The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) at Wright-Patterson AFB allowed a charity to install collection boxes to receive donated gloves to benefit the local community.

The collection boxes had posters on them with Bible verses.

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein was not amused, calling the “ostensible” glove collection a

• “constitutional violation” of
• “illicit activity” that was
• “egregiously wretched” which
• “savaged the good order, morale, discipline, health and safety, military readiness, mission accomplishment and unit cohesion” of NASIC.

When NASIC said they would require standard signage for future charitable collections, Weinstein called the effort “polish[ing] the turd.”

In a key departure from his normal invective, Weinstein referred to the group collecting the gloves as an “Ohio-based charity.” Normally, Weinstein has taken great pains to vilify the organization doing the “illicit activity” as well as the military enabling them. For example, whenever Operation Christmas Child comes up, Mikey Weinstein goes out of his way to excoriate Franklin Graham.

Why so subtle about this “Ohio-based charity”?

It was an African-American church.

The glove collection effort at NASIC was sponsored by the South Ohio Conference Young People’s Division of the AME church. It seems Mikey Weinstein was timid about directly calling the AME church a dominionist horde — so he left their name out while he called their “ostensible” charitable efforts illegal, wretched, and a “turd.”

Who knew the AME church was an example of “supremacy, exceptionalism and dominance”? Thanks to Mikey Weinstein, everybody knows the AME church committed what he called a “stinking travesty.”

Stay classy, Mikey.

To the root of the issue, there’s nothing wrong with NASIC or the military allowing charities to post collection boxes, and nothing wrong with allowing them to do so without restriction as to the text or content of the boxes.

As Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel said,

“I don’t think it violates any military law or certainly no constitutional provision because this is a private, non-profit organization that is unrelated to the Air Force base and private entities have the right to free expression, including religious expression,” he said.

Organizations have a right to their own insignia, logo and inscriptions on their material and “it’s not establishing a religion,” he said, adding that Weinstein’s feelings about the display are not legally relevant.

“He might be offended by this, but the measure of a constitutional violation is not whether someone is offended, it’s whether or not there’s an establishment of religion and especially when it’s done by a private, outside entity there’s a lot more freedom to be able to express religious messages,” he said.

Weinstein and his acolytes are simply offended by anything Christian, so they’ll stop at nothing to suppress it where they see it — and if they can use the US government to help, more the better.

That said, there’s also nothing wrong with the military having a content-neutral requirement for standard signage on collection boxes as a condition for displaying them. It’s a public relations disaster that such signage would be instituted only because Mikey Weinstein complained about a Bible verse, though.

Besides, if the sole reason the government institutes a “neutral” policy is because of issues about one specific type of content, is it really neutral? There are a few courts who might say no.

On a side note, Weinstein made a point of telling NASIC commanders he’d encouraged Airmen at NASIC to file IG complaints. Weinstein did not say he was filing a complaint himself. Seems the last conversation here has educated him to the limitations of his “third party complaints.”

As reported at Military.com, the Stars and Stripes, and the local Dayton Daily News.

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