It’s Christmas in February…

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has joined forces with the ACLU to accuse the US Marine Corps of being anti-Semitic.

Because the Marines said it was “premature” to answer a demand to put up a Menorah next winter:

On Jan. 17, the [MRFF] petitioned Marine Brig. Gen. William Jurney — commander of the boot camp and the Western Recruiting Region — to let troops of other faiths put up religious displays near the creche…

On Feb. 10, Jurney’s staff judge advocate general, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Munoz, told the foundation in a letter that such concerns were “premature” because there’s no longer a creche on the depot grounds and “the (next) holiday season is months away.”

Weinstein’s MRFF claims this response is “religious bigotry.”

That’s just asinine.

How many different ways are there to explain how this is an explicitly manufactured controversy? Most bluntly, it’s February. What right does Mikey Weinstein have to demand the US Marine Corps provide him any response about Christmas/Hanukkah next winter? Why are the Marines required to operate on Mikey Weinstein’s time table lest they be accused of discrimination?

Fortunately, the Marines handled this pretty well.

It’s first important to note the MRFF has been coy about how they’ve portrayed this incident. For example, the MRFF hasn’t released the Marine’s initial response to the MRFF “demand” for a Menorah. The MRFF response to this missing letter seems to indicate it was little more than an administrative reply — precisely as it should have been. The MRFF complained:

The vague statement that you will ““take the matter under advisement”” appears to be nothing more than a dismissal of our concerns.

That’s indicates the initial response from the Marines was perfectly reasonable — but clearly it was not good enough for Mikey Weinstein.

Further, despite the fact a low-level MRFF acolyte wrote a letter to the commanding General, the General did not respond. Rather, his staff (JAG) did. While Public Affairs might have been more appropriate, the advantage of using the JAG was cutting out the middle-man — and letting the lawyer lay into the MRFF in a way PA probably never would.

When the MRFF demanded to know the “form” of this “under advisement”, the JAG told the MRFF where to go [emphasis added]:

We will not disclose predecisional deliberative internal agency documents or communications as they are protected by, inter alia, the attorney work-product privilege, the attorney-client privilege, and several FOIA exemptions.

That’s twice the Marines shut the door in Mikey Weinstein’s face. That was apparently when he called the ACLU, hoping they could win where he could not — but the local ACLU did little more than say it was “thinly veiled discrimination” to call the display request “premature.”

If this was December 2017, and a Nativity graced the Marine base, this conversation would at least be understandable. But to claim the Marines are being “discriminatory” because they’re not dealing with holiday decorations in February is the height of stupidity.

Mikey Weinstein’s claim that the Nativity is unconstitutional also flies in the face of the very loud proclamations by the MRFF’s own spokesman: Mikey Weinstein.

For years, Weinstein has attacked Nativity scenes — but his group has allowed that if the Nativity scenes were on chapel grounds, they were acceptable. For example, at Travis AFB in 2011 and at Shaw AFB and Guantánamo Bay in 2013, Weinstein’s group attacked the displays as illegal — because they weren’t located on chapel grounds.  Mikey Weinstein said [emphasis added]

These nativity scenes are completely appropriate over at the chapel. They are completely…egregiously unconstitutional where they currently reside.

In this current case, the MRFF has granted the Nativity scene was on the chapel grounds — but, contrary to Mikey Weinstein’s stated position, the MRFF now says the Nativity’s very existence — chapel or not — is unconstitutional:

While [nativities] are commonly erected in front of homes and various businesses to celebrate the holiday season, it clearly promotes the Christian faith over other religions…Therefore, the presence of a crèche on government property is an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over others and/or religion over non-religion.

Why the switch?  No one has ever accused Mikey Weinstein of being consistent.  It seems it was a slow news cycle, so Mikey Weinstein had to create a controversy by contradicting himself.

Awkwardly, the MRFF attempted to make the argument the Nativity was illegal (that is, they’re stating Mikey Weinstein advocated an illegal position) — but they then demanded permission to add a Menorah to the “illegal” holiday display. By the MRFF’s own argument, this response would not make it any less illegal. In fact, a few years ago fellow atheist agitator and Army Sergeant Justin Griffith once used the slur of “token” against a Menorah on an Air Force base. Yet, it seems Weinstein now wants to have that very “token” status.

Any reasonable, rational person would agree it is very “premature” to demand the US Marine Corps do anything with regard to the 2017 holiday season.  The US Marine Corps has a mission to accomplish, and it isn’t asking “how high?” when Mikey Weinstein says “jump.”

Want to prove the Marines aren’t discriminating against Jewish personnel?  Send LtCol Munoz an email asking for official permission to erect a Nativity scene in December.

Care to guess what he’ll say?

You can read the MRFF letter to the Marines, the Marine Corps’ response, and the ACLU pile on.

Repeated at Military.com and the Stars and Stripes.

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