Marching as to War: Former officer battles proselytizing in the military

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Marching as to War
Former Air Force Officer Mikey Weinstein Zeroes In on Proselytizing in the Military
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; D01

...."We've created this foundation to be a weapon. We're going to lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds," (Mikey Weinstein) says, glaring through the floor-to-ceiling windows of an Arlington high-rise at a panoramic view of Washington.

Weinstein, 51, was once a White House lawyer who defended the Reagan administration during the Iran-contra investigation. Three generations of his family -- his father, himself, both of his sons and a daughter-in-law -- have gone to U.S. military academies.

Now he's declaring war against what, for him, is an improbable enemy: the defense establishment. He is suing the Air Force in federal court, demanding a permanent injunction against alleged religious favoritism and proselytizing in the service. He has also formed a nonprofit organization, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, to combat what he sees as a concerted effort by evangelical Christian organizations to treat the armed forces as a mission field, ripe for conversions....

***

...one of his favorite lines these days -- right up there with "sucking chest wounds" -- comes from the Officers' Christian Fellowship, a private organization with 14,000 active-duty members on more than 200 U.S. military bases around the world. In its mission statement, the OCF says its goal is "a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit."...

***

"Let me make it clear. I would shed my last drop of blood to defend their right to hold that biblical worldview. They are absolutely entitled to believe that Anne Frank is burning in hell along with Dr. Seuss, Gandhi and Einstein," he says. "But I will not accept my government telling me who are the children of the greater God and who are the children of the lesser God. That's the difference. I will not defend -- I will fight them tooth and nail, and lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds -- if they engage the machinery of the state, which is what they're doing."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/15/AR2006071501032_pf.html

[liberaliraqvet26]

1. Good for him. Wow he's got a tough job though.

Right wing religious fanatics have a lock on young impressionable military recruits.

[xchrom]

2. i wish him luck -- but the believers have powerful allies at this time.

there is no real concern in political circles for this fight because they fear the consequences they have created them selves -- that's democrat and republican.

democrats for not speaking out against the insanity and repuke sfor promoting it.

the corporate elite -- cynic non-believers that they are -- salivate at the idea of a ''virtuous'' and obedient citizenry.

they see only their own position strengthened -- and what could be better than that?

[TomClash]

3. The Officer's Christian Fellowship

Makes me want to alter my support for gun control.