tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post5970434670922203575..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: DADT Repeal: Relax Don't Do ItDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-15880380135915147372010-03-27T19:32:09.513-07:002010-03-27T19:32:09.513-07:00BuzzFlash: Here's a quotation from your founda...BuzzFlash: Here's a quotation from your foundation: “The United States is a nation<br />rooted in respect for religious pluralism, a cherished principle that springs<br />from our democratic ideals. As the United States becomes increasingly religiously<br />diverse, respect for minority beliefs takes on even greater importance in a<br />nation’s ability to withstand assaults on our freedom launched by religious<br />totalitarians.” End of quote from your brochure. Is that the mission of the<br />Military Religious Freedom Foundation? <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: Yes. Our mission is really two-fold. It’s educate, and also<br />litigate. . . <br /><br />Some other organizations out there -– the Anti-Defamation League, the ACLU, the<br />Southern Poverty Law Center, Americans United –- they’re all good organizations. . .<br />[but i]f somebody calls the Foundation, they get me live, then, and there. . .<br />[A]t a lot of these organizations, you cannot get through. It took me a year<br />to get through to one of them. . . We move very quickly. We get to the media quickly. . .<br /><br />BuzzFlash: Just the other day you went out on short notice to meet a veteran who<br />says that he was denied Kosher food. He was then cut off from prescriptions.<br />He was told that he didn’t need them because his Orthodox faith should take<br />care of his disease. Your book focuses mostly on the Air Force Academy, but according<br />to this veteran, it’s even impacting veterans’ health care.<br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: The book focuses on the Air Force Academy because that’s where<br />we found the liver spot that turned out to be malignant for the entire body. We, at<br />that time, did not know that as we pulled the string of the sweater, the whole<br />sweater would come off. It covers the entire hierarchy of the U.S. Air Force,<br />Marine Corps, Navy, Army, and the Veterans’ Administration. <br /><br />David Miller is a very courageous veteran. We’ve been approached by many, but only<br />one so far has had the guts to come forward publically. Imagine being evangelized<br />when you’re hooked up. You’re in terrible chronic angina heart pain and with<br />kidney stones. Repeatedly you’re being evangelized by the VA chaplain. <br /><br />BuzzFlash: This was in Iowa? <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: In Iowa City at the VA Hospital, when he had told them, and<br />filled out the paperwork, and made it clear to them repeatedly, he did not want<br />them in there. At one point, he had to scream for the nurses to get the chaplain<br />out of there. Ultimately when he complains, the hospital management says,<br />you know, you just haven’t been strenuous enough in your complaints. What?<br />You’re supposed to bring Tony Soprano in? <br /><br />Well, let me tell you something. It’ll be strenuous enough now, because we’re<br />going to file a federal lawsuit. At the end of the day, they told him they were<br />not going to give him pain meds because they decided that they found five<br />new stones in his body, four on the left and one on the right. They looked<br />too small to be really causing him this pain. <br /><br />By the way, he’s a 100% disabled vet, and he’s had kidney stones for 27 years<br />that are directly attributable to his honorable service in the U.S. Navy.<br />They scarcely looked at him and said, “Well, you’re a religious Jew. We suggest<br />you go home and pray and meditate.” So I guess it’s, "take two Jewish prayers<br />and call me in the morning.". . .<br /><br />Anyone who reads this, please consider going to<br />http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org.<br />Every dollar you give us is probably worth 15,000 on the other side.<br />And there’s talk now of a second book, with the prospective title,<br />_Taking God to Court_. But our current book, _With God on Our Side,<br />One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military_ is in Border’s,<br />Barnes & Noble, Amazon. It’s certainly available there at BuzzFlash.<br />--------------------------------------------jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-446585763972496152010-03-27T19:32:09.514-07:002010-03-27T19:32:09.514-07:00BuzzFlash: They do allow for an atmosphere in whic...BuzzFlash: They do allow for an atmosphere in which anyone who is not Evangelical<br />is intimidated.<br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: The Air Force is saying: Here’s our policy. If we have a<br />religion test, of course, it does violate man’s law, which is just the Constitution,<br />which is clearly subordinated to the higher law of our recognized version of the gospel<br />of Jesus Christ. But if we determine you’re unchurched, and that’s our determination,<br />we do in fact reserve the right to evangelize you.