{"id":29626,"date":"2014-07-24T00:30:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T03:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=29626"},"modified":"2016-11-25T01:21:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T04:21:28","slug":"mikey-weinstein-to-sue-over-medal-of-honor-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/mikey-weinstein-to-sue-over-medal-of-honor-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikey Weinstein to Sue over Medal of Honor? (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year Michael &#8220;Mikey&#8221; Weinstein <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/12\/weinstein-threatens-us-military-with-another-lawsuit\/\">threatened to sue the US Army<\/a> because it exposed a group of Soldiers to a chaplain&#8217;s prayer, which the chaplain closed with<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>through Your holy name&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In response, Weinstein <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/10\/02\/military-proselytizing-army-chaplain_n_1930703.html\">demanded<\/a> the chaplain be disciplined and the Soldiers be given an apology.\u00a0 Weinstein threatened an &#8220;aggressive&#8221; Federal lawsuit (as opposed to a benign lawsuit, apparently) if the Army refused his demands.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, Weinstein was willing to sue because a chaplain said &#8220;through Your holy name&#8221; during a prayer to a group of Soldiers in an auditorium.<\/p>\n<p>Based on events just this week, will Weinstein threaten to sue again?<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, US Army Chief of Chaplains (MajGen) Donald Rutherford prayed in uniform and on national television &#8212; and, shockingly, closed with&#8230;&#8221;in Your holy name.&#8221;\u00a0 Just <!--more-->a few feet away stood President Barack Obama, Commander in Chief of the US armed forces, with his head bowed.<\/p>\n<p>Will Weinstein threaten to sue over the same thing he found so abhorrent just last year?<\/p>\n<p>Nope.<\/p>\n<p>When Mikey Weinstein threatened to sue the Army last year, it was probably the 20th such threat he&#8217;d made in just the past few years. It was also probably the 20th such time that, rather than filing the &#8220;aggressive&#8221; lawsuit he promised, he did <em>absolutely nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Given the long parade of threatened lawsuits Weinstein has left unfulfilled, it is likely he never believed he had a winnable case to begin with. Even in the rare instances when Weinstein did sue the military &#8212; the most recent was <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/01\/mrff-sues-usafa-over-mcclary-invitation\/\">filed three years ago<\/a> &#8212; the lawsuits were often stuffed full of unrelated claims from Weinstein that had nothing to do with his client&#8217;s case. When each suit was subsequently dismissed, Weinstein made similarly strident promises that he was going to file an appeal. Weinstein never did. Not once.<\/p>\n<p>In each case, it appears Weinstein rode the wave of publicity as long as it would last &#8212; making fundraising appeals along the way &#8212; and then promptly dumped his &#8220;client&#8221; when the calls from the media stopped. Those clients were <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/06\/michael-weinstein-religious-freedom-critic-and-drama-queen\/\">young enlisted US service members<\/a> who took home less pay in an entire year than Weinstein did in just two months.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Weinstein appears to have been using these troops for their publicity value &#8212; which fed his fundraising &#8212; not serving these troops as an advocate for their cause. US Army SSgt <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/12\/weinstein-threatens-us-military-with-another-lawsuit\/\">Victoria Gettman<\/a>, US Marine SSgt <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/07\/atheist-lawsuit-against-us-military-dismissed\/\">Dustin Chalker<\/a>, Army PFC <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/12\/mrff-withdraws-lawsuit\/\">Jeremy Hall<\/a> &#8212; they and more were enlisted troops who for a time were Weinstein&#8217;s pawns. Once their media value wore off, Weinstein&#8217;s support for their cases ended.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings us back to Chaplain Rutherford&#8217;s prayer, which was given at former Army SSgt Ryan Pitts&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/news\/newsarticle.aspx?id=122720\">Medal of Honor ceremony<\/a>. Weinstein won&#8217;t sue over the prayer not because of religious freedom, but because it would hurt his public relations efforts. Weinstein is already on the defensive from a <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/21\/air-force-may-change-religious-freedom-policy\/\">Pyrrhic victory in March<\/a> that has set back his &#8220;cause.&#8221; His &#8220;charitable&#8221; MRFF has also been reeling from <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/03\/report-mikey-weinstein-cashing-in-using-charity\/\">the story<\/a> &#8212; which has since gone viral &#8212; that Weinstein pays himself a quarter-million dollars per year from &#8220;charitable&#8221; donations &#8212; the same charity for which he <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/23\/non-profits-fundraising-and-support-our-troops\/\">uses US troops as fundraising props<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If Weinstein really believed that prayers at formal military events\u00a0were the evil he claims &#8212; and the words &#8220;in Your holy name&#8221; were Christian code language &#8212; he would attack the Medal of Honor ceremony as vigorously as he has these other events. If Weinstein really believed in the cases of the &#8220;clients&#8221; he&#8217;s had, he would file those lawsuits and appeal their dismissal.\u00a0 Instead, Weinstein works little more than his mouth, and the bulk of the MRFF&#8217;s &#8220;charitable&#8221; benefits seem to go directly to him.<\/p>\n<p>It would seem there&#8217;s only one thing Mikey Weinstein really believes in, and it has nothing to do with &#8220;religious freedom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>View the entire 20 minute Medal of Honor ceremony <a href=\"http:\/\/www.defense.gov\/video\/default.aspx?videoid=350664\">here<\/a> or below.\u00a0 For the record, Chaplain Rutherford&#8217;s prayers were similar to those he <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/18\/medal-of-honor-ceremony-marked-by-prayer\/\">made in 2011<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: currentColor; width: 500px; height: 300px; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dvidshub.net\/video\/embed\/350664\" height=\"300\" width=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year Michael &#8220;Mikey&#8221; Weinstein threatened to sue the US Army because it exposed a group of Soldiers to a chaplain&#8217;s prayer, which the chaplain closed with through Your holy name&#8230; In response, Weinstein demanded the chaplain be disciplined and the Soldiers be given an apology.\u00a0 Weinstein threatened an &#8220;aggressive&#8221; Federal lawsuit (as opposed to a benign lawsuit, apparently) if [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[88,5284,4,82,1471,125,126,91,85,2,5218,7,43,11,17,10,171,4850,3867],"class_list":["post-29626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-constitution","tag-donald-rutherford","tag-dustin-chalker","tag-jeremy-hall","tag-medal-of-honor","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-obama","tag-prayer","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-ryan-pitts","tag-victoria-gettman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29626","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=29626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}