Wednesday Afternoon, December 14, 2022 |
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MRFF AGAIN CONDEMNS THE ANNUAL
GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED DESECRATION
OF NON-CHRISTIAN VETERANS’ GRAVES
BY “WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA”
It’s that time of the year again — the time when MRFF is besieged with communications from family members of deceased veterans deeply worried that their loved ones’ graves will be most unwelcomely decorated for Christmas.
Yes, December 17 is the third Saturday in December, the day designated by a Senate resolution introduced by Maine’s senators each year as “National Wreaths Across America Day” —
the day that the Maine “non-profit” Wreaths Across America indiscriminately carpet bombs the graves in veterans
cemeteries across the country with Christmas wreaths,
whether the families of the veterans interred in
those cemeteries want an unquestionably
Christian symbol on their loved one’s grave or not.
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MRFF Matters – 12/13/22 – MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein harshly condemns the Christian supremacy of "Wreaths Across America" placing its Christmas wreaths on Jewish and
other non-Christian veterans' graves
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MRFF OP-ED
ON DAILY KOS
Trending story on Daily Kos
It’s time for this year’s “National Desecrate
a Non-Christian Veteran’s Grave Day”
By: MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
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It’s that time of the year again — the time when the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is besieged with communications from family members of deceased veterans deeply worried that their loved ones’ graves will be most unwelcomely decorated for Christmas.
Yes, December 17 is the third Saturday in December, the day designated by a Senate resolution introduced by Maine’s senators each year as “National Wreaths Across America Day” — the day that the Maine “non-profit” Wreaths Across America indiscriminately carpet bombs the graves in veterans cemeteries across the country with Christmas wreaths, whether the families of the veterans interred in those cemeteries want an unquestionably Christian symbol on their loved one’s grave or not.
Despite their claims that Wreaths Across America’s wreath-laying volunteers are instructed to not place wreaths on graves marked with the Jewish Star of David or the symbols of other non-christian religions, every year MRFF receives a slew of photos, like those at the end of this post from last year’s wreath-bombing, showing Wreaths Across America’s Christmas wreaths on the graves of numerous Jewish, Muslim, and atheist veterans.
Wreaths Across America was created in 2007 by Morrill Worcester, the owner of the Worcester Wreath Co. Morrill Worcester’s wife, Karen Worcester, is the executive director of Wreaths Across America. In other words, the Worcester’s for-profit Christmas wreath company created a non-profit organization with a need for millions of Christmas wreaths every year, and then their non-profit gave the contract for these millions of Christmas wreaths to none other than their own for-profit business.
How much money are we talking about here? Well, according to their latest available tax return, the Worcester’s non-profit Wreaths Across America took in nearly $25 million in donations in 2019 and then paid nearly $17 million of that to their for-profit wreath company to supply the wreaths.
The Worcester’s have faced much criticism over the years for the profitably incestuous relationship between their non-profit organization and their for-profit Christmas wreath company. In 2015, The Wall Street Journal came out with an article titled “Wreaths Across America Has Family Ties to Its Supplier,” and in 2018, an article from Nonprofit Quarterly magazine titled “Wreaths Across America: Is a Nonprofit Built on Conflict of Interest Still a Nonprofit?” revealed more details, such as that when the Worcester Wreath Co. lost its long-time contract with L.L. Bean, which had provided 90% of its business for decades, the Worcester’s non-profit Wreaths Across America suddenly expanded, and as of 2018 was providing between 75 and 80 percent of the Worcester Wreath Co.’s revenue.
More locally, also in 2018, The Portland Press Herald reported in an article titled “As Wreaths Across America has grown, so has scrutiny about its practices that “In five years the company has nearly tripled its business from the nonprofit.” The article also noted that “CharityWatch listed Wreaths Across America among three ‘outrageous’ examples of nonprofits operating with clear conflicts of interest.”
In 2016, apparently for show, Wreath Across America instituted a bidding process to quell all the criticism it was getting after a 2015 Money Talks News article titled “Should You Donate to Wreaths Across America? A Lesson in Charitable Giving” was widely distributed by outlets such as Yahoo! News, but the Worcester Wreath Co. provided the only bid in this bidding process, and now has its role as the sole wreath supplier for Wreaths Across America locked in until 2023.
Not surprisingly, Wreaths Across America gets a failing grade from Charity Navigator on its finances and accountability. (MRFF, by the way, enjoys a 100% “Give with Confidence” rating.)
But while all of this information about the incestuous money-making relationship between Wreaths Across America and the Worcester Wreath Co. certainly deserves much scrutiny, it is not the primary concern that MRFF or its clients have with Wreaths Across America.
