Military Religious Freedom Foundation
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is a watchdog group and advocacy organization founded in 2005 by Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein. The group's stated goal is to "ensure that members of the United States Armed Forces receive the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom to which they are entitled by virtue of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment."
Weinstein describes the group's target as "a small subset of Fundamentalist Christianity that's called premilliennial, dispensational, reconstructionist, dominionist, fundamentalist, or just Dominionist Christianity."
Background
The organization was founded by USAFA graduate and former USAF Judge Advocate General's Corps officer Michael Weinstein in 2005 for the purpose of opposing the spread of alleged religious intimidation by Christians in positions of power within the US military.Weinstein said he experienced discrimination due to his Jewish faith while a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy. After his sons reportedly experienced discrimination as well while at the Academy, Weinstein founded the MRFF in 2005. He describes the group's target as "a small subset of Fundamentalist Christianity that's called premilliennial, dispensational, reconstructionist, dominionist, fundamentalist, or just Dominionist Christianity." He further characterized their target as ""incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation's armed forces." The group is asking the United States Congress to hold oversight hearings regarding what it alleges is the Defense Department's failure to abide by the Constitutionally mandated separation of Church and State.
From its inception, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has advocated for many active duty U.S. servicemen/women and veterans who have contacted the MRFF regarding alleged religious discrimination, harassment and aggressive proselytizing by Fundamentalist Christians. MRFF reports that it currently represents over 65,000 active duty U.S. marines, sailors, soldiers, airmen, cadets, midshipmen, national guard, reservists and veterans, about 95% of whom self-identify as practicing Christians. Of the remaining 4%, MRFF represents Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Native American Spiritualist, Humanist, Pagan, Atheist, slightly over 18% of all Muslim Americans in the U.S. military, other minority faith and non-faith military members, and slightly under 1,000 LGBT military members.
On September 11, 2012, advisory board member Glen Doherty, a Roman Catholic, died in the U.S. Consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya. MRFF founder Michael L. Weinstein said that Doherty had "helped me on many MRFF client cases behind the scenes to facilitate assistance to armed forces members abused horribly by fundamentalist Christian proselytizing."
On November 13, 2014, for the sixth consecutive year, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation was officially nominated again for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.
Notable cases
MRFF has filed multiple federal lawsuits against the Pentagon and the Secretary of Defense, with military members as co-plaintiffs, asserting a pattern and practice of constitutionally impermissible promotions of religion by the military. MRFF founder Weinstein has spoken to students at a number of the U.S. military's educational institutions: The U.S. Air Force Academy's National Character and Leadership Symposium, the Air Force JAG School, the Air Command and Staff College, and the US Army War College.Jewish veteran Akiva David Miller, , israelenews.com, May 28, 2008. who alleged he had suffered religious discrimination and aggressive Christian proselyzation while receiving care at the Iowa City, Iowa V.A. Medical Center beginning in 2005 was a client of the MRFF.
2006 saw the exposure by the MRFF of a promotional video by Christian Embassy which was filmed in the Pentagon and featured uniformed Generals. Following a MRFF-requested internal investigation carried out by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General, the report on "Alleged Misconduct by DoD Officials Concerning Christian Embassy" concluded that several violations of Defense Department policy were committed during the production of the promotional video. Chief among the violations was the obtaining of permission to film the video at the Pentagon by means of a willful " of the purpose and proponent of the video" by Chaplain Ralph G. Benson, as well as the acts of officers who used their name, rank, and uniforms as a means towards endorsing the Christian Embassy proselytizing message.
In September 2008, the California Council of Churches IMPACT, a public policy advocacy organization which represents numerous and diverse mainstream Christian and Orthodox Christian communities, formally announced its endorsement of the MRFF's mission, with CCCI Board President Rev. John Freeseman stating "Our alignment with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is on behalf of religious freedom for all people, regardless of belief or non-belief. It is not the function of the U.S. Military to proselytize our troops but to protect our constitutional freedoms."
