In a stark departure from his normal incendiary vitriol, Michael Weinstein recently took the unprecedented step of defending Christians serving in the US military.

Read carefully [emphasis added, as quoted at the American Muslim]:

Muslim-American service members, as well as their comrades-in-arms of all faith groups, know full well that the sworn oaths of loyalty to the mission of serving the American people and protecting our cherished constitutional freedoms take precedence over religious identity.

This is a complete reversal of prior accusations that Christians in the US military, like those represented in groups like Officers’ Christian Fellowship, the Navigators, and the like, are, as a group, violating their oaths.

It’s good to see Michael Weinstein finally acknowledge the truth and defend, rather than attack, Christians in the US military.

However, it was probably accidental.

It seems Michael Weinstein noticed the apparent alignment of some of his views with those of Tennessee state representative Rick Womick — which CAIR called “bigotry.”  Weinstein now “denounces” Womick’s statements, which Weinstein called “inflammatory expressions of anti-Muslim, McCarthyesque sedition.”

His entire tirade is thick with irony.  Weinstein and his “religious freedom” charity, for example, use inflammatory accusations and McCarthyesque methods in his attacks on religious freedom in the military, though his words are aimed at Christians, not Muslims.

It is Weinstein who has

opportunistically taken up the task of sowing division by means of galvanizing public opinion towards the implementation of an anti-[Christian] witch-hunt within the armed forces.

Weinstein is the one who has advocated the belief that one has to be the “right kind” of Christian to be able to speak or serve in the US military.

The worst irony of all, unfortunately, is that while Weinstein categorically defends Muslims in the US military, there is a reason for public debate on the topic:  Self-proclaimed US military Muslims are responsible for (or are currently charged in) multiple faith-driven attacks or planned attacks on their fellow servicemembers, killing 16 and wounding nearly 50 people in the process.

Weinstein has continued to attack Christians in the military, saying they violate their oaths as they have access to “laser guided nuclear weapons,” while there is no public evidence US military Christians have done anything remotely similar.

For a short, parenthetical moment, Weinstein actually defended military Christians (against his own attacks).  Though possible, it is an event unlikely to be repeated.