{"id":39975,"date":"2017-02-20T00:30:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T03:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=39975"},"modified":"2017-02-20T03:48:39","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T06:48:39","slug":"mikey-weinstein-attacks-mikey-weinstein-over-nativity-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/20\/mikey-weinstein-attacks-mikey-weinstein-over-nativity-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikey Weinstein Attacks Mikey Weinstein over Nativity Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>It&#8217;s Christmas in February&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Michael &#8220;Mikey&#8221; Weinstein has joined forces with the ACLU to accuse the US Marine Corps of being anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n<p>Because the Marines <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/military\/sd-me-mcrd-religion-20170217-story.html\">said it was &#8220;premature&#8221; to answer<\/a> a demand to put up a Menorah next winter:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>On Jan. 17, the [MRFF] petitioned Marine Brig. Gen. William Jurney \u2014 commander of the boot camp and the Western Recruiting Region \u2014 to let troops of other faiths put up religious displays near the creche&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 10, Jurney\u2019s staff judge advocate general, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Munoz, told the foundation in a letter that such concerns were \u201cpremature\u201d because there\u2019s no longer a creche on the depot grounds and \u201cthe (next) holiday season is months away.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Weinstein&#8217;s MRFF claims this response is &#8220;religious bigotry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s just asinine.<\/p>\n<p>How many different <!--more-->ways are there to explain how this is an <em>explicitly<\/em> manufactured controversy? Most bluntly, it&#8217;s <em>February.<\/em> What right does Mikey Weinstein have to demand the US Marine Corps provide him <em>any<\/em> response about Christmas\/Hanukkah next winter? Why are the Marines required to operate on Mikey Weinstein&#8217;s time table lest they\u00a0be accused of discrimination?<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, the Marines handled this pretty well.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s first important to note the MRFF has been coy about how they&#8217;ve portrayed this incident. For example,\u00a0the MRFF hasn&#8217;t released the Marine&#8217;s initial response to the MRFF &#8220;demand&#8221; for a Menorah. The MRFF response to this missing letter seems to indicate it was little more than an administrative reply &#8212; precisely as it should have been. The MRFF complained:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The vague statement that you will &#8220;\u0093take the matter under advisement\u0094&#8221; appears to be nothing more than a dismissal of our concerns.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s indicates the initial response from the Marines was\u00a0perfectly reasonable\u00a0&#8212; but clearly it was\u00a0not good enough for Mikey Weinstein.<\/p>\n<p>Further, despite the fact a low-level MRFF acolyte wrote a letter to the commanding General, the General did not respond. Rather, his staff (JAG) did. While Public Affairs might have been more appropriate, the advantage of using the JAG was cutting out the middle-man &#8212; and letting the lawyer lay into the MRFF in a way PA probably never would.<\/p>\n<p>When the MRFF demanded to know the &#8220;form&#8221; of this &#8220;under advisement&#8221;, the JAG told the MRFF where to go [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>We will not disclose<\/strong> predecisional deliberative internal agency documents or communications as they are protected by, <em>inter alia<\/em>, the attorney work-product privilege, the attorney-client privilege, and several FOIA exemptions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That&#8217;s <em>twice<\/em> the Marines shut the door in Mikey Weinstein&#8217;s face. That was apparently when he called the ACLU, hoping they could win where he could not &#8212; but the local ACLU did little more than say it was &#8220;thinly veiled discrimination&#8221; to call the display request &#8220;premature.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If this was December 2017, and a Nativity graced the Marine base, this conversation would at least be understandable. But to claim the Marines are being &#8220;discriminatory&#8221; because they&#8217;re not dealing with holiday decorations in <em>February<\/em> is the height of stupidity.<\/p>\n<p>Mikey Weinstein&#8217;s claim that the Nativity is unconstitutional also flies in the face of the very loud proclamations by the\u00a0MRFF&#8217;s own spokesman: Mikey Weinstein.