{"id":18054,"date":"2012-06-06T01:30:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T04:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=18054"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:13:14","slug":"michael-weinstein-religious-freedom-critic-and-drama-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/06\/michael-weinstein-religious-freedom-critic-and-drama-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Weinstein, Religious Freedom Critic and Drama Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interview at the Austin American-Statesman<\/a>, while being largely friendly to Michael Weinstein, makes some interesting observations on his crusade against religious freedom in the US military:<\/p>\n

In recent years, the Defense Department has at least tacitly acknowledged that complaints like his may have some validity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s some truth to that observation.\u00a0 When the DoD has acquiesced to Weinstein — even when it didn’t need to — it gave the impression<\/em> that Weinstein’s complaint was valid.\u00a0 Instead of placating him by making the situation go away, as they likely wanted, the DoD has oftentimes emboldened him.\u00a0 USAFA saw this and eventually took another more productive route in dealing with Weinstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The author also notes:<\/p>\n

Weinstein is not shy about sharing his successes: He maintains an aggressive public relations operation that sends out frequent alerts to media organizations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Weinstein’s group is almost exclusively made up of two aims: public relations and the closely-related fundraising it brings.\u00a0 One need look no further than the five lawsuits Weinstein has filed<\/a> — and lost<\/em>.\u00a0 That’s right:\u00a0 Not only has Weinstein filed five<\/em> lawsuits, every single one <\/em>was dismissed before <\/em>making it to trial.\u00a0 If a lawyer or advocate actually believed in their cause, an appeal would be the natural course of action.<\/p>\n

Weinstein has never appealed any<\/em> of the dismissals of his lawsuits — despite his repeated false promises to do so.<\/p>\n

A failure to appeal\u00a0may mean one of two things:\u00a0 Weinstein recognizes that he never had <\/em>a case, and appealing is futile or potentially even frivolous.\u00a0 In other words, knowing he never had a chance he still filed the lawsuit for the publicity <\/em>(and the ensuing fundraising), not for the plaintiff<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More likely, Weinstein knows he has milked the “shock” of the initial lawsuit as much as he can, and he knows continuing will cost him more money than he’ll see in\u00a0return.\u00a0 Take, for example, his most recent personal lawsuit against a former Navy Chaplain.\u00a0 The pretrial motions lasted years<\/a> and were likely costing money, while yielding almost no publicity or support even from his allies.<\/p>\n

Weinstein’s plaintiffs\u00a0are discarded, having outlived their usefulness to his cause.\u00a0 It is likely not an accident that his only named <\/em>military plaintiffs have been\u00a0low ranking enlisted troops who may make little more\u00a0in a year than Weinstein takes as pay from his “donations”<\/a> in a single month.\u00a0 When Weinstein filed a lawsuit on behalf of officers last year, they were kept “anonymous<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Weinstein’s primary cause is his self-aggrandizement.\u00a0 He never misses an opportunity to play the martyr or the persecuted soul.\u00a0 A paper once noted<\/a> Weinstein showed off his hate mail like some grandparents do photos of their grandkids.\u00a0 Such responses aren’t a matter of concern <\/em>to Weinstein; they’re a matter of pride<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I constantly stay under aliases, everyone in the family has a conceal\/carry, and we have attack-trained German shepherds guarding us. Whenever I make an appearance, my bodyguards have to make sure they know my blood type, we need escape routes, we drive home different ways. We’ve had the windows shot out of our house, animals slaughtered and left at the front door, swastikas and crucifixes painted on the house.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He “stay[s] under aliases”?\u00a0 Someone has an inflated view of their self-importance.\u00a0 Weinstein must be off his game, too.\u00a0 Nothing in that monologue is newer than 2008<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Contrary to his apparent beliefs, receiving threats as a result of one’s conduct does not legitimize one’s actions.\u00a0 Choosing to have a bodyguard — paid for by “charitable donations,” no doubt — does not somehow make ludicrous accusations of US military misconduct more valid.\u00a0 The article also says that<\/p>\n

His enemies have called him “Antichrist” and “Jesus-basher.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The author apparently forgot one moniker: Mikey Weinstein is a “drama queen.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interview at the Austin American-Statesman, while being largely friendly to Michael Weinstein, makes some interesting observations on his crusade against religious freedom in the US military: In recent years, the Defense Department has at least tacitly acknowledged that complaints like his may have some validity. There’s some truth to that observation.\u00a0 When the DoD has acquiesced to Weinstein — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[5284,85,2,5218,7,10,171,65],"class_list":["post-18054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-chaplain","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-usafa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}