Tag Archives: USAFA

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

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

USAFA Football Prayers: A Lack of Moral Courage is Not Coercion

usafafootprayAmericans United for the Separation of Church and State recently joined in on the debate over US Air Force Academy football prayers by calling it an “incident” and a “problem.”

It seems even the AU’s Rob Boston didn’t think this was the issue Michael “Mikey” Weinstein was making it out to be:

I’ll admit that when I first read about this, I didn’t think it was a big deal. These are college students, I reasoned, not high schoolers. They could decline to take part if they don’t want to pray, right?

Boston then reconsiders, saying that because the games have mandatory attendance (in a long-running thorn in every cadet’s side, the cost of each ticket is deducted from their pay) and there is a military chain of command, it must be a “problem.” He cites Weinstein’s single email from a self-described USAFA football player:

He writes that there’s great pressure to participate in the joint prayer.

“If you don’t go along with it you are not going to be viewed as a good follower or teammate,” the anonymous player writes… “There are enough of us who feel pressured to conform and this is wrong…I mean virtually the whole team kneeling down and praying on the field in front of the crowds.”

There’s an important omission, however: The cadet never says he prayed 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

Former JAGs: MRFF Wrong Historically, Legally

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein relies heavily on his credentials as a “former Air Force JAG.” Presumably, people outside the military ascribe to a JAG a particular expertise on military regulations and the law, and Weinstein seeks to benefit from that connotation.

When Weinstein recently demanded that the US Air Force Academy prohibit cadets from praying, it was notable that not one but two former JAGs spoke up in defense of the military religious freedom Weinstein’s “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” sought to ban.

The Alliance Defending Freedom’s Daniel Briggs wrote a letter (PDF) that became the “opposing viewpoint” that required USAFA to be “prudent and deliberate” in its review of Weinstein’s complaint. Briggs said [emphasis added]

Cadet-led prayer does not violate any purported ‘separation of church and state.’ Courts have long recognized that this term is a misrepresented and tiresome platitude found nowhere Read more

USAFA Rejects Mikey Weinstein’s Demand to Ban Prayer

usafapray2The US Air Force Academy released a statement declaring that cadet football players would not be prohibited from taking a knee in the endzone prior to games. As reported at the Air Force Times, USAFA said [emphasis added]:

The United States Air Force Academy places a high value on the rights of its members to observe the tenets of their respective religion or to observe no religion at all.

Recently the United States Air Force Academy received a complaint about its football players kneeling in prayer. An inquiry was initiated, which found the football players’ actions to be consistent with Air Force Instruction 1-1 and its guidance on the free exercise of religion and religious accommodation…

The United States Air Force Academy will continue to reaffirm to cadets that all Airmen are free to practice the religion of their choice or subscribe to no religious belief at all. The players may confidently practice their own beliefs without pressure to participate in the practices of others.

Weinstein’s response was typical:  Read more

Mikey Weinstein Aims for Christmas Villain Hat-Trick

In what is becoming an annual tradition, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein and his self-founded “charity,” the oddly-named Military Religious Freedom Foundation, have been nominated for or have won recurring Christmas-villain awards for his attacks on military religious freedom.

Weinstein “won” the Liberty Institute’s Scrooge Award in 2014, after he was nominated for his infamous “cadet whiteboard” attack, in which he aimed his invective at a US Air Force Academy cadet who had the gall to write a Bible verse on a dry erase board. Weinstein has been nominated again this year for his attack on, again, US Air Force Academy cadets — this time, members of the football team who choose to take a knee prior to their games.

MRFF supporters are aware of the voting for Liberty Institute’s award and are trying to shoot the moon, apparently thinking that being viewed as a rich, crass, stone-hearted cynic is a good thing.

After missing out last year, Mikey Weinstein’s MRFF has been nominated for Read more

In fit of Facebook Envy, Mikey Weinstein Attacks Franklin Graham

In a post thick with irony, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein took to the internet last week to decry the “extremist” Franklin Graham who “personally targeted” him. The context was Weinstein’s attack on the pre-game prayers by US Air Force Academy cadets, which Weinstein has called “putrid” and illegal. When Graham responded, Weinstein said [emphasis added]:

Well-funded Christian fundamentalist organizations are using social media to attack MRFF!…

Extremist Christian preacher Franklin Graham personally targeted me and our Military Religious Freedom Foundation, asking followers to support and encourage actions meant to undermine our Constitutional rights.

(Said the well-funded anti-Christian organization that uses social media to attack others…) What Read more

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