Tag Archives: Constitution

I am a Christian First: Ted Cruz and Christian Priorities

AP PhotoWhen GOP Presidential candidate Ben Carson rose in the polls a couple of months ago, a buzz started — mostly among activists and agitators — about the religious statements made by his now-chief of staff, retired Gen Bob Dees. (Dees had long been on Carson’s staff, but Carson’s rise brought sudden attention to otherwise old information.)

Now that Ted Cruz has risen to be Donald Trump’s primary challenger, critics of faith and liberty have shifted the “religious analysis” to him.

At the liberal-leftist Daily Kos, Ian Reifowitz called on his readers to imagine if a Jew or Muslim had said what Cruz had. Citing Politico, Reifowitz quoted Cruz:

“I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth…I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”

Reifowitz assessed:

Could you imagine, for example, a Jewish candidate for president saying that he or she was a Jew first and an American second? Now imagine the sheer outrage if a Muslim American of any prominence whatsoever declared that he or she was Muslim first and American second. People’s heads would explode.

Reifowitz’s argument was almost immediately Read more

Ed Brayton Schools Ted Cruz on Military. And Gets It Wrong.

braytonEd Brayton is a prolific and progressive atheistic blogger who is also a longtime ally of Michael “Mikey” Weinstein and his research assistant, Chris Rodda. Unlike Rodda, Brayton occasionally shows a rare streak of principle and holds his own ideologues to the same standards he demands of the “right wing fundamentalists” he so often mocks.  Still, like Rodda and Weinstein, he is often blind to the traits he shares with those he ridicules.

On Monday, Brayton wrote a blog at the pay-per-click Patheos entitled “Cruz Shows He Has No Clue About the Military” in which he mocks presidential candidate and US Senator Ted Cruz for his statement saying of ISIS “we will carpet bomb them into oblivion.” Speaking to Cruz, Brayton says:

Do you or do you not know what carpet bombing is? He makes clear that he does not.

Brayton quotes Cruz waxing political in pivoting to Operation Desert Storm and the military draw down that has occurred since then:  Read more

Religious Freedom Day, 16 January 2016

jefferson2Each year since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. President Obama is scheduled to release his proclamation tomorrow.

Jefferson’s statute continues to be a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today. Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute. First, Read more

Mikey Weinstein Supporter Calls Franklin Graham a “Fool”

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein frequently publishes messages written in support of his organization, as he did last week when he published a letter from a supporter to Franklin Graham berating Graham for his defense of US Air Academy football players taking a knee in the end zone.  The supporter first summarized what he believed was Graham’s position:

You contended that young football players at the USAF Academy should be free to kneel down in a circle before a football game if they wished.

While it’s not too far off, that’s not actually what was happening. Football players were Read more

US Military Faithful: ‘Not the Country They Swore to Defend’

The Washington Post covered the stories of some current and former US military members who are Muslim, and who are “disturbed by the rising anti-Muslim sentiment” in the United States [emphasis added]:

Many American Muslims say they are living through a difficult time in this country. For the Muslims who are former and current service members, the prejudice and anti-Muslim rhetoric is particularly painful. Those interviewed for this story said that hateful comments have driven a wedge between them and the country they swore to defend.

Commenters were quick to point out that one could just as easily say anti-Christian sentiment within society and the US military has made America a “different US than the one they swore to defend.” In fact, so many brought up this diverging culture in 2011 — regarding the acceptance of open homosexuality within Read more

Mikey Weinstein Attacks Religious Liberty Advocate

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein frequently shows off his “hate mail,” using the threats and invective shown against him as an attempt to legitimize his cause. His presentation of himself as a victim — which he uses to garner sympathy and donations — rings hollow, however, given the “hate mail” Weinstein participates in himself.

Weinstein published an attack on the religious liberty of US Air Force Academy cadets in the local Colorado Springs Gazette, calling their conduct a violation of regulations, the law, and the US Constitution. Weinstein’s personal invective associated these cadets with what he called a

virulent strain of fundamentalist Christian supremacy, triumphalism, and exceptionalism

In a reasoned defense of military religious freedom, Liberty Institute attorney Mike Berry — himself a Reserve Marine JAG — published his own column in the Gazette as a response, saying the MRFF and Weinstein were “wrong on the history and the law.”  That was as “personal” as the well-presented column got.

In a response to Berry’s column quoted at the Daily Caller, Mikey Weinstein  Read more

Humanists Appeal, Continue Attack on Bladensburg Cross

Following a Federal judge’s ruling against them a few weeks ago, the American Humanist Association has now filed an appeal of its lawsuit against the Bladensburg Peace Cross, a 90-year old World War I memorial in Maryland:

“The Bladensburg Cross is an enormous Christian symbol on government property and has the clear effect of endorsing religion,” said Monica Miller, senior counsel for the Appignani Humanist Legal Center. “We will continue defending the First Amendment rights of Read more

Mikey Weinstein Attacks Air Force, Ignores “Putrid” Prayers at Navy, Army

usafapray2Michael “Mikey” Weinstein is trying to make significant waves over the continued practice of US Air Force Academy football players taking a knee in the end zone prior to the start of their games. He has famously called the practice “putrid” and a

monstrous travesty and brutal breach of federal constitutional law…

Weinstein’s group has even categorically said these football players are Christians (how he knows that, no one knows) — and that they sound “like the Taliban…or worse.”

Oddly, even though West Point and Read more

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