Friday Evening, April 26, 2024

MRFF VICTORY WITHIN 3 HOURS!!!

ARMY BASES EXPEDITIOUSLY REMOVE 

REPUGNANT CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST 

NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER ARTWORK

AFTER MRFF DEMAND LETTER

This year, the Christian dominionist “National Day Prayer (NDP) Task Force” has outdone itself with its militaristic Christian nationalist graphic, which is comprised of a hand holding up a sword with a Christian cross on it and “sacred heart” on its hilt, with a shield behind it covered with Christian symbology, and an American flag as the sky in the background. 

Unfortunately, the chaplains Fort Riley and Fort Huachuca were using this NDP Task Force tour-de-force of Christian nationalism and fundamentalist Christian militarism to promote their bases’ events, stamping it with their seal of approval by putting the official Army Chaplain Corps emblem on it.

Yesterday, MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein emailed a letter to the Commanding Generals of Fort Riley and Fort Huachuca demanding that their bases immediately cease using the repugnant Christian nationalist image.

FORT RILEY REMOVED THE ABHORRENT ARTWORK

WITHIN 3 HOURS OF MRFF’S DEMAND!!!

FORT HUACHUCA REMOVED IT TODAY,

AS WAS PROMISED TO MIKEY WEINSTEIN

VIA BOTH TELEPHONE AND EMAIL BY A

SENIOR ARMY PENTAGON OFFICIAL!!!

MRFF UPDATED OP-ED

ON DAILY KOS

Trending story on Daily Kos

MRFF demands Army bases immediately cease using Christian nationalist National Day of Prayer artwork

By: MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Updated Friday, April 26, 2024

UPDATE!!!!

Within three hours of posting this post on Daily Kos and MRFF sending its official demand to the U.S. Army’s Commanding Generals at Fort Riley and Fort Huachuca, Fort Riley completely removed the Christian nationalist National Day of Prayer Task Force artwork and is now using generic, non-denominational artwork. Fort Huachuca has also now deleted the Christian nationalist NDP Task Force artwork.

It’s that time of year again – time for the National Day of Prayer – that day set aside each year for the government to completely unconstitutionally tell everybody to pray.

This national day of flipping-the-bird-at-the-Constitution takes place annually on the first Thursday in May, which this year is next Thursday, May 2. 

The president, in accordance with Public Law 100-307, will issue an official proclamation, whether they want to or not, calling the nation to prayer, although our current “woke” president, to his credit, has let the heathens off the hook in his previous proclamations, telling the country’s ungodly reprobates that they can just “give thanks, in accordance with their own faith and conscience” instead of praying to God like the “people of faith.”

National Day of Prayer events will take place at churches, public buildings, and other locations across the country, and most will be promoted using the materials provided by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which each year selects a theme and produces posters, flyers, etc. with their graphics on them.

The National Day of Prayer (NDP) Task Force is not in any way an official organization connected to the government, but does its best to present itself as such, giving many the impression that this private fundamentalist, dominionist, Christian nationalist organization’s theme and graphics are officially sanctioned by the government.

During the twenty-five year reign of Focus on the Family’s Shirley Dobson as Chair of the NDP Task Force from 1991 to 2016 and for a few years after that, the NDP Task Force’s main event was a big 4-hour-long Christian nationalist extravaganza in Washington, D.C., but during the COVID pandemic the event became a video broadcast and has continued as a video broadcast since then.

During its years as a live, in-person event in Washington, D.C., the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) regularly went after the military’s participation in the NDP Task Force’s Washington, D.C. event, which included military color guards, military bands, and high-ranking military speakers in uniform, all in clear violation of a plethora of military regulations. Most notably, in 2010 MRFF, acting on behalf of a group of Muslim Pentagon personnel, successfully got that year’s NDP Task Force honorary chairman Franklin Graham disinvited from speaking at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer event because of his history of virulent Islamophobic remarks. 

National Day of Prayer events also take place on most military bases, and while the day is supposed to be for members of all faiths, and absolutely should be in our pluralistic military, many military base events use the NDP Task Force’s exclusively Christian, dominionist, Christian nationalist theme, and promote their events using the NDP Task Force’s Christian nationalistic graphics (complete with the NDP Task Force’s logo, which constitutes an additional violation of the DoD’s prohibition on endorsing non-federal entities).

This year, the NDP Task Force has outdone itself with its militaristic Christian nationalist graphic, which is comprised of a hand holding up a sword with a Christian cross on it and “sacred heart” on its hilt, with a shield behind it covered with Christian symbology, and an American flag as the sky in the background. 

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the chaplains at many military bases, who should be organizing non-denominational events that are inclusive of all personnel of any religion who want to attend, are using this NDP Task Force tour-de-force of Christian nationalism and fundamentalist Christian militarism as the graphic to promote their bases’ events, stamping it with their seal of approval by putting the official Army Chaplain Corps emblem on it.

