The American Family Association recently made waves when it published an interactive “bigotry map” designed to “expos[e] anti-Christian bigotry in America.”

Highlighted in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is none other than Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

While the atheist Center for Inquiry “demand[ed]” to be added to the AFA’s map, Weinstein’s reaction was not so jovial: He had his lawyers fire off a letter demanding to be removed. In an unusually whiney-sounding missive, long-time MRFF attorney Randal Mathis said

Have you not learned anything from what has been reported almost non-stop recently about the potential harmful effect of postings on the Internet inciting unstable people to acts of violence?…It is not at all funny when people are subjected to threats and the risks of violent acts as a consequence.

Weinstein, rather absurdly, walked right into reductio ad absurdum.

What Weinstein was slow to realize (though the CFI was apparently not) was the AFA’s map is a demonstration that anyone can make a list of groups they don’t like, using any standards they choose (or none at all). The AFA’s map is a direct response to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s use of a “hate map,” which includes the AFA as a “hate group” because of their religiously-motivated opposition to homosexual advocacy. That’s the same criteria the SPLC used to include Dr. Ben Carson in its “extremist files,” a move they recanted under withering criticism just a few weeks ago.

More disappointingly, despite it obvious biases, the private SPLC “hate” grouping is frequently cited by government officials — including the US military.

Is there a connection between such lists and anger directed toward those groups? Regarding the 2012 attack on the Family Research Council — in which the SPLC “hate list” was explicitly implicated — the AFA itself, while holding the shooter responsible, said the SPLC “should be held to account in the court of public opinion.” Publicly, nothing has changed, and both the AFA and FRC remain on the SPLC list.

If those were the only facts, Mikey Weinstein would have broken the internet irony meter, as his argument comes from the same place as did that of his nemesis, the AFA, in 2012.

But there’s more.

Mikey Weinstein is a hypocrite.

Though Weinstein demands removal from the AFA list due to possible acts of violence, he fully endorses the SPLC’s list, repeatedly citing it to accuse Christians of being in “hate” groups. In fact, he explicitly did so in direct response to the AFA’s publication of the map, saying:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has characterized the American Family Association as not only a domestic hate group, but one of the “chief purveyors of lies about LGBT people” that result in trauma, hate crimes, and a tragic epidemic of teen suicides.

So while he’s apparently concerned that he would be on such a list, he fully supports the AFA being on a list just like it.

In one of Weinstein’s more cited blogs, he called Christians “monsters” and made a point of not only citing the SPLC list, but also including hyperlinks directly to it as he railed against the AFA and others [links removed]:

These bandits coagulate their stenchful substances in organizations such as the American Family Association (AFA)….[W]hen the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and others correctly characterize them as “hate groups,” they all too predictably raise a deafening hue and disingenuously bellow mournfully like the world class cowards they are.

If the AFA’s complaints about the internet list make them “mournful[] cowards,” what does it make Mikey Weinstein when he does exactly the same thing?

If Mikey Weinstein is known for anything, it is his delicate disposition. While he can string hateful alliterative adjectives together in name-calling attacks worthy of a bully with a J.D., Weinstein can abide no criticism himself. People or organizations who criticize him are almost certain to receive a letter from his lawyers demanding retractions — along with the names of their lawyers and insurance carriers. So when the AFA turned the tables on him and borrowed a page from the SPLC he seems to love so much, he was flummoxed.

In the end, Weinstein has little to worry about. The map does little more than call him “anti-Christian,” a label that his own words fit quite nicely (reference the “monsters” blog cited above). In other words, the vociferous and verbose Weinstein has littered the internet with enough self-indicting diatribes that a graphic from the AFA saying “anti-Christian” almost seems superfluous.

For what its worth, the AFA’s description of the MRFF on the “bigotry map” seems to be accurate. Mikey Weinstein’s actions over the past 10 years have demonstrated one consistent thing: Weinstein is against Christians in the US military.

It would also seem that, according to his own standards, Mikey Weinstein is a “world class coward.”

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