Jul
26
USMC Cancels Christian Speaker
Mikey Weinstein is at it again.
Here’s what happened…
The Marine Corps had some training scheduled for JAG reservists. One of the sessions was to be presented by Jay Lorenzen, a retired Air Force chaplain currently working with Cru. The lesson was supposed to be a “virtual battlefield tour of Gettysburg using a video from the National Park Service”, but it would also include discussion of biblical leadership during the Battle at Gettysburg. So, not only is he an evangelical ex-chaplain, but he wants to talk about God!
Somebody was none-too-pleased about this and contacted anti-Christian attorney and gadfly Mikey Weinstein. (Note: I’m not being condescending; he goes professionally by “Mikey”. Also, though often described as an atheist, technically he identifies as a “Jewish agnostic”.) Weinstein, leader of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), acts on behalf of likeminded people to lodge complaints and exert legal and social pressure to silence Christians (mostly Evangelicals), ban Bibles and prayer, erase any mention of God, etc., in the U.S. military. (Remember this one, for instance, or this one?)
Weinstein jumped on it, claiming that Lorenzen’s presentation was “unconstitutional”. (Or, at least, that’s what he claimed later on Fox News.) The MRFF complaint quickly went through channels to Marine leadership, and it was soon announced that Lorenzen had been removed from the training schedule. Lorenzen, of course, expressed puzzlement, especially since attendance for his session wasn’t even mandatory.
In discussing the matter with Todd Starnes, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), who is also a military chaplain, admitted that there might have been a legit concern about separation of church and state — or, more accurately in this case, the separation of religion and the military — IF the class had been mandatory.
“But this was not the case. Mikey just lied and every time he was asked about it yesterday, we noticed that his story kept changing, that finally it just came back to the fact that in the bio, the guy’s a Christian, he taught a Christian class on this, so we can’t have him anywhere near it. That is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
The USMC’s quick compliance with the MRFF’s demands (i.e., less than an hour after the complaint was lodged) caused Weinstein to gloat:
“[It is] QUITE clear that the senior leadership in Washington agreed with us 100%.”
Possibly. Or, they just didn’t want the headache — not to mention wasted time and expense — of dealing with the complaint properly. Understandable, but caving to ridiculous demands like this one only encourages more of them. Either way, it was a very un-Marine-like response.
I agree with Rep. Collins, it is indeed disgusting. And, as Warner Todd Huston concluded in his article, the Marines — in particular, the senior leaders that made this decision — should be ashamed.