<br /><br />BuzzFlash: . . . Your family has served for three generations. Your<br />children are following in your footsteps in terms of military careers<br />and military college training. And yet you’re saying<br />that right-wing talk-show hosts attack you as unpatriotic? <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: Yes. In fact, Rush Limbaugh, who I would say is a complete<br />coward, attacked me a couple months ago as being a pacifist, and an aider and<br />abetter to al Qaeda, which I thought was amazing. Of course, he hasn’t spent<br />one second in the military. I don’t know how many exemptions he got. And between<br />Rove and Cheney, they got eleven exemptions, so they never served one second<br />in the military, either. <br /><br />BuzzFlash: I believe Rush Limbaugh got out of serving in Vietnam by having a<br />doctor certify that he had anal cysts. <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: Exactly -- that complete and total coward. . .<br /><br />BuzzFlash: But someone like Rush Limbaugh says you’re unpatriotic because you’re<br />trying to uphold the Constitution. <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: Exactly. This is not a Christian-Jewish issue at all.<br />This is a dominionist Christian versus the Constitution issue. <br /><br />We have a social contract in our society. In America, if you’re angry at your<br />neighbor next door, you’re not allowed to pick up your fellow citizen and crush<br />their head in. We have laws that are all derived from our U.S. Constitution.<br />When you look at the Bill of Rights, which was passed in December of 1791,<br />it was not at all created for the convenience of the majority. Quite to the<br />contrary –- it was created to prevent the tyranny of the majority over the<br />minority –- an amazing social experiment in America. . .<br /><br />Average Americans, docile and supine, need to get off their<br />asses and realize that this is happening. We have<br />to take our country back, which means simply following our Constitution<br />of 200 years -- and Constitutional U.S. Supreme Court case law. <br /><br />BuzzFlash: . . . [T]here really hasn’t been a lot of mainstream coverage<br />about this. . . Why do you think the story is pretty much uncovered by the<br />mainsteam media? <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: . . . We have the illusion of democracy in America.<br />What we really have is an auction. . . [T]he dominionist Christians. . .<br />[are] raising money among their 12.6 percent of the American public. . .<br />It’s 36 to 38 million people. . .<br /><br />Anyone who’s ever been in the military knows it’s a very<br />Spartan environment – very Spartan. Many of the Constitutional rights of our sailors,<br />soldiers, marines and airmen, noble and honorable as they are, are deliberately<br />truncated and limited so that we can preserve and protect the concept of good order<br />and discipline, which is necessary to have a lethally effective military. <br /><br />Our U.S. military is technologically the most lethal organization ever created<br />by humankind. And that’s necessary so that they can protect the full panoply of<br />Constitutional rights for the rest of us. When you’re in that Draconian system,<br />up and down, there’s this command structure, and there’s this formidable specter<br />of command influence. If you’re being told by your superiors that the fastest<br />way in their eyes you can go from zero to hero is to accept their dominionist<br />Biblical world view, it’s very hard to say no. And it was George Orwell who said,<br />when you face universal defeat, speaking the truth itself can be a revolutionary<br />act. We just don’t teach our young sailors to be revolutionaries.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-37710573334899490192010-03-27T19:32:09.515-07:002010-03-27T19:32:09.515-07:00BuzzFlash: On a day-to-day basis, how does this ma...BuzzFlash: On a day-to-day basis, how does this manifest itself? <br /><br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: . . . We currently have 737 U.S. military<br />installations that the Pentagon acknowledges. It’s actually closer<br />to a thousand military installations scattered around the<br />globe -- in 132 countries. On every one of those military installations, we<br />have something called the Officers' Christian Fellowship, for the officers,<br />and for the enlisted folks, the Christian Military Fellowship. <br /><br />They have a three-part goal that they are completely unabashed about –-<br />it’s right on their website -– a goal they view as much higher than following<br />the oath they have sworn, to support, defend, protect and preserve the<br />Constitution. Their goals are, A, they want to see a spiritually transformed<br />U.S. military; B, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform; and C, empowered<br />by the Holy Spirit. . .