Tuesday, November 05, 2019

Comments on "To the Far Right Christian Hater...You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, But You Can't Be Both" by Bonnie Weinstein

I read To the Far Right Christian Hater ... You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, but You Can't Be Both by Bonnie Weinstein in a book club I organized as a member of the local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It consists of hate messages sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), occasionally accompanied by a pithy rejoinder from the author, who is married to the organization's founder, Mikey Weinstein.

While the Establishment Clause of the USA Constitution has brought this society many benefits, some of which I've mentioned elsewhere, this book can open eyes to the dangers the continuation of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), in its neoconservative Bush-the-Small iteration or its neoliberal Obama iteration or its 45 Regime kill all non-whites iteration.


A frequent theme among the haters is that MRFF's defense of the rights of military personnel to be free of coercion based on an interpretation of Christianity and its objection to the use of government resources to promote religion threaten to undermine GWOT. According to these haters, to defeat the Muslims, we need to have a Christian military in which God is recognized and promoted and Christian officers are in charge. And we certainly can't have no gays, lesbians and trannies. And you Jews can stick around as long as you stay quiet. And we're on to your sinister plan for world domination.

And while the letters are comically poorly written, don't underestimate the extent that this thinking permeates the USA military and political establishment. Follow MRFF on Twitter or Facebook for almost weekly instances of Christian dominionist activity within the USA military and political establishment. Don't forget that long-time Islamophobe & former US Army officer & Director of Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo is now Secretary of State, in which capacity he delivered a speech entitled "Being a Christian Leader" and used government resources to promote it.

And if you think things like military coups can't happen here, there's a book about that you might want to check out.