The email below from a service member, on behalf of 26 members of her military unit, thanking the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) for stopping the unit’s “outspoken conservative Christian and MAGA enthusiast” commander from “suggesting” (which in the military might as well be ordering) that everyone in the unit “should pray on our knees to the Lord to make sure our CongresMEN of spirit and faith pass a bill to keep our government from closing,” speaks for itself and needs no further introduction from me ...
From: (Active Duty U.S. Military Enlisted Member’s E-Mail Address Withheld)
Subject: MRFF stops Military Commander “suggesting” prayer to avoid government shutdown
Date: September 29, 2023 at 10:33:22 AM MDT
To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Dear (MRFF Representative’s name and rank withheld), Mikey Weinstein and the MRFF,
On behalf of 26 members of our military combat unit I wanted to thank our local base MRFF Rep. (name and rank withheld) for working so closely with Mikey Weinstein and the MRFF to stop our combat unit commander from “suggesting” at every unit meeting for the last 2 weeks that all of us “should pray on our knees to the Lord to make sure our CongresMEN of spirit and faith pass a bill to keep our government from closing.”
I happen to be both female and Catholic but we all know what our commander meant. When he “suggests” he orders. After all, he is our commander. We get it and we don’t like it this time. He is a very outspoken conservative Christian and MAGA enthusiast and never misses an opportunity to remind all of us about it. He is a member of some officer Christian group and they proselytize at every turn in the road here in our unit and elsewhere on our installation.
After we consulted with our base MRFF Rep. she worked with Mikey Weinstein to take our complaints to senior command and they apparently were able to get our commander to stop “suggesting” these prayers. He has not only stopped this demeaning Christian proselytizing behavior but he has now also even taken down several framed signs in his office citing New Testament passages warning of the consequences of not accepting Christ as Savior.
For the record: of the 26 MRFF clients here 19 are either Catholic like me or Protestant. The others are Muslim, Atheist, Jewish and Buddhist.
Without the immediate intervention of the MRFF working with our base MRFF Rep. we never would have been able to get the win here!
Thanks MRFF for everything!
(Active Duty U.S. Military Enlisted Member’s Name, Rank, MOS/AFSC, Unit and Installation ALL Withheld)
If you haven’t done so already, please take a minute to submit our petition letter opposing Christian nationalist Rep. Mike Turner’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which, if passed, would make it ILLEGAL for members of the military to contact or respond to MRFF, to your representative and senators. Turner’s amendment must be stopped so that MRFF can continue to effectively fight the Christian nationalist insanity in our military like what’s described in the above email.