<br /><br />BuzzFlash: Clearly, this could not happen without approval from the hierarchy<br />in the Pentagon. <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: Actually, it’s happening top-down, I think. And it’s<br />been going on for quite awhile. We think it started in 1972 when the draft ended. <br /><br />The theory for having a draft was that we were pulling from what we now call<br />blue and red states, conscripting people into the military. Of course, a<br />lot of them were pissed off coming in, and when you’re pissed off, even a<br />spoonful of sugar doesn’t make the Jesus go down. But since we ended the draft,<br />going to the full volunteer force in 1972, now we’re pulling mostly from<br />what we call red states, where there’s a lot of this blending of a virulent<br />form of dominionist Christianity –- essentially predatory Christianity -– with patriotism. <br /><br />Then, in 1994, with the Gingrich revolution taking over, two years into the<br />Clinton presidency, the politics of polarization really reared its ugly head.<br />Either you’re with us or you don’t really deserve to be an American. <br /><br />Then, after 9/11, with this complete idiot in the White House, this whole thing<br />went into overdrive. My wife and I have had right-wing talk-show hosts indicate<br />that we’re an embarrassment to the state we live in, New Mexico, and probably <br />don’t even deserve to be Americans. <br /><br />Do you know that in this country in 1970, we only had ten mega-Evangelical churches,<br />meaning those with 2,000 or more members? But after 9/11, a new mega-Evangelical<br />church has opened up in our country every 48 hours. <br /><br />That is their right. That’s fine. But when they engage the machinery of the state<br />and the people in the government, that’s when we have a terrible, hideous problem. <br /><br />And this is coming right down from the Oval Office, up and down the chain of<br />command. And let’s remember, at the Pentagon, we actually have regulations that<br />prohibit military members from even pushing Tupperware, Mary Kay cosmetics, or Amway,<br />for fear of what the Draconian spectre of command influence could force a<br />subordinate to do.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-36450366016139129102010-03-27T19:31:16.187-07:002010-03-27T19:31:16.187-07:00BuzzFlash: How did you become aware of what’s happ...BuzzFlash: How did you become aware of what’s happening there now? <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: I really have to thank Mel Gibson. When Mel came out. . .<br />in February of 2004. . . [with "The Passion of the Christ"]. . .<br />I was contacted by non-evangelical Christian members of the faculty. . .<br />They wanted to know if I was aware of just how profoundly, how comprehensively,<br />the Academy as an entity was coming down on the cadets and staff to go see<br />this movie. . .<br /><br />For three straight days, the cadets were marched into Mitchell Hall, this huge,<br />two-acre dining facility, and General Myers was exhorting them, pressuring them,<br />to go see this thing. . .<br /><br />[I]t was routine to have brown-bag lunches at the Academy, promoted by flyers<br />that went out saying, “Do not take this flyer down; this is an officially<br />sponsored U.S. Air Force Academy activity in conjunction with the<br />Christian Leadership Ministries.” Case in point: January of 2005 -- and I<br />know this sounds unbelievable, but I can’t make this stuff up -- a flyer<br />said: "Today’s luncheon topic: Why we cannot let you have your God while<br />we have ours. Our other luncheon topics: Dangerous to the followers of<br />Jesus -- pluralism and secularism." And they go on and on. <br /><br />The most common joke at the Air Force Academy of 2004 and 2005: "Why do<br />Jews make the best magicians?" . . . Apparently because Jews have the<br />magical ability to walk into a red brick building and come out the<br />smokestack in a puff of smoke. And then on top of everything,<br />July 12th, 2005, on the front page of the newspaper most reviled<br />by the Pentagon –- . . . the _New York Times_ –- the number-two ranking<br />general in the entire chaplains corp of thousands in the U.S. Air Force,<br />makes the unbelievable statement to the American public and the world,<br />that it is now the U.S. Air Force’s official policy to reserve its right<br />to evangelize anyone it determines to be unchurched. Those are your Geiger<br />counters. If you’re unchurched, we reserve the right to evangelize you. . .jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-87605366239746179182010-03-27T19:30:36.153-07:002010-03-27T19:30:36.153-07:00And from an on-line interview with the author:
