“Military Religious Freedom,” continued
As noted in a prior post, Michael Weinstein and his Military Religious Freedom Foundation intend to expand their recent lawsuit against the military, intending to impact religion in the military as a whole. The MRFF’s lawsuit against the Air Force Academy was thrown out in 2006. Like the Academy suit, the recent lawsuit is based on an individual event, but Weinstein intends to similarly use it to (in his words)
show a pervasive and pernicious pattern and practice of constitutional rape of the religious protections guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution.
Weinstein has also expanded his complaints to include Campus Crusade, Cadence International, and Officers’ Christian Fellowship–all civilian Christian organizations that minister to the military. Some organizations have found reassurance in knowing that they are in compliance with the laws and military rules regarding their relationship with the military. However, Weinstein maintains that the rules themselves are unConstitutional. That is why he is targeting civilian organizations as much as he is the military.
The objective, then, isn’t to ensure that religious organizations are complying with the rules; the objective is to change the rules. (It is also worth noting that Weinstein is, by his own admission, targeting only Christians.) Those that have heard Weinstein’s rancor before (he listed OCF’s phrase “Ambassadors for Christ in Uniform” as an example of illegal proselytizing that undermines the Constitution) can only imagine the restrictions he would like to see placed on any interaction between Christians and the military, even among members of the military themselves.