The MRFF’s researcher Chris Rodda recently took to the Huffington Post to make hay out of Vice President Joe Biden having rosary beads in the White House situation room during the bin Laden raid, and for the SEAL Team leader saying “For God and Country” in front of the code word “Geronimo” after the successful strike.

The critical tone inspired a slew of comments.  The overwhelming majority — even from self-described “liberals” — were highly critical of Rodda’s article, claiming it was an exercise in finding offense, political correctness, and a suggestion America should surrender its freedoms for appearances.

After a biting critique from a fellow Huffington Post blogger, Rodda tried to explain the logic behind her position, but she actually made it worse: 

A few months ago, a California newspaper had a big photo and article about a group of Marines getting baptized in the Pacific Ocean before being deployed. No big deal, right? Not to us here in America. These Marines were just exercising their religious freedom, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them having this baptism ceremony.

It’s good to hear the Military Religious Freedom Foundation supports the religious exercise of those Marines.  It’s not that simple, however:

And everything would have been just fine if that newspaper hadn’t published a big article about it.

Oops.  Apparently the MRFF has issues with that other First Amendment protection: Freedom of the Press.  More:

What happened was that a Muslim extremist website republished that article and, but [sic] changed the headline to something saying that these were the Crusaders preparing for their holy war. MRFF immediately started getting calls from other Marines who were in the unit in Afghanistan that these Marines in the baptism article would be joining. The Marines we heard from in Afghanistan were completely freaked out over this article appearing on the extremist website because they knew the danger it put their unit in. It’s being used by extremists for propaganda purposes, and puts our troops at even greater risk than they’re already facing. Get it?

Yes, the world gets it.  In her position as an MRFF representative, Rodda has successfully conveyed the MRFF position that extremist enemies — not the US Constitution or human liberties — determine what freedoms American citizens enjoy.

It’s Rodda that doesn’t “get it.”  Despite saying the conduct is “absolutely” permissible, the MRFF refuses to defend it.  Instead, she takes the opposite view, implying the religious exercise endangered American troops (leaving her readers to conclude the conduct must therefore be restricted).  That self-contradiction apparently explains why Weinstein previously said the entire US Marine chain of command had aided the enemy’s propaganda machine by allowing the baptism.

This isn’t the first time the MRFF has said there was “nothing wrong with” an act of religious exercise in the military…while simultaneously saying there was something wrong with it.  Politically convenient, but not intellectually consistent — which is standard fare for Weinstein’s MRFF.