Category Archives: Government and Religion

Marines Rededicate Miramar Chapel

Miramar recently rededicated its renovated Airman Memorial Chapel, now called the Airman and Marine Memorial Chapel:

With the help of Col. John Farnam, commanding officer of MCAS Miramar, and donations from local businesses, the renovations began.

“There are places on the base that are centers of gravity and the chapel is one of them,” explained Farnam. “It’s got a long history here and it was something we needed to put a little time into so we could draw attention to it again.”

Some of the Read more

Mikey Weinstein Confuses, Contradicts Self in Debate with Ron Crews

Update: Chaplain Crews reports Mikey Weinstein plans to send “clients” into military chapel services to “monitor sermons.”  Crews also reports that groups are ready to defend chaplains subject to Weinstein’s attacks.

Last week TheBlaze posted a podcast from The Church Boys that included what they called a “heated” debate between Michael “Mikey” Weinstein and retired US Army Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews. The nearly 45-minute broadcast is largely Weinstein monologuing with his normal talking points to, or over, the hosts and Crews. (The audio is available below.)

For those that want the Bottom Line Up Front, the “debate” made clear that Mikey Weinstein doesn’t have a clear position, but he holds it very strongly and with great animus toward Christians.

“Perverts” and Marching Orders

For nearly half the show Weinstein railed against chaplains who would issue “anti-LGBT marching orders” and scream “perverts!” from the pulpit. No one seemed to really understand what he was talking about, and he never explained himself. It would seem he was attempting to set up a straw man that never really got going.

Strong Bonds and Marriage Retreats

Weinstein said it would be a “declaration of war” if a chaplain Read more

Heathens Continue Push for Military Recognition

Along with Sikhs, Humanists, homosexuals, and transgenders, another group seeking “official” US military recognition is heathens. Writing at Religion News Service, Kimberly Winston — normally RNS’s atheist hired writer — recounts the stories of self-described military heathens who want to put “heathen” on their dog tags:

Jeremiah McIntyre wants to be called a Heathen.

The 38-year-old Army sergeant follows the old Norse religion Asatru, in which the god Thor swings his hammer in the sky and Odin rules a heavenly place called Valhalla. Should McIntyre die, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would allow a hammer of Thor on his tombstone.

But the Army does not otherwise currently recognize the active-duty soldier’s faith…

That much is true, as has been previously discussed more than once. Winston then digresses into what she perceives as affronts to the unrecognized heathen masses:  Read more

US Military Launches Transgender “Working Group” in Preparation for Repeal

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has launched a “working group” to study the effects of “welcoming” transgenders into the US military. Importantly, not unlike the “working group” commissioned to study the repeal of DADT, it would seem the conclusion is foregone [emphasis added]:

“At my direction,” Carter said, “the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified.”

Notably, the DoD press release copies the language of Ashley Broadway-Mack’s homosexual activist American Military Partner Association, calling current policies on transgenders “outdated” though Read more

Mikey Weinstein Calls for Ouster of Muslim Chaplains

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein — who claims to represent more than 13% of all Muslims in the US military — has effectively called for the military to kick out all Muslim chaplains:

Please listen up; nobody is trying to interfere with the Constitutional rights of military chaplains to hold PERSONAL views that are racist, sexist, and homophobic, etc. Chaplains preach their views according to their denominational endorsing agencies dictates and precepts, that much is understood. However, if chaplains believe that they MUST publicly and visibly preach to their troops a message that their Christian comrades are misled “infidels” because of their “choice” to follow Jesus, then these views are fatally noxious and totally destructive to unit cohesion, good order, morale, and discipline in the armed forces.

Actually, to be accurate, Weinstein didn’t use those exact words. This portion of his actual 1,500-word diatribe was tweaked very slightly, as highlighted, to Read more

Congressmen Urge Review of Bible Verse Court-Martial

The ACLJ filed an amicus brief (PDF), joined with 42 members of Congress, urging the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to hear the appeal of discharged US Marine Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling. Sterling received a Bad Conduct Discharge for, among other things, disobeying an order to remove a Bible verse posted on her desk.

From the ACLJ:

The lower court had acknowledged that RFRA extended broad protection to religious liberty, the court adopted a very narrow definition of the statutory term “exercise of religion” and arrived at the startling conclusion that Sterling was not exercising her religion by displaying a Bible verse.

Our brief argues that the lower court’s decision sets military tribunals up as theological experts evaluating the validity of religious beliefs, and clearly violates the First Amendment principle that no court is competent to dissect religious beliefs, or to pass judgment on whether those beliefs are part of a religious belief system.

The lower court’s examination Read more

Becket Fund Defends Big Mountain Jesus

In 2014 the Freedom From Religion Foundation appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit intended to remove a statue of Jesus from public land (which is leased as a ski resort). The affectionately named “Big Mountain Jesus” statue was erected as a memorial to the 10th Mountain Division, who recalled seeing many similar shrines during their campaign in Italy during World War II.

A 3-member panel of the 9th Circuit Read more

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