A former evangelical Navy chaplain says it's crazy that an anti-Christian group is suing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Department of Defense for including the value of Christianity in an Army manual dealing with suicide prevention.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is co-plaintiff in the federal lawsuit that contends the military is openly promoting Christianity. Recently The Public Record reported that the suit was amended to include a complaint about a PowerPoint presentation called "Suicide Awareness for Soldiers 2008." The MRFF, founded by Mikey Weinstein -- a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy -- contends that the manual advises military chaplains to promote "religiosity" -- specifically Christianity -- as a way to deter soldiers from taking their own lives. Last year in an internal email, officials at the Veterans Administration confirmed that 6,552 veterans per year -- an average of 126 per week -- commit suicide. Gordon James Klingenschmitt is a former Naval chaplain who has first-hand knowledge of the problem. "My father-in-law was a Korean War veteran who took his life by suicide, so this is a very dear issue to me -- especially since I was a Navy Chaplain and I frequently gave suicide prevention briefings," he shares. "Let me tell you that Mikey Weinstein's complaint has absolutely no merit whatsoever." Weinstein, who served as both a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney in the Air Force, founded MRFF in 2006 to battle what the group's website describes as the "evangelical, fundamental religious right" and its influence in the U.S. armed forces. Klingenschmitt says Weinstein is crazy to think that service members should not be briefed and encouraged in their faith. "For him to come in and sue the Army to prevent any kind of spirituality, any kind of chaplain's briefings, any kind of faith from being expressed or even encouraged among those who are tempted to commit suicide, he's really asking for them to hasten their deaths," the former chaplain offers. Klingenschmitt says Weinstein wants an atheist military -- and for Christianity to be punished, even though the Christian faith is something that can prevent people from committing suicide.
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