A little over two years ago, in January 2023, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), acting on a complaint from a group of seventeen alumni, staff, faculty, and midshipmen at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in Kings Point, New York, sent a demand to the Academy’s superintendent that a gigantic painting of Jesus hovering over a lifeboat be removed from its completely improper and Constitution-violating location in the Academy’s Wiley Hall administrative building. MRFF suggested that the painting be relocated to the Academy’s chapel, where such a painting should be.
The colossal Christian canvas dominated the Elliot M. See room within Wiley Hall — the room used for, among other things, Midshipmen Honor Boards, at which midshipmen must defend themselves against alleged honor violations. Just imagine being a non-Christian USMMA midshipman in that already distressing situation, with your whole future hanging in the balance, and then throw in a giant Jesus hanging over the proceedings to make it even more distressing. To non-Christian USMMA midshipmen, faculty, and staff finding themselves in this room, even for more routine reasons, the looming lord and savior of the Christians might as well have been a great big neon sign saying, “You really don’t belong here.”
Now, the enormous size of the painting was a legitimate issue, but the Academy’s superintendent, Vice Admiral Joanna M. Nunan, who had just taken the helm at the Academy a little over a month earlier, decided to temporarily cover it with a curtain, after which it was decided to move it to the chapel. As part of the move, the painting would be sent to a conservator for cleaning and restoration before being installed in the chapel.
In September 2023, the Academy put out an update on the painting saying that the cleaning and restoration were finished and the painting had been returned to the Academy, a statement which said in part:
“The conservation firm noted that ‘it took 4 distinct separate cleanings to remove nicotine, dirt and varnish from the water, boat, and Christ (with aura).’”
So, apparently, nobody really gave a crap about this Jesus painting, letting it get so filthy that it took four separate cleanings to get all the savior-slighting grime off of it. But as soon as MRFF got it moved, it suddenly became a treasure of the Academy, beloved by generations of midshipmen, and the MAGAs, including a number of MAGA Congress members, were on a crusade to vilify MRFF over getting it moved.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Trump’s new secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, visited the Merchant Marine Academy, which unlike the other service academies, which are under the Department of Defense, is under the Department of Transportation, although its midshipmen graduate with an officer’s commission in the U.S. Armed Forces.
A former reality TV star on MTV’s The Real World: Boston, Road Rules: All Stars, and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons, Duffy went on to go into politics, first as district attorney for Ashland County, Wisconsin, and then in Congress, representing Wisconsin’s 7th district, supporting Trump’s Muslim ban and introducing a bill to increase Trump’s tariff powers, becoming a perfect Trump sycophant for a cabinet position in the second MAGA administration.
Speaking to a group of Academy midshipmen, Duffy whipped his audience into a frenzy when he asked at the end of his speech, “Can we bring Jesus up from the basement?”
This is the video that Secretary Duffy posted to his social media accounts, in which there were clearly more than a few attendees who weren’t cheering and others who only joined in after it seemed like they had to:
So, why might the midshipmen have felt like they had to join in? Watch this different clip, which shows Duffy soliciting the continued applause:
Plans, disclosed to MRFF, were already underway for the painting to be moved to the American Merchant Marine Museum at the Academy, which, like its present location in the chapel, is an appropriate place to display ginormous Jesus. However, after Duffy’s rallying cry to move Jesus out of the basement and solicited applause, as well as his postings on all his social media accounts, we are expecting that an attempt will be made to put the painting back where it was.
We have little doubt that a group called STARRS, which really, really hates MRFF, was at least partially responsible for getting Secretary Duffy to put on his little bring-Jesus-back performance. Founded in 2020 by a group of retired Christian nationalist/MAGA military officers whose fragile sensibilities were shaken by seeing members of the Air Force Academy’s football team staff supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, STARRS, which stands for “Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services,” is devoted to pushing the MAGA canard that DEI is racist.
The Merchant Marine Academy wasn’t even on STARRS’s radar until MRFF got the Academy to move the painting. It wasn’t even included in the drop-down “Academies” menu on the STARRS website, as you can see in this archived February 2023 version of the site. But once they latched onto the story they were like a dog with a bone, reporting on every new development and even doing a FOIA request on the moving of the painting.
You will no doubt be hearing more from me about STARRS, but the big reason I’m bringing this group up now is that Trump has nominated STARRS Executive Vice President Matthew Lohmeier, who was kicked out of the Space Force in 2021, to be undersecretary of the Air Force, which shows just how tight this group is with the Trump administration.
In response to Secretary Duffy’s little show at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and the story published yesterday by The Christian Post, with the headline “Midshipmen erupt when Duffy demands Jesus painting be restored at Merchant Marine Academy: 'Let's bring Him up!,’” and not being afforded the reasonably expected journalistic opportunity to comment, MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein has issued the following observations and comments regarding the ‘reporting’ on U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s recent appearance at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy:
"The new and improved name of the United States Merchant Marine Academy (with a hat tip to the most anti-Semitic work of William Shakespeare, The United States Merchant of Venice Academy (USMVA).
tRump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is clearly bereft of any semblance of morality, ethical standard, or constitutional legality (obviously required with all MAGA filthy, ignorant, hateful, bigoted scum) and is merely throwing rotting dripping, fetid, red meat to the Christian Nationalist MAGA fascists in America, who are clearly sprinkled among the USMVA midshipmen, staff and faculty.
Duffy is simply a stray, feral dog, lifting his leg and urinating a rancid fundamentalist Christian fealty on what MAGA fascists now apparently view as a front yard lawn toy rather than an honored cornerstone of the defense of our constitutionally created secular democratic republic.
If you see anything else out there like this, because we’ve been around more than 20 years and MRFF has had multiple thousands of victories for our clients, any of which the MAGA Christian Nationalists could try to undo at any time, make sure you let us know so that we can also shine a big light of constitutional rationality and reason on that church-state miscarriage of constitutional justice. When we say “SCAR” (Stay Calm and Resist), this is EXACTLY the type of resistance we are talking about.
As the recently late great actor Gene Hackman once said, 'The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways.'
To the cheering robustious throngs of Christian Nationalist midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant of Venice Academy, and to their dear MAGA fascist cheerleader Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, MRFF commands: ‘Side Step HARCH!,’ you stinking piece-of-shit Christian Nationalist insects!!
If you simply move that giant Jesus painting to some secular place at your Academy (such as your museum), MRFF has no issue whatsoever with that non-sectarian and constitutionally compliant location.
However, if you continue to debase and defile yourselves by demanding the return of highly sectarian religious artwork to its previous unconstitutional location, you will spark WORLD WAR 8!! Specifically, you will be ‘lifting a leg’ on the First Amendment’s insuperable mandate to separate that humongous sectarian religious painting of Jesus from that secular USMVA ornate conference room and its intended use (i.e., it’s not a chapel).
Indeed, if you make that wholly unconstitutional choice, you will have made your sworn oath to the weaponized gospel of Christian Nationalist Rambo Jesus!! You will have proven that you dishonorably and fraudulently swore an oath you freely made to our shared and intentionally secular US Constitution.
You KNOW we are right when the sycophantic Ted Cruz (that well-known effusive tRump ass-kisser) attacks us publicly for being evildoers!
Do it USMVA! Move that giant Jesus painting back to its original place of bloody controversy in that huge secular conference room USMVA. What will happen if you do? Well, FAFO (F*** Around, Find Out)!!!"
In addition to his written statement, Mikey also recorded a little video message:
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