Yesterday Michael “Mikey” Weinstein was covered by Newsweek in an article entitled “Trump Effect Inspires Radical Christians in Military” (warning for ad-heavy site).

The article began [emphasis added]:

Donald Trump’s election has led to such a steep rise in fundamentalist Christian evangelizing and religious bigotry in the US armed forces that the matter is reaching the level of a “national security threat…”

The allegation that Donald Trump has inspired “evangelizing and religious bigotry” in the military is a serious charge — one which “award-winning” columnist Nina Burleigh utterly fails to support with any evidence. What follows in her article is a rah-rah fluff piece that does little more than parrot the words of Mikey Weinstein as if Weinstein himself is preaching the gospel.  Burleigh dispenses with “anonymous sources” and simply has one: Mikey Weinstein.

In an apparent effort to bolster her claim — or perhaps sensationalize it — Burleigh cites an exhaustive list of “charges” against the military as a result of Trump’s election, which she seems to believe are indisputable facts:

• open anti-Semitism
• anti-LGBT statements, posters, symbols and bullying
• openly anti-Muslim teachers and Islamophobic attacks
• a rise in on-base evangelizing
• pressure…to convert to fundamentalist Christianity

Again, serious charges, yet Burleigh cites not a single example. In fact, her apparent failure to research her source may have undermined her credibility altogether, because Burleigh seems to have repeated questionable allegations:

The wife of a combat-decorated Muslim US Naval officer, who was wearing a Muslim headscarf, was surrounded in the commissary and spit upon and cursed as not being a “true American and being a spy and a terrorist.” She was with her children at the time.

A serious charge — and one intended to support the thesis that “radical Christians” inspired by Donald Trump are now a “national security threat.”

Except this story had nothing to do with Donald Trump — and it’s not even a new story.

Mikey Weinstein has told variations of a “Muslim wife harassed in commissary” since 2009. Weinstein explicitly described such a person being “spit on” during a 2015 interview at RawStory. (Whether it ever actually happened is unknown, as Weinstein has been known to “embellish” stories that weren’t shocking enough in their truthful form.)

For the chronologically challenged, that would be a year before Donald Trump was elected, meaning Mikey Weinstein would — for at least the third time (see Klingenschmitt and the 523rd) — require a time machine for his allegations to be possible. Donald Trump’s election couldn’t have inspired an event that occurred before his election — yet that appears to be precisely what Mikey Weinstein is saying, and what Nina Burleigh is whimsically repeating.

In a somewhat surprising turn, Burleigh then joined Mikey Weinstein’s conspiracy theory that “radical” Christians are trying to take over the world:

The commingling of radical Christianity and the US warfighter has been under way for some time now…

Fundamentalist views are decidedly in the minority in the general population, but they have adherents in some of the U.S. military’s most powerful positions, especially in and around Washington, D.C., and in Colorado Springs, home of the US Air Force Academy, and the nation’s nuclear command center.

The US military has long been seeded with radical Christian fundamentalists…who believe a “Warrior Jesus” has their backs while they fight against Islam. They believe they are establishing a “Kingdom of God” on Earth, starting with the United States, and are predictably anti-LGBTQ and unfriendly to females among their ranks.

That’s fascinating, and the “award-winning journalist” provides absolutely no factual basis whatsoever for her readers to believe her. She also fails to note the counterpoint to her “Christians are in power” argument: that is, Mikey Weinstein’s acolytes and allies have held “some of the US military’s most powerful positions.” Apparently the “adjunct professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism” believes “because I said so” constitutes sufficient journalistic rigor.

There is no rational reason to believe “radical Christian fundamentalists” are in charge of the US Air Force Academy or America’s nuclear weapons, nor that they are trying to “fight against Islam” and take over the United States. But apparently Nina Burleigh thinks so. For some reason.

Not to be outdone, Mikey Weinstein provides the final extremist summary of how Christians in the US military constitute a “national security threat” [emphasis added]:

“The reality of Trump being commander-in-chief has unleashed a raging battle-cry along the lines of, ‘There’s a new sheriff in town and he loves white, male, straight, Christian fundamentalists one hell of a lot more than anyone else,’” Weinstein said. “The fundamentalist/Dominionist bullies have been emboldened by Trump’s own bigotry and that of his henchmen to such a profound degree that MRFF considers the dire situation to be nothing less than a full-fledged national security threat to our country.”

Nina Burleigh’s Newsweek article said nothing new. The “award-winning” journalist simply recycled old accusations and put them in the same sentence as “because Donald Trump.” It is obvious Mikey Weinstein is trying to hitch his wagon to Trump’s popularity — not because of any actual, factual reason, but merely for publicity. The Newsweek article has done little more than reveal the self-serving “mission” of Mikey Weinstein and his “charity.”

Think about the larger context: Mikey Weinstein called Christians “bullies,” bigots, and a “national security threat to our country.” Take the invective in that Newsweek article and insert any other religion and you’d hear an outcry against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or intolerance and closed-mindedness toward religious freedom.

When Mikey Weinstein makes bigoted attacks against Christians, though, it warrants applause and a headline.

How’s that military religious freedom thing go again?

Followed-up at OneNewsNow.

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