UPDATE (01.23.2011): All updates to this ‘Clebe McClary bulletin’ will be posted near the end of the article.
Thank you Free Republic, Weasel Zippers, Doug Ross @ Journal, Larwyn’s Linx and StanDeyo for pitching in!
Marine 1st Lt. Clebe McClary
Next, they’ll be trying to snuff out officers who are ‘too straight’, or ‘too white’…
(Gazette) A religious rights group is calling for the removal of the Air Force Academy’s top officer after a flap over a speaker planned for a February prayer luncheon at the school.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says the academy’s choice of retired Marine 1st Lt. Clebe McClary shows that superintendent Lt. Gen. Mike Gould remains tilted toward evangelical Christianity and tolerates an environment where proselytizing is accepted.
Lt. Gen. Mike Gould
“We’re done,” said academy graduate Mikey Weinstein, the foundation’s founder and a frequent foe of religious practices at the school. “Gould needs to go.”
An academy spokesman, Lt. Col. John Bryan, defended the choice of McClary and said the planned prayer gathering is optional and inclusive of a broad spectrum of religious views.
“Nobody is being forced or coerced to go to this luncheon,” Bryan said.
McClary is a wounded Vietnam veteran who overcame his disabilities and now says he’s in the “Lord’s Army.”
Bryan said he’s heard McClary speak and came away with inspiration for overcoming obstacles rather than religious philosophy.
“He’s a nationally recognized motivational speaker,” Bryan said.
McLary’s website lists testimonials from celebrities including The Rev. Billy Graham and former Denver Broncos coach Dan Reeves.
The academy first sought retired Army general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell to speak at the luncheon, but when he couldn’t make it due to schedule conflicts, McClary was picked to keynote the annual event. He’ll be paid $2,500 and airfare reimbursement.
Weinstein points to McClary’s website for evidence that the speaker is too evangelical for the academy.
“To him, USMC will always mean a U. S. Marine for Christ,” McClary’s website says.
“Such statements are not only antithetical to the clear mission of the United States Air Force Academy, they are totally anathema to the purportedly globally inclusive purpose of this National Prayer Luncheon,” Weinstein wrote in a letter to Gould and Defense Department officials.
Several groups, including the Colorado branch of the American Civil Liberties Union have written Gould in support of Weinsten’s effort.
Weinstein has battled the academy in recent months over the school’s failure to include him in a conference on the school’s religious tolerance practices and the academy’s initial failure to release results of a survey that showed concerns about prosyletizing there.
Gould hasn’t responded to Weinstein’s latest letter.
PLEASE let the United States Air Force Academy Public Affairs know what’s on your mind. Tell ‘em Sad Hill sent ya…:
Mailing Address
HQ USAFA/PA
2304 Cadet Drive Suite 3100
U.S. Air Force Academy, CO 80840-5016
Phone: 719.333.7731
Fax: 719.333.4094
Community Relations: pa.comrel@usafa.af.mil
Media Relations: media.pam@usafa.af.mil
~snip~
UPDATE #1 (01.22.2011): Hypocritical Oath taken directly off Weinstein’s site – MRFF’s Mission Statement (h/t: taxesareforever):
UPDATE #2 (01.22.2011): MRFF Letter from Weinstein to General Gould:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: BEKKI MILLER
(337) 356-8696
bekki.miller@militaryreligiousfreedom.org
(MRFF) ALBUQUERQUE – Albuquerque-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has demanded that the United States Air Force Academy rescind their invitation to former Marine Lt. Clebe McClary to speak at the Academy’s upcoming National Prayer Luncheon. “Egregiously sectarian statements like [those] from former Lt. McClary blatantly exclude not only non-Christians, but also the many Christians who do not subscribe to a particularly fundamentalist view of Christianity,” said Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, President and Founder of MRFF. MRFF’s letter, linked below, closes by demanding that the Air Force Academy “immediately rescind its invitation to former Lt. McClary and choose a new speaker who can appropriately embody a message of inclusiveness for all Academy attendees.”
MRFF’s January 20th, 2011 Demand Letter to U.S. Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michael C. Gould: Please see below.
-
UPDATE #3 (01.23.2011): Who is ‘Mikey‘ Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation? (h/t: Girlene): SEE HERE
CAUTION: This document contains Mikey Weinstein’s extremely violent, profanity-laced, and bigoted comments against all evangelical Christians who believe the New Testament of the Bible: HERE
(PIJN) On 21 April the Pentagon disinvited Franklin Graham to speak at their National Day of Prayer event, because Graham allegedly made previous controversial statements, by daring to criticize some Muslims who beat their wives, kill their children for suspicion of adultery, and committed mass genocide against 2 million Christians in Sudan.
But the real question is, why did the Air Force Academy invite Mikey Weinstein (whose letter to SECDEF got Graham disinvited) to speak to cadets at their National Character and Leadership Symposium in February 2010, when Mikey Weinstein has made statements far worse than Graham’s, threatening violence and swearing vulgar obscenities at all evangelical Christians, up to 38 million American people on whom he has declared war?