As I wrote last year in a post titled “Wreaths Across America: Forcing veterans who didn’t celebrate Xmas in life to celebrate it in death,” MRFF’s issue with this so-called “non-profit” is their indiscriminate placing of their Christmas wreaths on every grave in Arlington National Cemetery as well as thousands of other cemeteries in which our country’s veterans are buried, with no regard at all to the religion of the veteran buried at any given gravesite. For example, while having issued a statement in 2014 claiming that they don’t place their wreaths on graves marked with the Star of David, the image below from the 2017 wreath-blanketing at Arlington National Cemetery, from a video shown in a 2019 FOX5 news report on the group, clearly shows a Wreaths Across America volunteer placing a wreath on a grave clearly marked with the Star of David.
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Besides the fact that a Christmas wreath is an undeniably Christian symbol, and for that reason alone should not be placed on a non-Christian’s grave, Wreaths Across America shows no regard for the reasons that Jews don’t place flowers on graves, which would also apply to wreaths. Likewise, Muslims do not place flowers or wreaths on graves. According to the website eCondolence, which provides religion-specific guidelines on visiting graves, for Muslims: “Flowers, wreaths or other memorabilia which would adorn the grave would be considered inappropriate.”
This defiling of their loved ones’ graves is deeply personal and distressing for the many family members who contact MRFF each year asking if anything can be done to stop Wreaths Across America’s congressionally-sanctioned and military-supported desecration, and MRFF founder and president Mikey Weinstein knows from personal experience just how these family members feel. In his case, it wasn’t a Christmas wreath but a Christian cross left on his Jewish veteran father’s grave at Easter. Weinstein has so far been able to keep his father’s grave wreath-free, but not without the significant time and effort it takes him each year in dealing with the VA cemetery in which his father rests to ensure that this one Jewish veteran’s grave isn’t defiled during the annual wreath-bombing:
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“My dad was a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He passed away 5 years ago and is buried in a VA cemetery not far from our home. Having had his grave already desecrated once before with a Christian cross for Easter, let me just say that NOTHING is more hideous, hurtful and humiliating than having your loved one's final resting place denigrated with a gang sign of a faith that was never that of the deceased during his or her lifetime!
“Every year now, I have to go well out of my way, as our family’s representative, to advocate numerous times on the phone with the cognizant VA cemetery personnel at my father’s cemetery to ENSURE that they understand why we want NO Wreaths Across America proselytizing object strewn on our Jewish patriarch’s grave. Every successive year it’s like the freaking movie ‘Groundhog Day”. I have to totally start over with fresh VA cemetery faces who do not seem to recall the prior year’s plea from me and my family to spare my dad the wretched shame of a Christmas wreath diminishing, disparaging, and denigrating his final resting place.
“WHY MUST WE, AND SO MANY OTHER AMERICAN FAMILIES SIMILARLY SITUATED, HAVE TO ENDURE THIS YEARLY, HORRIFIC CHRISTMAS DOMINATION AND SUPREMACY RITUAL?”
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The following are some of the many photos received by MRFF after last year’s “National Grave Desecration Day,” and I’m sure we’ll be receiving the usual flood of similar photos of Jewish and other clearly non-Christian graves reprehensibly “Christianized” this year. |
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The Unmitigated Effrontery of the Project,
Wreaths Across America
By: MRFF Supporter Rabbi Joel R. Schwartzman,
Chaplain, Col, USAF (Ret)
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
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Once again, non-Christians and even some of that faith will have their sensitivities offended by the program, Wreaths Across America. Invading national cemeteries where those who gave the last full measure of their courage and valor have been laid to rest, these wreath layers will top the graves of one and all with Christmas wreaths. Debate whether or not these wreaths relate to Christmas and are symbolic of that holiday, the project comes only and distinctly at this time of year and is sure to offend those who want nothing to do with Christianity or the celebration of Christmas, be it connected to the birth of Jesus or the gross materialism of Christmas shopping, buying and gift giving. You will see no Christmas lights on these peoples’ homes or decorated trees inside their abodes. They don’t want wreaths placed on the graves of their loved ones because those items, in their eyes, simply pay no honor to their dead, but come with supercessionist overtones.
Wreaths Across America is an expression of Christian triumphalism and gall. Assuming that everyone will be grateful for what they deem acts of selflessness and celebration, they walk on hollowed ground with proverbial cleats. Their unwanted “gifts” have been reputed to be money makers for the project managers and, if true, it adds a measure of cynical profiteering to the presumptuousness of the whole enterprise.
