By Joseph DeCaro
WASHINGTON, USA (BosNewsLife Columns)– While the Obama administration carefully avoids any religious connection between Islamic jihad and the Boston bombings, the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation bluntly told Pentagon officials that Christian troops who proselytize are guilty of sedition and treason and should be punished.
“Someone needs to be punished for this,” said Mikey Weinstein. “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.”
Weinstein also said his Foundation has thousands of Protestant members who are only opposed to Christian fundamentalists.
“As soon as we find a fundamentalist Muslim, atheist, Jewish person or anybody else, we will be happy to fight them, but so far they have been few and far between,” he said.
Surprisingly, Weinstein seems unaware that there are many fundamentalist Muslims who are willing to fight us all the way to the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon.
After Weinstein went to the Pentagon to discuss the state of religion in the military, Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, wondered why U.S. officers were taking advice about religious freedom from one of the most rabid atheists in America.
“That’s like consulting with China on how to improve human rights,” he said.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, an FRC executive VP, told Fox News that he sees a pattern of attacks on Christianity within the military.
“Mickey Weinstein has a very visceral hated of Christianity and those who are Christians,” he said. “He’d like to see it eliminated from the military entirely.”
However, that seems unlikely since military chaplains are an exception to the so called separation of church and state found in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; the Department of Defense must support the free exercise of religion by its service personnel and DoD employees because the Constitution proscribes Congress from enacting any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, according to The American Center for Law and Justice.
This is especially true when U.S. service personnel must deploy to parts of the world where the facilities to practice their respective faiths are not only unavailable, but non-existent, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which prohibits all public worship save Islam.
( Joseph DeCaro is a regular contributor to BosNewsLife and its partner website Worthy News. THE BRAINWAVE series are regular opinionated columns distributed by BosNewsLife Columns on key issues impacting the Church and/or compassionate professionals. They do not necessarily reflect the views of online news agency BosNewsLife or its parent company).
““As soon as we find a fundamentalist Muslim, atheist, Jewish person or anybody else, we will be happy to fight them, but so far they have been few and far between,” he said.
Surprisingly, Weinstein seems unaware that there are many fundamentalist Muslims who are willing to fight us all the way to the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon.”
^ This is ridiculous. What the hell does one have to do with the other? How does Weinstein saying he’ll fight against any sort of religious proselytizing *within* the U.S. military (Christian or otherwise) indicate that he’s unaware of the fact that Islamic terrorists exist? I’m trying to think of one good reason why you brought up Boston here, but none come to mind.
Also, on what basis are you making the claim that Weinstein is an “atheist?” He’s Jewish, so far as I know.