h...And from an on-line interview with the author:<br /><br /><br />http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/065<br />--------------------------------------------<br />BuzzFlash: You wrote a book which we are offering on BuzzFlash.com. . .<br />It’s called _With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against<br />an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military_. . . Why did you write the book? <br /><br />Michael L. Weinstein: . . . What I found at the Air Force Academy was<br />nothing short of something that could destroy the republic. An essentially<br />evangelical, fundamentalist, Christian perspective was being imposed on<br />those that were not evangelical fundamentalist Christians, in complete and<br />total disregard of the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. . .<br /><br />I know that the religious right fundamentalists believe that separation of<br />church and state is just a myth, like Paul Bunyan or Bigfoot. But. . .<br />Clause 3, Article 6 [of the U.S. Constitution], basically says we’ll<br />never have a religion test for any position in the federal government. <br /><br />But I guess that didn’t mean the Air Force Academy, or the Air Force,<br />the Marine Corps, Navy, or Army. Indeed, they have prepared Geiger counters<br />that they hold up to all of their members, up and down the chain of command. <br /><br />We are not at war at all with Christianity, or even Evangelical Christianity. . .<br />We are, however, at war with a small subset of Evangelical Christians who<br />go by the long technical name -- premillennial, dispensational, reconstructionist,<br />dominionist, evangelical, fundamentalist Christians. <br /><br />The leaders are well known: Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson,<br />John Hagee, and the list used to include Ted Haggard, before he had some<br />career issues. . . .jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-47987523331063370592010-03-27T19:30:04.899-07:002010-03-27T19:30:04.899-07:00> I daresay that queers serving openly in the a...> I daresay that queers serving openly in the armed forces<br />> might function as a vital countervailing check on the whole<br />> frightening authoritarian Christianist element. . .<br />> That may indeed be one of the chief unstated undercurrents<br />> driving the ongoing palpably irrational resistance to<br />> repeal for all I know. <br /><br />I seem to recall reading in Reichen Lehmkuhl's _Here's What<br />We'll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, and the U.S. Air Force Academy_<br />( http://www.amazon.com/Heres-What-Well-Say-Growing/dp/0786717823 )<br />that the Air Force Academy in his day was something of a<br />Christians-only club -- he mentions that if you weren't carrying<br />around a Bible and going to chapel at the Academy, you were<br />ipso facto a suspicious character.<br /><br />On a related note, there was another book published last<br />year about the fundamentalist Christian atmosphere of the<br />U.S. military:<br />_With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical<br />Coup in America's Military_<br />( http://www.amazon.com/God-Our-Side-Evangelical-Americas/dp/0312374836 )<br /><br />The blurb:<br /><br />--------------------------------------------<br />One of the most elite educational institutions in the world,<br />the Air Force Academy has, from its inception, attracted the<br />best and the brightest, producing leaders not only in the<br />military but throughout American society.<br /><br />In recent years, however, the Academy has also been producing<br />a cadre of zealous evangelical Christians intent on creating a<br />fundamentalist power base at the highest levels of our country. <br /><br />_With God on Our Side_ is shocking exposé of life inside the<br />United States Air Force Academy and the systematic program of<br />indoctrination sanctioned, coordinated, and carried out by<br />fundamentalist Christians within the U.S. military. <br /><br />It is also the story of Michael L. Weinstein, a proud Academy<br />graduate and the father of two graduates and a current cadet,<br />who single-handedly brought to light the evangelicals’ utter<br />disregard of the constitutional principle of separation of church<br />and state that is so essential to the nation’s military mission.<br />Weinstein’s war would pit him and his small band of fellow graduates,<br />cadets, and concerned citizens against a program of Christian<br />fundamentalist indoctrination that could transform our fighting<br />men and women into “right-thinking” warriors more befitting a<br />theocracy. In the process, he would come face to face with<br />religious bigotry and at its most extreme and fight an unrelenting<br />battle to save his beloved Academy, the ideals it stood for,<br />and the very future of the country.<br /><br />An important book at a critical time in our nation’s history,<br />_With God on Our Side_ is the story of one man’s courageous<br />struggle to thwart a creeping evangelism permeating America’s<br />military and to prevent a taxpayer-funded theocracy in which<br />only the true believers have power.<br />--------------------------------------------jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com