Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has reportedly threatened to sue the Christian Examiner for posting a commentary entitled “How the Grinch stole Christmas – at Dover Air Force Base.”

The commentary is actually a very well-written and astute piece by Dr. Gregory Tomlin, an Assistant Professor of Church History and a faculty instructional mentor for Liberty University Divinity School, who clearly explains both the constitutional and military regulation issues surrounding Weinstein’s complaint about the now-infamous Operation Christmas Child email sent by a Dover AFB secretary.

Tomlin accurately notes that 

both Weinstein’s interpretation of military regulations and the First Amendment are just flat wrong, a truth illustrated by the fact that his complaints are seldom addressed by the branch of the military with which he once worked.

He then explains how Weinstein intentionally ignored the context of DoD regulations that actually permits the military to send out volunteer opportunities, even when they have religious content. Further:

Weinstein believes in the liberal paradigm of church-state relations – hostility, not neutrality. That is also why he favors tighter controls on military chaplains and forbidding any military officer from uttering “God,” “Jesus Christ” or “my Christian faith” in uniform.

Tomlin then clearly presents a test describing actual grounds for a religious liberty complaint: a situation that is compelled, violates conscience, coercion, causes confinement, confiscation, and includes context. Clearly, none of these applied and the siutation did not warrant a religious liberty complaint.

That’s not to say there wasn’t some consternation, but consternation does not equal illegal:

I have no doubt that such words as those in the Operation Christmas Child email offended some military personnel, but the First Amendment does not guarantee anyone – atheist, Jew or even any Christian – freedom from offense, Mr. Weinstein, even in the military.

That is liberty.

So why was Weinstein upset? Probably because Dr. Tomlin presented a calm, clear, and very effective rebuttal to his asinine complaint — along with a few barbs:

Talk about trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. Weinstein’s literary acumen is as sharp as his predilection for hyperbole.

That probably stung.  Evan Gahr for the Daily Caller tried to get Weinstein to explain why Weinstein thought Dr. Tomlin was being “libelous:”

“What is libelous is the innuendo and false light that I took Christmas away — that we stopped little kids from getting their toys,” he contended. “They are defecating on the truth and twisting it. Let them prove it is just opinion not libel. Let them tell it to a judge. We didn’t cancel the program. That is a vicious disgusting [expletive] [expletive] lie.”

Weinstein’s invective notwithstanding, that’s not what Dr. Tomlin said. Weinstein is apparently smarting, and his ego was so bruised by Dr. Tomlin’s effective disassembling of his ludicrous position that he is simply “laying down” a profanity-laced “withering field of fire,” to use Weinstein’s own words.  The problem is, he inflicted the “sucking chest wound” on himself.

In short, Weinstein is just mad.

As if to further Weinstein’s cries of oppression, he claimed Dr. Tomlin was being anti-Semitic — because Tomlin said this:

Weinstein, who is Jewish, pounced. He wrote that…

By that definition, Mikey Weinstein is anti-Semitic, as he has routinely described himself as Jewish.

Ultimately, Weinstein’s empty threats demonstrate he is little more than a schoolyard bully. He will arrogantly assail people with verbal assaults, threaten physical assaults, assign derogatory alliterative appellations, and even demand courts-martial for US troops who do nothing more than express religious beliefs he doesn’t like.

Yet when someone has the courage to stand up to him — telling people in clear, supported text that Mikey Weinstein is not just wrong, but utterly out of touch — the thin-skinned Weinstein suddenly becomes a wilting flower.

In that regard, he isn’t the Grinch.

Mikey Weinstein is Scut Farkus.

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