Defenders of Christ and War

It's takes a sense of entitlement to kill someone, more so to self-consciously prepare to kill someone. Some serving in the U.S. military seeing themselves on a holy mission from a Christian God are up to the task, a little too enthusiastically for Americans who want their country officially secular and substantively humanistic.

Concerns about a growing dominionist Christian movement seeking to control the U.S. military academies and foreign policy persist as America continues its two or three wars in what many fundamentalist American Christians consider a holy battle against Islam.

I'm hoping one episode from last year pertaining to military-dominionist Christians gets cleared up.

Last year, I wrote a piece, The Crusades, Still Killing for Christ, about the the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and its founder and president, Mikey Weinstein working for a military free of religious coercion. The piece attracted the attention and comments of one gentleman named "Donnie" who proceeded to badmouth the MRFF and Weinstein.

The funny thing is, this anonymous Donnie bears a striking resemblance in tone and language to one Col Donald P. Higgins, "the key, on-scene, Inspector General investigator for the Department of Defense/United States Air Force in the 2005 investigation" of Weinstein's charges of religions coercion and proselytizing at the United States Air Force Academy.

Higgins appears a nut who, after investigating anti-Semitism and proselytizing at the United States Air Force Academy actually sent e-mails to Weinstein last year composed of fabricated news articles mocking Weinstein, prompting a Sept. 2, 2009 response letter by Weinstein to U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. [See Fake, Col Higgins-authored Washington Times Article, and Fake, Col Higgins-authored New York Times Article.]

Same guy making comments to the The Crusades, Still Killing for Christ piece?

I did on a trace on the Internet Provider (IP) address and this Donnie was commenting from an IP address at the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton, 1.7 miles from Col Donald Higgins’ home in rural Arkansas near Pine Bluff.

I asked Weinstein about the comments and said, "“If this is [Col.] Higgins, he is one crazy case. I can’t believe the IG’s office would assign Higgins as an investigator looking into proselytizing and religious coercion. Is this the same guy?”

Weinstein didn't know for sure and Higgins refused to return phone calls.

Donnie responded to a query asking if his name is Higgins with this comment (reading in part):

That is certainly not my name, Leon. Are you a lawyer? Are you going to sue me to shut me up? That seems to be the favored MRFF tactic whenever someone uses facts to disagree with Weinstein or his mouthpieces like you--at least that's the way I read his vicious propaganda.

Thinking this matter might get cleared up some time this year.

- via mal contends

Madison Free Thought Org Hits Anti-Semitism in Air Force

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is among a group of notable signatories to a September letter demanding a new "investigation into charges of religious coercion and proselytizing at the United States Air Force Academy."

Foundation co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker join notables signing the letter, including Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, and Bobby Muller, Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The demand stems from Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and range of other activists objecting to what is typical conduct at the Colorado Springs-based Air Force Academy that includes Holocaust jokes and coercion of cadets to practice Christianity and display signs of fidelity to the Christian faith, "practices that discriminate against non-Christians in the military."

Incredibly, one Colonel Donald P. Higgins, Jr. (USAF ret), (recounted and documented by Weinstein) the "key, on-scene Inspector General investigator for the Department of Defence/United States Air Force" into the conduct at the Air Force Academy, transmitted "several outrageously denigrating and anti-Semitic emails" to Weinstein himself in an apparent attempt to harass and intimidate Weinstein. These emails can be found at the bottom of the page of this link: Letter Attachments - Electronic Version.

Who is this Higgins? And who is responsible for letting this guy operate in the capacity of an investigator for the DoD's Inspector General?

Weinstein has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Higgins and is considering legal action.

Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker should be proud to be the John Hancocks, the first signatories, of the demand letter calling for a serious investigation of this continuing outrage.