The images below are the National Day of Prayer promotional materials from two Army bases, Fort Riley in Kansas and Fort Huachuca in Arizona. 

While the odiously Christian nationalistic NDP Task Force graphic is almost certainly being used by chaplains on many other bases as well, it was soldiers and civilian employees from Fort Riley and Fort Huachuca, 185 of them in total from just these two bases, who came to MRFF, disgusted by the official use by their bases of this exclusively Christian, anti-American, Christian nationalistic imagery. And it is to the commanding generals of these two bases that MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein has sent the following letter, demanding that they “IMMEDIATELY cease and desist from [their] utilization of that horrendous image reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian nationalism paradigm!”

MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein’s

letter to Major General John Meyer III at Fort Riley and Major General Richard Appelhans at Fort Huachuca demanding that their bases immediately cease using the National Day of Prayer Task Force’s detestable Christian nationalist artwork

Thursday, April 25, 2024

April 25, 2024

Major General John Meyer III and Major General Richard Appelhans,

As the Commanding Generals at Fort Riley, Kansas and Fort Huachuca, Arizona, respectively, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF; mrff.org) demands your immediate action to remediate the illicit, unconstitutional civil rights violations generated by the promotion of your installations’ production and facilitation of the “National Day of Prayer” event taking place at your respective military bases on the morning of Thursday, May 2, 2024.

*FYI: In this regard, MRFF is currently representing a total of 185 active duty United States Army soldiers and Army civilians under your direct commands; 29 at Fort Huachuca and 156 at Fort Riley. (While this unconstitutional, pernicious travesty may indeed be happening at other Army and DoD installations, MRFF has currently only received client complaints from your two commands at this moment.)

The overwhelming number of MRFF client complainants on these two matters are dutiful followers of the Christian faith themselves. Indeed, they deserve special credit for recognizing the truly OUTRAGEOUS nature of the repulsive, bigoted image of prejudice chosen by your personal staffs to promote, “advertise,” and “entice" your U.S. Army subordinates to attend these two non-secular events under your direct commands. Other faith traditions extant amongst MRFF Army client complainants herein include Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Native American, and Old Norse troops. Non-faith traditions also represented amongst our MRFF client complainants under your direct commands include Atheism, Agnosticism, Humanism, and Secularism.

Without belaboring the sickening specifics of this sordid matter for which the two of you are principally responsible any further, please see this breaking news article outlining all germane issues, immediately below, authored by Ms. Chris Rodda, MRFF’s Senior Research Director:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/4/25/2237194/-MRFF-demands-Army-bases-immediately-cease-using-Christian-nationalist-National-Day-of-Prayer-artwork

Major Generals Meyer and Appelhans, as the Commanding Generals at your respective, storied Army installations, you both are 100% responsible to follow and enforce inter alia your solemn commissioning oaths to the U.S. Constitution, its construing Federal caselaw, all DoD and Dept. of the Army Regulations, Directives and Instructions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the U.S. Army’s 7 Core values. That despicable National Day of Prayer image, SPECIFICALLY sporting the official "U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Seal of Approval,” savagely violates all of the aforementioned mandates of Constitutional compliance!

Fundamentalist Christian nationalism is the same ugly, wholly unlawful propellant that actuated the January 6, 2022 riots and continues to afflict every molecule of democracy and decency in our nation today, 

Your direct endorsement and validation of the use of that filthy, divisive image of the very ESSENCE of Christian nationalism to “encourage” your Army subordinates to attend this National Day of Prayer event on your installations MUST STOP NOW!

MRFF demands on behalf of our 185 U.S. Army client complainants that you IMMEDIATELY cease and desist from your utilization of that horrendous image reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian nationalism paradigm! To wit, MRFF demands that you expeditiously redact it from any websites or other social media and any and all other communication mediums used at your respective installations!

Further, MRFF demands that you immediately issue a clarion call serving as a sincere and fervent apology to all U.S. military and civilian personnel under your direct commands for even ALLOWING that shameful image to be used by your staffs in the first place! Additionally, MRFF demands that you investigate and aggressively punish any U.S. Army personnel under your commands who either directly or indirectly facilitated the use of that reprehensible symbol of fundamentalist Christian supremacy, exclusivism, triumphalism, and domination!

Hatred, bigotry and prejudice have NO PLACE in the U.S. armed forces and particularly at the military installations where you currently serve the American people as Commanding Generals. Your present allowance of that putrid symbol of sectarian, weaponized Christian exceptionalism to promote your “National Day of Prayer” events utterly destroys the good order, morale, discipline, and unit cohesion requisite to ensure that those under your commands can maximize their honorable service to the American people as effective Army soldiers and Army civilian members.

MRFF is standing by to receive your timely response to our just civil rights demands lodged on behalf of your United States Army subordinates under your personal commands.

Sincerely, 

Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, Esq.

Founder and President

Military Religious Freedom Foundation 

505-250-7727

A few of MRFF’s past National Day of Prayer highlights

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