the government are, in fact, promoting a belief system? Further, when they do so and get governmental cooperation in their efforts, that this results in a state-established religion of atheism? I call atheism a religion because atheism cannot be viewed as the “absence of belief” in the same way as you can say that “darkness is the absence of light”. Atheism is as much an act of faith because it claims to be a rational, evidence-based system and yet also claims a universal declaration that is not based on any empirical evidence. A more concise, though less elegant, way of saying that might be “any system which requires the logical proof of a negative and has no concrete evidence is an act of faith.”
I’ve spoken with a personal friend who’s a lawyer as well as one who’s affiliated with Alliance Defending Freedom, and the latter suggested that an Establishment case is different for the burden of legal fees than a Free Exercise case…I’ve never known how to follow up on that or how to see what kind of legal scholarship needs to be undertaken to turn this tide.
“but also the “Free Exercise Clause” preventing the government from stopping religious expression…do not these same guarantees apply to our servicemen?”
Yes.
“I know that there are some limits, such as free speech prohibitions against the Commander in Chief, but how would this work out for a chaplain?”
A very murky area since the courts have usually been reluctant to get involved with the management of the military. I can easily see however a conflict between free exercise and the authority of the Executive over military chaplains getting to the Supreme Court in the next few years.
“are, in fact, promoting a belief system?”
Most certainly, especially since the case law tends to take a rather expansive view of what constitutes a religion.
“Atheism is as much an act of faith because it claims to be a rational, evidence-based system and yet also claims a universal declaration that is not based on any empirical evidence. A more concise, though less elegant, way of saying that might be “any system which requires the logical proof of a negative and has no concrete evidence is an act of faith.”
Well put. Atheism is as much a religion as any theistic religion. Atheists have been inconsistant in this area. On the internet most atheists, usually the ones filled with an evangelical zeal that would put most street preachers to shame, loudly proclaiming that atheism is not a religion. However, in court atheists often have claimed that atheism is a religion and therefore entitled to First Amendment protections.
I am a Catholic in the military and I have to say that my religion has always been respected. The repeal of DADT had basically no practical effect on me, for instance. There are some worries about the chaplains, tho’.
That being said, where did they get they get this guy!? And what are they getting at, appointing an atheist to a religious freedom thing? It makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. I think that this guy could use to have a couple of chats with a therapist, or something. He seems quite unhinged.
They need to be VERY clear about what constitutes “proselytizing.” Is it a charge that can be levelled against anyone who has a conversation involving religion, or does it involve distributing pamphlets? People need to realize that when people are asking questions about religion, it’s the duty of a Christian with even a modicum of piety to follow up on them. I’d also like to know what a “fundamentalist Christian” is. Is it a Christian more orthodox than the President? Does having a southern accent make you more likely to be one? (I am beginning to suspect that a lot of this has to do with regionalist bigotry, and less than we think with religion per se. That’s the sense I get from some atheists I know, at any rate. Incidentally, I don’t have much of a southern accent.)
I honestly don’t think that the gov’t can really force service members to ascribe to to the present administration’s ideology, precisely because that ideology is inimical to the principles of military service, and to some extent to the existence of government, period. Consider that quote from Anthony Kennedy about everyone having an absolute right to define reality however they like. Obvious, if anyone REALLY believed that, that person would have to consider laws immoral, since they impose a certain view of reality on someone. Also, consider the prevailing ideologies of our foreign enemies, Iran and North Korea in particular. Is it really politically advisable to alienate Christians when our chief enemies are Muslim or atheist officially? NO. If the people currently in power really have the guts to alienate Christian service members in this situation, I might have to grudgingly admire them for sticking so firmly to their false principles.
Alas, so true. How did Catholics vote in the last election? The last 10 presidential elections?
Alas, that is also true. How did so many Catholics fail to see that in 2008?
Many of the bretheren are weak. Who can strengthen them?
Thank you for your service, John H. Graney.
My son, John, is also serving.
St. John 15:18-25: “The world hated me (Jesus) . . . before it hated you.”
St. Matthew 5:10: “Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Here is the Defense Department’s response to the conservative outcries in the Internet on Weinstein’s meeting with the Air Force Judge Advocate General:
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=119931
My question is this: why even meet with a person like Weinstein if he has no credence, for in so meeting with him he is given credence? This is the same sort of thing that the US NRC does with anti-nuclear propagandist like Annie Gundersen, RFK Jr., and others: meet with them, then issue a statement proclaiming how the activists don’t speak for the Commission, and follow that up by tightening regulations so much that the technology becomes uneconomic. Watch and see now how the Air Force will tighten up in like manner religious expression by Evangelical and orthodox Catholic Christians while Muslims and sodomy-supporting Episcopalians get a free pass. This is an old tactic that the left has successfully used to stymie the use of nuclear energy in this country, and they are using it now against the far more important issue of freedom of Christian religious expression.