In February 2009, Colonel Kimberly Toney, commander of the USAF's 501st Combat Support Wing sent an email with a link to a religious-themed web video about the life story of Nick Vujicic. The sponsoring site of the video, 4marks.com, is a Catholic website. USAF service members who looked at the site after following the emailed link complained that the site contained criticism of President Barack Obama. Weinstein said the incident represented a textbook case of improper religious influence and added, "There's a pervasive pattern of constitutional abuse when you have a wing commander who sends out a direct, proselytizing e-mail with a link to a Web site that slanders the president of the United States."
Following the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009, the religious right American Family Association issued the statement "No More Muslims in the US Military", which explicitly stated that Muslim military enlistees be barred from military service in the United States armed forces on the grounds that "... just as Christians are taught to imitate the life of Christ, so Muslims are taught to imitate the Prophet in all things. Yesterday, Nidal Malik Hasan was simply being a good Muslim." Weinstein's denunciation of the AFA position as "bigoted, racist, vile" was featured prominently by Hatewatch, the official blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights organization.
MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda was invited to contribute an essay on religious expression in the military to the discursive volume "Attitudes Aren't Free: Thinking Deeply About Diversity in the US Armed Forces" published by Air University Press, the publishing arm of the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base.
The MRFF initiated the January 2010 media coverage of the Jesus rifles controversy, when rifle scopes manufactured by US government contractor Trijicon were discovered to be engraved with scripture citations. Following the breaking of this story by ABC News, the outrage provoked by this discovery was voiced by a diverse range of religious and political constituencies and within a week of the ABC News report, Trijicon announced that it would halt the engraving of the biblical inscriptions on all products sold to the government.
Pressure on United States Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt Gen Michael C. Gould throughout 2010 resulted in the release of the bi-annual Academy Climate Survey's results. The survey revealed that 41% of non-Christian cadets and 19% of all cadets were allegedly subjected to unwanted proselytizing.
In January 2011, the MRFF demanded that the US Army cease and desist their policy of administering a "spiritual fitness" component to the mandatory Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program test, whereby soldiers' combat-readiness and ability are judged on the basis of their religiosity. MRFF criticized the fact that evangelical Christian rock concerts were being organized and funded under the auspices of the Spiritual Fitness program.
MRFF litigation sparked by a prayer luncheon hosted by the US Air Force Academy's chaplain service was reviewed by a federal judge on February 2011. U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello ruled the plaintiffs lacked sufficient legal standing to challenge the event.
The United States Air Force, in response to the pressure caused by the release of internal training material via a Freedom of Information Act request, revised the ethical indoctrination course material to which nuclear missile launch officers were exposed as a standard component of their training. The course was defended by a spokesman for the Air Force's Air Education and Training Command as a means towards " folks understand why we're doing what we're doing. In the missile launch industry, it takes a certain mindset to be able to walk in the door and say, yes, I can do that". Included in the course is a PowerPoint presentation , a presentation which reveals a Christian militarist perspective and which heavily quotes Judeo-Christian scripture and contains a synopsis of the Just War Theory of St. Augustine of Hippo. Controversially, the PowerPoint also contains a slide excerpting the words of former Nazi Party member, SS Sturmbannführer, aerospace engineer and rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun, who is quoted as stating that "We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world best be secured", in reference to his 1945 surrender to American occupation forces and subsequent recruitment by the United States Office of Strategic Services via Operation Paperclip. MRFF client and missile officer training attendee Damon Bosetti recounted to the media that he and his Air Force colleagues would refer to the religious portion of the ethics training course as the "Jesus loves nukes speech". In September 2011, Senator John Cornyn encouraged the Air Force to resume the class.
Following the MRFF threatening suit over the "Crusaders" name and Cross and Shield logo for the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron VMFA-122, the Marine Deputy Commandant for Aviation directed VMFA-122 to revert the unit's identification back to the previous name and logo "Werewolves" on May 24, 2012.
In December 2012, Weinstein was named #95 of the "100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense" by Defense News.