VoteVets.org, a fringe “left-leaning” political activist group, has joined with Michael “Mikey” Weinstein in demanding Kenneth Copeland be disinvited from the prayer breakfast to be held at Fort Jackson. In so doing, however, they also joined him in attributing to Copeland things he didn’t say [emphasis added]:

[VoteVets is] calling on Ft Jackson to rescind its invitation to Kenneth Copeland, the evangelist who says doctors and science can’t properly treat PTSD.

[Copeland] claims #PTSD doesn’t afflict True Believers.

Big Problem: Copeland believes only non-believers get PTSD and that only the Bible, not doctors or median [sic] can help service members struggling with it.

Copeland didn’t say those things — at least not in any source cited by his critics.

They, Chris Rodda, and Mikey Weinstein are perfectly free to disagree with Copeland, and he’s done plenty of things to mock or highlight.

Why do they feel the need to lie about what he’s said or believes?

Tom Carpenter, the one man Forum on the Military Chaplaincy, finally came alongside VoteVets (though, oddly, not the MRFF) similarly calling for Copeland to be banned.  In Carpenter’s case, however, he highlighted Copeland’s “homophobia and Islamophobia” — though he didn’t cite any evidence to support that characterization.

Copeland is at a clear disadvantage here — and he may ultimately be disinvited — simply because he doesn’t really have any allies. Copeland is an easy target for his odd (and, quite frankly, incorrect) theology — and the same things that make him an easy target on the left give him few defenders on the right.

While Copeland being disinvited would ultimately be a loss for the American principle of religious freedom, it is likely few — on the left or the right — would consider it a loss for anything else should he suddenly develop a scheduling conflict.

Still, this incident does little more than highlight, again, the fact Mikey Weinstein is not a defender of the constitutional principle of “religious liberty” — something that protects individuals from government judgment of their religious beliefs, even if people find them offensive (or weird).

Remember, there is a legitimate conversation about the saving grace of Jesus Christ with regard to moral injury and PTSD. Copeland and Barton just grossly fumbled any reasonable attempt at it.

But, if this was instead about Franklin Graham saying troops returning with the wounds of war need the love of Jesus Christ to help them through their recovery, do you think Mikey Weinstein’s reaction would have been any different?

Would yours?

Both of those philosophies are equally protected by the same American principle of religious liberty. The fact that some people dislike Kenneth Copeland or his beliefs for whatever reason does not negate that fact.

That people like Mikey Weinstein would selectively apply — or ignore — such a basic American tenet is reprehensible.

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