Liberty Bell

Weinstein with Bonnie, his wife of nearly 30 years.

An Albuquerque lawyer and Air Force Academy graduate, Mikey Weinstein, is suing the United States Air Force, claiming senior officers and cadets illegally imposed evangelical Christianity on others at the school. Mikey Weinstein’s entry into the war over the separation of church and state is - by his own admission - tardy. But he’s figures late is better then never.

Weinstein’s immediate family is Jewish; his extended family is largely Christian. He considers family most important, than the Air Force. Weinstein represents the second of three generations of military academy graduates. His dad graduated from Naval Academy. One of his sons, Casey, is a Air Force Academy graduate, the other, Curtis, is a junior.

Weinstein was going about his life as a Republican lawyer and businessman, husband and father, until July 2004, when he visited Curtis. Curtis wanted to talk, but not on base. As they traveled from the campus, Weinstein started freaking out, wondering what trouble his son had gotten into.

He said, “Dad, it’s not what I’ve done, it’s what I’m gonna do, and I’m probably going to get into a lot of trouble. I’m going to beat the shit out of the next person who calls me a “f***ing Jew” or accuses me or our people of killing Jesus.”

When Weinstein asked Casey about his experience, Casey told him that just the way it is. “Senior cadets would sit down and say, “How do you feel about the fact that your family is going to burn in hell?’”

Many problems with religion and military, result from the issue of rank. For example, you cannot respond to a senior officer insisting you accept the Lord as savior with a “Get out of my face, Sir,” or “Not interested, Ma’am.”

A June 2004 report observed that during basic training, Maj. Warren Watties called on about 600 cadets to proselytize their bunkmates and warn them they would burn in the fires of hell if they weren’t born again. A 2004 survey indicated that half the cadets at the academy reported hearing religious slurs on campus.

Official academy fliers, distributed on military grounds, promoted Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. Within months, Weinstein said, his sons reported a rise in anti-Semitic slurs. A Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another Jew was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet.

On July 12th, 2005 there was a story in the New York Times about the increasingly religious climate in the Air Force. It included a quote from Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson: “We won’t proselytize, but we reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched.” Weinstein thought Richardson, No. 2 in command of the Air Force chaplaincy, would be fired, or at least reprimanded, for his statement to the New York Times. He watched for a backpedaling clarification by the Air Force to appear.

Nothing.

On Oct. 6, Weinstein filed his lawsuit, alleging that, in an attempt to impose evangelical Christianity, the Air Force is in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the wall separating church and state. Weinstein is demanding that the Air Force prohibit its members from involuntarily converting, pressuring, exhorting or persuading fellow members to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty.

Air Force lawyers responded claiming he and the four other plaintiffs (Casey Weinstein, Patrick T. Kucera, Ariel B. Kayne and Jason A. Spindler: academy graduates who currently are serving in the Air Force) were no longer attending the academy and thus not subject to the abuse they alleged.

Weinstein countered, saying he is suing the Air Force, not the academy.

The debate spread, including members of Congress and attorneys from Christian associations.

Last month, the Air Force released new “interim” guidelines on religious expression, which include the statement that “Voluntary participation in worship, prayer, study and discussion is integral to the free exercise of religion.”

Weinstein called it a signal that the Bush administration is trying to appease powerful evangelicals, including Dobson (Focus on the Family leader) and Haggard (Head of the National Association of Evangelicals).

He’s received a lot of support from strangers:

“I’ve gotten a gazillion calls from military people all over the world saying, “OK, I’m seeing what’s happening, and this is wrong.” From the academy alone, I’ve gotten over 1,000 people coming forward: cadets, officers, civilian staff, former cadets, graduates, coaches, athletes, saying “Oh my God, thank God someone is doing something about this.’”

The vast majority, he says, are mainstream Christians — Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans — who are “just not used to being preyed on and prayed upon by fellow Christians saying, “You don’t accept the Lord the right way.’”

But he’s also been called the “Satan’s lawyer,” and “Satan’s assistant,” and the “most dangerous man in America.”

Weinstein says a rumor has circulated that he wants to ban people from saying “God bless you” when someone sneezes.

“If standing up for the Constitution makes you a godless secular leftist or an arch secularist, well, like I’ve said before, gee, you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

During this fight, Weinstein has hired, at one point or another, eight different law firms and five PR agencies. The 18-, 19- and 20-hour days of work and battle are starting to pile up. But, he figures, somebody’s got to do it. “It’s time,” he says, “to stop doing nothing.”

More info at:
Mikey’s Mission
and
‘Mikey’s passion’