There are myriad stories of our fallen whose graves are not marked with crosses. There are others whose graves are mistakenly marked with a Christian symbol. There are efforts to correct some the mistaken markers, but even so, if the people involved with Wreaths Across America wanted to behave in a truly loving way, they would obtain permission from the thousands and thousands who lie in our national cemeteries. Just as the medical world is bound by HIPPA, so should those who wish to change military graves in any way have to secure the proper consent.
My own relative who fought in WWII would consider a wreath upon his grave a dis-service and desecration. Wreaths Across America doesn’t care. They will do what they will do because they know they can get away with it. This is purely wrong and, in fact, is a violation both of many of the resting places of our dead and the true Christmas spirit which touts “peace on Earth, good will to men (and women).”
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MRFF's 2021 exposés of Wreaths Across America |
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“Christmas nativity scene removed”
From: (Active Duty Military Member’s E-mail Address Withheld)
Subject: Christmas nativity scene removed
Date: November 30, 2022 at 9:59:20 AM MST
Mikey we just wanted to thank you and our local MRFF Rep. (name and rank withheld) here at (installation name withheld) for engaging with our (military unit name withheld) commander and his staff to get a Christmas nativity scene immediately removed from the main lobby of our HQ building.
This nativity scene was put in place over the Thanksgiving holiday by a group of officers and their spouses who also run some sort of bible outreach program here on base.
We know this because they actually left a small sign at the sight of the nativity scene encouraging viewers to “Contact Us For Further Christian Fellowship” and we had our MRFF Rep. follow up and confirm who these people are.
Unfortunately if MRFF had not done something about this we don’t believe anything would have happened.
In less than an hour after being contacted by both our MRFF Rep. and Mikey our commander had the nativity scene removed from our HQ lobby and placed over at the base chapel.
We don’t know what if any sort of punishment will happen to the officers and their spouses who erected it in the first place?
A lot of people liked that nativity display. They are now angry that it was removed over to the chapel. The word is out that the MRFF made it happen. They are looking for those of us who “canceled” Christmas by asking MRFF for help here to get the job done. They are screaming “Cancel Culture”. They ignore the fact that they are the ones who “canceled” their oaths to the Constitution.
Our group of (military members description withheld) who requested MRFF’s intervention does include non-Christians like Jews and Muslims and non-believers. But most of us are Christians like me who can clearly see how wrong it was for this nativity scene to be in our HQ building of all places! Over at the chapel is fine but not in the HQ building of a major combat unit.
Most of us have been deployed into combat in the sandbox and have personally observed how any kind of religious supremacy can be so harmful.
If any kind of reprisal against our group which asked the MRFF for help happens we will contact you again right away.
In the meantime thank you all at the MRFF for all you did to help us here. And thank you for all you do!
(name, rank, title withheld) on behalf of 17 other (military members description withheld) assigned to (military unit name withheld) at (military installation name withheld)
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“The censoring of Christmas in the Military”
From: (name withheld)
Subject: The censoring of Christmas in the Military
Date: December 8, 2022 at 12:28:35 PM MST
Hi,
I am writing to you seeking help in a growing problem in the military that is censoring words from our internal communications. One of the censored words is Christmas. I have noticed this is a growing problem as the years go by. Most recently it has struck our units calendar. The commander has deemed Christmas an unfit word to appear in the unit newsletter/calendar. It has gone so far as to reword the German Christmas Market to German Holiday Market. No German believes they have “Holiday Markets”! Additionally the Holiday of Christmas in the calendar is reworded to Federal Holiday. This must stop. I have attached an email chain for your review and I can provide additional Newsletters/Calendars that show what can be stated by name and what needs to be censored/euphemized.
Regards,
(name withheld)
To see response from
MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda:
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“Note From MRFF Supporter”
From: (name withheld)
Date: December 11, 2022 at 7:58:36 AM MST
Thanks for all you do, and continue to do! Just made a donation to MRFF a very worthy cause.
MRFF makes a difference everyday.
(name withheld)
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“MRFF Supporter Speaks Out”
From: (name withheld)
Date: December 11, 2022 at 11:01:49 AM MST
To: Michael L Weinstein
Mikey,
You guys have done an insanely incredible job this year. Lots of big wins for the MRFF! Nothing makes me happier than seeing fascists lose. You guys know you have a strong ally in me. Your mission hits close to who I am as a person. I just submitted a $200.00 donation to help you guys continue fighting these disgusting fascists. Let me know again in the future if you ever need another donation, and I will always be happy to assist. You guys are legit! Keep up the great & hard work!
Your friend,
(name withheld)
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