President Obama’s new “religious tolerance” consultant to the Pentagon, Mikey Weinstein, wants Christian military service members who openly talk about their faith in uniform to be charged with treason, which is a crime punishable by death according to military law.
By employing his consulting services, and as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama is effectively endorsing Weinstein’s recently voiced and written views such as: “Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized [sic] and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”
Weinstein’s inflamed word picture helps the rest of us understand what the world looks like to those who live with their eyes wide shut and sort of sounds like that old cereal commercial... except this time Mikey doesn’t like it – Christianity, that is, so no one else should. And Mikey’s giving the rest of us an object lesson in intolerance by showing us what liberal secularists are about: “It’s our way, or we shut you down.” In this case, Obama’s anti-Christian hit man, Weinstein, proposes that honorable men and women in the military who speak about their faith should be charged with a crime worthy of capital punishment. Smells like bull to me.
In recent months, there has been a push against Christianity in the military. A few notables include a military training instructor labeling Jews, Christians, Catholics and Mormons as extremists alongside al Qaeda. The Army blocked a Southern Baptist website, citing it displayed “hostile content,” (the Pentagon has since blamed it on a malware glitch), and an Army email was distributed warning fellow soldiers to beware of Christian ministry “hate groups.” Each of these incidents could be reasoned-away individually, but they all have one thing in common: Intolerance has an unmistakable stench.
News has it that Mr. Weinstein endorsed the Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent statement listing certain Christian organizations as hate groups. He also whole-heartedly agreed with comments made by radical Army Lt. Col. Jack Rich, who told his subordinates to be on the lookout for dangerous Christian soldiers who should be expelled from the military for their beliefs.
Lauding the Lt. Colonel’s statement in a Huffington Post anti-Christian hit piece April 16, Weinstein said, “We should as a nation effusively applaud Lt. Col. Rich,” and said America should go further to “vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamaphobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States  Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do anything less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”
Gee, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was speaking about why we are fighting the war on terror.
Religious intolerance reached the proverbial Foggy Bottom in the same article when Weinstein described Christians as “those evil fundamentalist Christian creatures” who hide behind the “facades” of “family values” and “religious liberty.” The same attributes could be also pinned to America’s founders, whom I suppose Mr. Intolerance would also deem as subversives.
It is obvious, foamy-mouthed Mikey has a bone to pick with Christians, and he’s found an effective way to get what he wants by working for the president and the president’s new military “yes man” Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Our fine men and women of the military, who are part of a historically noble institution, deserve so much better but are once again the punching bag at the expense of this intolerant administration.
Susan Stamper Brown is an opinion page columnist who writes about politics, the military, the economy and culture. Email Susan at writestamper@gmail.com, Facebook or her website at susanstamperbrown.com.