One call, that's all: Atheist picks up phone, Air Force surrenders again

By Chad Groening, OneNewsNow.com October 31, 2014 6

After receiving Weinstein's complaint, Wing Commander Col. Craig R. Baker ordered the newsletter reprinted without Marquinez's article.


An atheist known for attacking expressions of faith in the U.S. Armed Forces has convinced the Air Force to remove a newsletter contribution from a colonel because he mentioned his faith.

Mikey Weinstein, who leads the so-called Military Religious Freedom Foundation, complained after an Air Force colonel wrote about his faith in a newsletter called "The Stinger."

The colonel is Florencio Marquinez, a medical group commander in the 180th Fighter Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard. Among other observations, the colonel wrote in the newsletter that his faith has sustained him throughout his military career.
Ron Crews, executive director of The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, says the Ohio Air National Guard cannot censor the protected speech of one of its members based on the content of that speech.

"When we found out about this," says Crews, "we drafted a letter to the commander to give him the constitutional reasons why this good colonel has every right to say that faith is what has sustained him in his military career."

Naming challenges he has overcome, Marquinez wrote that he lost his father at age 24, and has endured discrimination, been tempted with drugs and alcohol, and endured the challenges of the medical field, all while working his way from an enlisted man to a colonel.

"It is my strong spiritual foundation that has kept the light shining on my path," he wrote, crediting his mother for "leading our whole family to Jesus Christ."

The newsletter story can be seen here.

After receiving Weinstein's complaint, Wing Commander Col. Craig R. Baker ordered the newsletter reprinted without Marquinez's article.

Weinstein has congratulated himself in the past for how quickly military leaders respond to his complaints – even counting the minutes - and this time was no different.

"After merely speaking with me once over the phone," Weinstein wrote, the "amazing and caring" Col. Baker "immediately recognized the seriousness of this egregious Constitutional and Air Force regulation violation."

Crews, however, calls the colonel's decision "just one more egregious example" of the Air Force denying officers and airmen the right to exercise their faith.

OneNewsNow has reported on the ongoing fight over religious expression in the U.S. Armed Forces, including removing Bibles from U.S. Navy hotel rooms; condemning a cadet's white board with a Bible verse; cancelling a visit by Missouri guardsman to a church; and taking down a Nativity scene at an Air Force base, among other examples.

Weinstein has taken credit for some of those decisions, though Crews and other religious liberty groups have convinced the military to reverse some of them over his objections.

While claiming his group represents Christians in uniform, Weinstein has referred to Christians in the armed forces as "gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces."

Despite his anti-religous actions, Weinstein has complained to Fox News and Dr. James Dobson that they called him an "atheist" and threatened to sue them for defamation.

Weinstein and his organization "work very hard in their effort to ensure freedom of religion for everyone," an attorney for Weinstein wrote to Megyn Kelly and Dr. Dobson.

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