{"id":4059,"date":"2010-03-19T00:30:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T08:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=4059"},"modified":"2015-06-27T19:16:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T22:16:17","slug":"weinstein-decries-religious-rape-in-us-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/19\/weinstein-decries-religious-rape-in-us-military\/","title":{"rendered":"Weinstein Decries “Religious Rape” in US Military"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katie Drummond writes an article for AOL News<\/a> that is essentially a fluff piece on the advocacy of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, as\u00a0virtually every example in the article is an MRFF talking point.<\/p>\n

The most recent “issue” is the participation of military base Chaplains with Focus on the Family<\/a>, which has reportedly simulcast various\u00a0resources, including its landmark Truth Project<\/a>, <\/em>to\u00a0military bases.\u00a0 (Drummond calls FotF’s relationship with the military “lucrative,” without explaining the basis for her belief of\u00a0financial involvement.)\u00a0 When explaining his opinion that\u00a0these “voluntary” religious events aren’t really<\/em> voluntary, Michael Weinstein said<\/p>\n

“If someone doesn’t attend, even if they are Christian, they might be told they aren’t religious enough, and that this makes them dishonorable, not courageous, not good people,” Weinstein said. “And that’s not just an unfortunate situation.\u00a0 These people are being religiously raped.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like most of Weinstein’s statements on Christianity in the military, his criticisms are without merit.\u00a0 There are a variety of events put on by the military on a routine basis, including things like Hispanic American Heritage luncheons,\u00a0various\u00a0Chaplain’s programs, 5K races for fundraising, road marches in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., and even support for sports events.\u00a0 The amount of “encouragement” from Chaplains or military leaders is the same for any type of event, whether it is a Christian Bible study or an Islamic celebration<\/a>.\u00a0 They encourage those who want to attend or be involved to do so.\u00a0 It is not more insidious or conspiratorial than that.<\/p>\n

Weinstein would have the public believe that the military treats Christian events in a unique manner, but public evidence easily disproves his accusation.<\/p>\n

It is notable that Weinstein has used the “not Christian enough”\u00a0accusation frequently over the past few years, as if to legitimize his cause with Christians.\u00a0 He\u00a0often asserts that 96% of MRFF “clients” are Christians who are persecuted for not being “Christian enough;”\u00a0however, in the past five years, he hasn’t made public a single actionable example.\u00a0 In fact, though 96% of the MRFF is “Christian,” Weinstein has filed (and lost) multiple lawsuits only on behalf of non<\/span><\/em>-Christians.\u00a0 Despite the alleged prevalence of Christian complainants, he has never had a Christian plaintiff.<\/p>\n

Despite Weinstein’s persecution complex, the US military is not out to produce Christians or a specific kind of Christian.\u00a0 The US military supports the religious free exercise of all<\/em> of its troops, regardless of their faith–something that is routinely publicly demonstrated in nearly daily events.\u00a0 Weinstein intentionally ignores the military’s support for free exercise of any<\/em> faith in a prejudicial and misleading\u00a0attempt to portray Christianity as a favored cause.<\/p>\n

Despite Weinstein’s inaccurate characterizations of religious freedom in the military,\u00a0he still manages to garner attention with his sound bites, sensationalized though they are.\u00a0 He appears to have an insatiable desire for attention–something that\u00a0is rarely a positive character trait.\u00a0\u00a0Ask\u00a0the parents of any preschooler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katie Drummond writes an article for AOL News that is essentially a fluff piece on the advocacy of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, as\u00a0virtually every example in the article is an MRFF talking point. The most recent “issue” is the participation of military base Chaplains with Focus on the Family, which has reportedly simulcast various\u00a0resources, including its landmark Truth Project, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[38,5284,4,245,85,2,5218,7,17,10],"class_list":["post-4059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-chapel","tag-chaplain","tag-churchandstate","tag-focus-on-the-family","tag-mikey-weinstein","tag-military","tag-military-religious-freedom-foundation","tag-mrff","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4059","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=4059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}