Who’s Praying For Their Enemies to Get Breast Cancer?

A women’s prayer group is praying for their fellow women fighting for a secular military to get incurable breast cancer.

The prayer group wrote to a leader of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) that:

“We pray that the women who work in your MRFF and the women in your family will befall fast moving breast cancer which can not everbe [sic] cured.”

The email was addressed to the founder of MRFF Michael Weinstein and followed him hanging up the phone on an abusive call from a member of the prayer group. It names 14 key women members of MRFF and says that they pray they get breast cancer.

The email says: “America … is Jesus’ country.” MRFF has been fighting since 2005 against a concerted push by what Weinstein calls “the fundamentalist Christian Taliban” against the separation of church and state in the military, and the email is just one example of the nasty push back Weinstein, as well as other supporters of MRFF, has received.

Weinstein is a Republican, Honor Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and from three generations of members of the military. He established the foundation after his sons received religious discrimination at the Academy, as he had also received. He says:

“This battle started because I was a pissed off parent. I found out that my sons were being called f..ing Jews and being accused of total complicity in the execution of Jesus Christ at the United States Air Force Academy.”

Weinstein believes that the activities of the ‘Christian Taliban’ “is creating an internal national security threat.”

Since 2005, more than 27,000 active duty members of the United States Armed Forces have asked for support from MRFF as ‘spiritual rape victims/tormentees.’ 96% of the service men and women are Christians themselves. Among the cases the group has litigated are those of threats of violence against atheist service persons.

It was MRFF who uncovered the Jesus rifles controversy, when rifle scopes manufactured by US government contractor Trijicon were discovered to be engraved with biblical scripture citations.

Last year, MRFF uncovered that the ethical indoctrination course material for nuclear missile launch officers contained Christian militarist components.

Of the latest assault on the group, MRFF says:

MRFF’s fight is against the most extreme religious zealots the United States has to offer. The same extremist mentality causing women to pray for the cancer deaths of fourteen wonderful women has also resulted in U.S. Marines posing next to a Nazi SS flag, a Marine Fighter Squadron fighting under the name and imagery of Crusaders, Air Force nuclear missile launch officers effectively being taught that “Jesus Loves Nukes”, along with countless other examples of blatantly unconstitutional and maliciously inappropriate religious incursion in the military.

MRFF’s significant base of Christian supporters often shares their horror at the actions undertaken by fundamentalist Christian extremists that give all Christians a bad name and awful reputation. Many Christians ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” Would Jesus pray for the deaths of fourteen women?

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation holds that it’s vitally important that this type of extremist mentality is no longer allowed to take root in our military. Whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, Sikh, celebrate another faith tradition, or none at all, MRFF calls for you to stand together in support of this simple standard: We will not tolerate harm, threats, or abuse in the name of religion.