Continue reading: HERE
UPDATE #4 (01.23.2011): Weinstein and cronies sue Fort Carson for over emblem with cross and inscription, “For God and Humanity” (h/t: Erik and rybbr): HERE
Note: ‘It’s inscribed with “For God and Humanity” — not “For God and Americans” or “For God and Christians.” And it’s a hospital, not a combat unit.
(PajamasMedia) Persecution of Christians worldwide, particularly at the hands of Muslims, is a well-documented phenomenon despite the successful attempts by most major Western and American media organs to ignore it.
Persecution of Christians in the United States — a country where almost 80% of the population, some 240 million, is of that faith — is deemed, ipso facto, an absurdity by some and an undeniable fact by others. As a conservative yet non-fundamentalist (Lutheran) Christian, Army veteran, and former academic specializing in Islamic history, I agree that Christians are notcurrently being persecuted in this country. I do discern, nonetheless, a worrisome growing intolerance of the majority faith coupled with a kneejerk support of minority religions.
Particularly, and unsurprisingly, Islam.
This year alone, there have been four prominent attacks on Christian connections to the U.S. military:
• Charges of neo-Crusaderism against military supplier Trijicon for its gunsights inscribed with New Testament verses.
• Charges of neo-Crusaderism against an Army unit for daring to have a cross as part of its unit insignia.
• The branding as “a hate crime” the placing of a cross next to the the Air Force Academy’s neo-pagan worship site.
• The Army’s decision to disinvite prominent evangelical Franklin Graham from speaking at a Pentagon prayer service on the National Day of Prayer.
These four incidents all have one major factor in common: the involvement of Mikey Weinstein and his “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” — which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last fall.
Weinstein is a former member of the Air Force JAG (Judge Advocated General’s) Corps — an attorney — and a self-proclaimed secular crusader for rebuilding what he calls the military’s “obliterated wall separating church and state.”
Since Weinstein blames evangelical Protestants for allegedly breaching this wall, he directs most of his ire against them. They don’t hesitate to return fire, often citing Weinstein’s own intemperate, crass words. Weinstein gets plenty of support from the media, as is obvious from a sympathetic 2009Harper’s article with an inflammatory title: “Jesus Killed Mohammad: The Crusade for a Christian Military.” The piece quotes him at length and takes his assertions at face value.
I will leave it to Weinstein’s evangelical Protestant opponents to question his salvation status; however, his misrepresentations of history — Christian, American, and even Islamic — are certainly fair game and call into question his logic and motives. If Weinstein were simply the head of a “religious watchdog group,” working out a personal animus against Christians and Christianity in the military, we could perhaps ignore him, but his views appear to be not just influential but gaining traction among some elements of the Obama administration.
Weinstein’s favorite trope is that the American military is somehow being turned into a “Crusader” army by the nefarious Protestants within its ranks, as exemplified by the “Crusader” unit heraldry which, according to him, “continues to add more fodder to the argument that we are Crusaders. … It’s exactly what fundamentalist Muslims want.”
UPDATE #5 (01.11.2011): Air Force Academy Prayer Luncheon With Clebe McClary ‘A Go’ – Judge Sends ‘Speculative’ Mikey Weinstein’s MRFF Home: HERE
~snip~
‘Mikey’ Weinstein gets Franklin Graham disinvited from National Day Of Prayer (h/t: Girlene): HERE
Rev. Franklin Graham banned from National Day of Prayer: HERE and HERE
McClary’s Biography: HERE
McClary Silver Star Citation (h/t: Retain Mike): HERE
Team Napolitano labels returning veterans as ‘lone wolf extremists’: HERE
Weak-Kneed Christians: HERE
Hat tip: Dad/Mom
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kate, Bill Balderama and Josh B., sadhillnews. sadhillnews said: Just blogged: Wounded Marine, 1st Lieutenant Clebe McClary, 'Too Evangelical' For Air Force Academy PRAYER Lunche http://tinyurl.com/4mdsump [...]
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MIkey Weinsten seems to be the person to be afraid of!!! He wants to limit who can and cannot speak at a function that is not mandatory to attend!!! Ridiculous!
Yup.
He’s got quite the rap sheet:
http://prayinjesusname.org/mikeyquotes
Don’t forget about when Weinstein’s group sued Fort Carson in April 2010 for having a cross and motto on the emblem of Evans Army hospital by saying it violated the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state.
The emblem simply says, “Pro deo et humanitate” or “For God and humanity.”
Weinstein claimed it’s a reference to the Crusades and could embolden U.S. enemies who want to portray the war on terror as a Christian war on Islam.
The truth is…. the cross, which has a pointed base, is both an emblem of mercy and a symbol dating to the Middle Ages, when pilgrims carried a cross with a spiked base to mark the site of a camp.
God help us all.
Thanks Winston. It’ll be added to the article.
[...] UPDATE (01.23.2011): Complete update on Mikey’s latest assault on Christianity: HERE [...]