<\/p>\n<p>For years, Weinstein has attacked Nativity scenes &#8212; but his group has\u00a0allowed that if the Nativity scenes were on chapel grounds, they were acceptable. For example, at <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2011\/12\/15\/weinstein-targets-travis-afb-nativity-menorah\/\">Travis AFB in 2011<\/a> and at <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2013\/12\/10\/mikey-weinstein-targets-military-christmas-again\/\">Shaw AFB<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2013\/12\/19\/guantanamo-nativities-moved-after-weinstein-complains\/\">Guant\u00e1namo Bay<\/a> in 2013, Weinstein&#8217;s group attacked the displays as illegal &#8212; <em>because they weren&#8217;t located on chapel grounds<\/em>.\u00a0 Mikey Weinstein <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/news\/2013\/12\/19\/military-group-wins-nativity-battle-commander-orders-christmas-displays-removed-from-base-dining-areas\/\">said<\/a> [emphasis added]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These <strong>nativity scenes are completely appropriate over at the chapel<\/strong>. They are completely&#8230;egregiously unconstitutional where they currently reside.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this current case, the MRFF has granted the Nativity scene <em>was<\/em> on the chapel grounds &#8212; but, contrary to Mikey Weinstein&#8217;s stated position, the MRFF <em>now<\/em> says the Nativity&#8217;s very existence &#8212; chapel or not &#8212; is unconstitutional:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While [nativities] are commonly erected in front of homes and various businesses to celebrate the holiday season, it clearly promotes the Christian faith over other religions&#8230;Therefore, the presence of a cr\u00e8che on government property is an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over others and\/or religion over non-religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why the switch?\u00a0 No one has ever accused Mikey Weinstein of being consistent.\u00a0 It seems it was a slow news cycle, so Mikey Weinstein had to <em>create<\/em> a controversy by contradicting <em>himself.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Awkwardly, the MRFF attempted to make the argument\u00a0the Nativity was illegal (that is, they&#8217;re stating Mikey Weinstein advocated an illegal position) &#8212; but they then demanded permission to <em>add<\/em> a Menorah to the &#8220;illegal&#8221; holiday display. By the MRFF&#8217;s own argument, this response would not make it any <em>less<\/em> illegal. In fact, a few years ago fellow atheist agitator and Army Sergeant Justin Griffith once <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2011\/12\/16\/military-atheists-join-contradict-fight-against-travis-afb-nativity\/\">used the slur of &#8220;token&#8221; against a Menorah<\/a> on an Air Force base. Yet, it seems Weinstein now wants to have that very &#8220;token&#8221; status.<\/p>\n<p>Any reasonable, rational person would agree it is <em>very<\/em> &#8220;premature&#8221; to demand the US Marine Corps\u00a0do <em>anything<\/em> with regard to the 2017 holiday season.\u00a0 The US Marine Corps has a mission to accomplish, and it isn&#8217;t asking &#8220;how high?&#8221; when Mikey Weinstein says &#8220;jump.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Want to prove the Marines aren&#8217;t discriminating against Jewish personnel?\u00a0 Send LtCol Munoz an email asking for official permission to erect a Nativity scene in December.<\/p>\n<p>Care to guess what he&#8217;ll say?<\/p>\n<p>You can read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/articles\/files\/marinemrff.pdf\">MRFF letter to the Marines<\/a>, the Marine Corps&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/articles\/files\/marinebarker.pdf\">response<\/a>, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/articles\/files\/marineaclu.pdf\">ACLU pile on<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Repeated at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2017\/02\/18\/marines-accused-violating-us-constitution-religious-display.html\">Military.com<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/us\/marines-accused-of-violating-us-constitution-with-religious-display-1.454600\">Stars and Stripes<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-layout=\"standard\" data-action=\"like\" data-size=\"small\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-share=\"true\"><\/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>It&#8217;s Christmas in February&#8230; Michael &#8220;Mikey&#8221; Weinstein has joined forces with the ACLU to accuse the US Marine Corps of being anti-Semitic. Because the Marines said it was &#8220;premature&#8221; to answer a demand to put up a Menorah next winter: On Jan. 17, the [MRFF] petitioned Marine Brig. Gen. William Jurney \u2014 commander of the boot camp and the Western [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[12,134,96,108,82,6114,1194,6115,1055,149,1193,85,2,5218,7,1235,10,171,6113],"class_list":["post-39975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-aclu","tag-air-force","tag-christian","tag-christmas","tag-constitution","tag-creche","tag-hanukkah","tag-jeffrey-munoz","tag-justin-griffith","tag-marines","tag-menorah","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-nativity","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-william-jurney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39975","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=39975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}