By Morris Malakoff, JTNews Correspondent
Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation he leads say the nation is threatened by an influential group of religious zealots who want everyone to convert or die.
No, it’s not the fighters of Al-Qaeda, but a coalition of military, political and business leaders with its tentacles reaching deep into all branches of the U.S. military and posing, he claims, a security risk every bit as evil as the jihadists in Afghanistan.
“I call it the fundamentalist Christian para-church military corporate proselytizing complex,” said the effusive trial lawyer, who visited Seattle on the weekend of Nov. 21 and 22. “It sees anyone who is not in line with their beliefs as ‘not religious enough’ no matter their faith — Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Islamic, Buddhist or atheist.”
He refers to this informal organization as a sect called “Dominonism.” He says they are anti-Semitic, anti-gay, Islamophobic and misogynistic. He says that they are hijacking the U.S. Constitution and violating the separation of church and state.
Weinstein is no liberal skeptic of the military. He comes from a long line of proud U.S. military officers. His father graduated from Annapolis. He is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, as are three of his sons and a daughter-in-law. He also worked in the White House under Ronald Reagan.
His attention to what he sees as a growing danger began in 2004. He was at the Air Force Academy for a leadership conference. While there, he went to lunch off-campus with one of his sons.
His son told of the cadet corps being strongly advised to see the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ and that following that, he was subjected to repeated verbal attacks on his Jewish faith.
While that was his face-to-face introduction to the phenomenon, Weinstein said that what really got things going was the discontinuation of the universal compulsory draft in the 1970s.
“Up until then, you had a military that pulled in people from all locations and of all stripes of class, education and background,” he said. “When the draft ended, you began to see more red state inductees and with that, a growth of Dominionism.”
Weinstein founded the MRFF and began to lobby Congress, the White House and the Pentagon, sounding the alarm. He says MRFF was ignored, scorned and even thrown “under the bus” by those they believed to be its friends.
MRFF now has a large Web presence and Weinstein travels the country spreading the word and raising money for his cause. He sees the hand of the Dominionists all over the place.
“The program being put into place to prevent returning soldiers from committing suicide is based on the teachings these people believe in,” he said.
He also is under fire from many Jewish organizations.
“I call them Islamophobes,” he said. “They want to paint every Islamic person with the brush of Al-Qaeda. I tell them we beat back Fascists in World War II without becoming Fascists and we can do that in Afghanistan.”
He also takes aim at Jews who have entered into an alliance with fundamentalist Christians, a relationship he thinks is short-sighted.
“The born-again Christians will be fine with it while it serves their purpose,” he said.
While attempts at lobbying and changing policy have been a slow grind, MRFF has had success as an advocate for those who feel victimized by the Dominionists’ sect.
“The military is not a place you can just say ‘no’ to a commander,” Weinstein said. “That is not an option.”
MRFF has taken on cases like that of Akiva David Miller, a Navy veteran and convert to Judaism who could not get a rabbi chaplain when he was in a Veterans Administration office. He says his request was met with an odd answer.
“They sent an Assembly of God minister who proselytized for 20 minutes while I asked him to leave,” said Miller.
He eventually was cut off from treatment. MRFF stepped in and got him a lawyer and medical treatment at a different VA Hospital.
Miller now handles veterans’ issues for MRFF.
Meanwhile, Weinstein’s phone never stops ringing. He said he and his support staff can handle the issues, including lawsuits initiated in the federal courts and aimed at the Secretary of Defense. These days it’s the organization and his personal finances that are taking a hit. That is what brought him to Seattle: The quest for funding.
Meanwhile, he said, he will sell his last sheet of toilet paper to continue his mission of keeping national defense from becoming a Christian jihad.
“The reality is these people will spill oceans of blood in the name of Christ,” he said. “They see Armageddon as a positive step.”
For more information on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, visit www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org.