[...] sadhillnews.com -- Sun 23 Jan ‘11 [...]
[...] Mikey Weinstein MRFF Air Force Academy, Wounded Marine, 1st Lt. McClary, ‘Too Evangelical’ for AFA Prayer Luncheon [...]
Miker Weinstein, just sounds like a coward to me.
Me too!
I write as a veterans’ advocate at Veterans Today (VT).
VT supports a secular military and secular acdemies where all can make their own decisions on religion.
I think you folks speak from the heart but our country and military do not have an official religion and never should.
Although the military does not endorse any religion, what is clear about Mikey weinstein’s organization, is a clear unabashed bias against Evangelical Christians. The amount of hatred focused toward one group of people is clear in this action. He hates the very idea of Evangelicals promoting any sort of gospel message.
This prayer luncheon is obviously directed towards an audiance that is primarily Christian. If Hindus, Muslims, Jews, have a specific prayer meeting, I know that they would invite a speaker geared towards their own set of beliefs. It just so happens that a majority of USAFA cadets are “Christian”. No one is being forced to go to this event. Weinstein and his group seek only to target this group which threatens their view of a world that is free from Christianity.
The fact is, the military is rooted in Christian tradition, whether you like to admit it or not, and a large majority of its Soldiers come from a background of such. After 5 years as an Army officer with many months deployed in a dirty Iraqi combat outpost, I learned that there were no negative actions, from Chaplains preaching the gospel. Soldiers in combat are very receptive to the redemptive message of the cross. Athiests and agnostics have always been free to avoid chapel, or any organized religious event. No one in the military Chaplain corps forces anything upon another service member. This has nothing to do with freedom of religion. It is Mikey Weinstein’s personal vendetta against Christ and His Church, and what they stand for.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18
To add (from an article I never got around to posting):
‘If Muslims were treated like Christians in America, Muslims would have to tolerate the defamation of their holiest images in our national museums, acts which would be called “artwork” -- and, if particularly provocative, even given taxpayer-funded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. They would also have to accept Korans being burned and thrown into toilets, which instead of inciting worldwide outrage and retribution would provoke a collective shrug of the shoulders.
In fact, it is Christians, not Muslims, who increasingly encounter cultural elites who are hostile to their beliefs and values.
Sadly, Christians will never be treated like Muslims by America’s elites. Why? Because Christianity can be attacked without fear of retribution. The Christian response to insult and attack — “to turn the other cheek” — contradicts the knee-jerk call to violence of many Islamists.’
It’s also because left-wing elites and radical Islamists are united in the common cause of upending the Judeo-Christian culture and roots of American society.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40839&s=rcmp
The ACLU could not get the In God We Trust removed from our money so they are attacking the heroes of our great country the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. I wonder what battles for our USA freedoms Mickey Winestein (sp) has fought……..I hear the sounds of silence…..well, then…..it seems my reading of retired 1st Lt. McClary’s Vietnam battles were true. He is a hero and to attack him is to attack all that is right and true in our great Country. By the way, someone should tell Weinstein that the Evangelicals are doing what Christ said to do in the last part of the book of Matthew….’go and spread the Word to the whole world…..etc, etc, etc,…..’
Please get used to hearing about Christ, you non Christians, or as my cousin, a GIrl Scout retired leader would say: “Put on your big girl panties and deal with it!” Patricia from St. Louis, MO
[...] “Welcome to ‘God damn America,’ Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama style”??? Wounded Marine, 1st Lieutenant Clebe McClary, ‘Too Evangelical’ For Air Force Academy PRAYER Lun… On 01.22.11 by Sad [...]
I have no doubt of LT McClary’s faith or sincerity. I do wonder, though, about why a man with an Irish surname would be anything but Roman Catholic. I wonder if he has any sense of family history and tradition.
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[...] Wounded Marine, Clebe McClary, ‘too evangelical’ for USAFA prayer luncheon: HERE [...]
[...] WARNING: The Gazette is an extreme leftist rag. They immediately attempt to debunk Hollister while accusing him of improper active, before reporting the news. They did the same thing with Clebe McClary – gave an accuser the spotlight for most of the article on Christians ‘destroying’ the Air Force. [...]
[...] is the challenge we are dealing with here,” he said. “(It’s) an ongoing attempt to purge God from the public setting while at the same time demanding from the courts an increased yielding to all things atheist and [...]
[...] Wounded Marine, Clebe McClary, ‘too evangelical’ for USAFA prayer luncheon: HERE and HERE [...]
[...] Wounded Marine, Clebe McClary, ‘too evangelical’ for USAFA prayer luncheon: HERE and HERE [...]
[...] Wounded Marine, Clebe McClary, ‘too evangelical’ for USAFA prayer luncheon: HERE and HERE [...]
[...] Complete update on Mikey’s latest assault on Christianity, the USAFA and wounded Marine, Clebe McClary: HERE [...]
[...] Wounded Marine, Clebe McClary, ‘too evangelical’ for USAFA prayer luncheon: HERE [...]