Michael Weinstein Equates US Army with Racists, Rapists
Normally, Michael Weinstein leans on World War II imagery when he attacks Christianity, saying American Christians are banding together to take over the US (under a new government led by James Dobson and Dick Cheney, apparently) to create “oceans and oceans of blood.”
Adding to his repertoire, Weinstein now appropriates terminology from the civil rights era. In response to the US Army approving a planned atheist event on its grounds — but not on the terms Weinstein wanted — Weinstein had this to say:
This is taking North Carolina back to the Jim Crow laws of the 1950’s where white people were told they can drink water from the nicest, cleanest and shiniest water fountains, can enjoy the best seating in restaurants and can sit at the front of the bus, but black people were told they had to sit in the back of the bus, at restaurant tables by the kitchen and drink from old, rusty water fountains around the back.
Not to totally break from pattern, however, Weinstein continued to appropriate the terminology of rape to his cause:
The constitutional perversion that is happening at Fort Bragg is nothing short of spiritual rape being perpetrated by fundamentalist Christian religious predators.
So the US Army approving an atheist event at Fort Bragg is “spiritual rape?” How does Weinstein know that the approving US Army official is even Christian? He doesn’t. He just assigns religions and followers as he sees fit, without regard to the truth.
Naturally, hosting the atheist event in an Army post’s theater (rather than the parade grounds) also aids the enemy:
This action enrages our Islamic allies, emboldens our Islamic enemies and deeply demoralizes the order and discipline within the ranks of the US Armed Services.
The ironic part of that ludicrous statement is that Islam actually views atheism even less favorably than it views Christianity. Yet how many people are accusing the Army of “emboldening our Islamic enemies” by hosting an event for atheists?
After all that, there are still naïve people who think Michael Weinstein is really just about “religious freedom.”
The truly sad part, however, is that there are atheists in the military — and some at Fort Bragg — who were looking forward to “Rock Beyond Belief,” even if it occurred in a theatre as opposed to the parade field. While even they may not have completely liked the Army’s response to RBB, it is unlikely they wanted their superiors called “spiritual rapists” and “predators” in the national media. Weinstein, of course, has no qualms stepping on American Soldiers to make his case.
Weinstein isn’t concerned about the troops or their freedoms. His only concern is his ego, wrapped in his personal vendetta.
Hey JD, who are these atheists you refer to who are OK with RBB being moved to a small theater? Can you point us to where there are atheists saying this? I’ve seen nothing from any atheists (or freethinkers, agnostics, humanists, or theists who supported RBB) except utter disgust at what Fort Bragg did.
In reply to an earlier comment of yours:
And you say your job is research?
One guy who claims to be a secularist posting on your own blog under a screen name that was obviously created specifically to post about this issue? Are you freakin’ kidding?
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Chris, you have to realize that Christians listen to secular music too. Why don’t you tell us who the bands were gonna be, and provide proof of it, so we can all see how popular they are?
I dont think “popular” means anything, i mean, look at the likes of Lady Gaga, very popular but ZERO talent. Marketing and sex. In todays society “popular” means nothing.
Nate … the performers have all been announced on the RBB website as they were confirmed. The biggest musical act (and the one that I personally was really looking forward to seeing the most) was going to be Roy Zimmerman, a nationally known act among the secular community. Would Zimmerman’s songs appeal to Christians? No, not any more than the Christian bands at RTF would appeal to RBB’s audience. (But even Ted Haggard said he thought Zimmerman’s song about him was funny.)
Funny. The “Awards” section on Wikipedia’s article on Hawk Nelson is nearly as long as the entire Wikipedia article on Roy Zimmerman.
Gee, Nate, maybe that’s because the Christian music industry has a lot of awards it gives out, while the secularist/atheist community just doesn’t happen to have any such big formal awards. So, not having a list of awards says absolutely nothing about the popularity of a performer among the secularist/atheist audience.
Yeah, but one of Hawk Nelson’s awards is a #1 Slot on VH1’s top 20 countdown. VH1 is certainly secular, yet a Christian band got the #1 slot. Hawk Nelson was also nominated for a Grammy in 2009.
What does prove the popularity of a performer among the secularist/atheist audience? Do they have different metrics than anyone else in the industry?
Nate … First of all, RBB’s headliner and biggest draw happened to be one of the speakers, not one of the musical acts, so this whole issue of proving how popular the musical acts are is kind of irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that RBB’s combined line-up — one huge internationally famous speaker, several other speakers who draw fairly sizable audiences on their own, one nationally known musical act, and several other musical acts — would have drawn an audience at least as big as RTF had.
Sure. Pretty sure we already talked about Mr. Dawkins and his small crowds.
Richard Dawkins regularly sells out venues much larger than the theater on Fort Bragg, even when people have to buy tickets. We have plenty of recent examples to show this. I’m sure that if I looked I could find smaller venues that the RTF performers and speaker have appeared at, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t fill larger venues when they appear in those. It’s the same with Dawkins.
For the record, I’m not ‘one guy’. I’m a female, and I actually live near Ft. Bragg. Take a walk over to the FayObserver or a non-Christian blog site on this topic and you will see posts from others in the secular community who feel Whinestein set us up for failure. The door was open, we were ready to walk through, and he/you/RBB chose to slam it shut. Take a look at history and you will see that major change is accomplished through baby steps. There was an opportunity for change, but you would rather barrel through with threats of lawsuits (which will fail, as your history has also proven) instead of allowing a true leader of our community (Dawkins, not Whinestein) to speak on a military base. Let Mr. Dawkins “sell out” the York Theater and then you will show Ft. Bragg that there is truly a NEED for events representing the secular community. Why not prove them wrong by ACTUALLY PROVING THEM WRONG?
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