In The Name Of The Constitution: Military Dad Fights Religious Right — Interview With Michael L. Weinstein, Founder Of Military Religious Freedom Foundation

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. If you ever find Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein pissed off, it could be for only a handful of reasons.

But the one thing that really gets his goat is when people using the institutions of government attempt to impose a religious world view on the general population.

That kind of abuse of the U.S. Constitution doesn’t sit well with this former assistant general counsel to President Ronald Reagan.

In fact, after he discovered the religious abuse inflicted on his cadet sons at his alma mater, the United States Air Force Academy, Weinstein fought back using any legal means available to him.

So committed is he in his mission to protect religious freedom of men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces, he quit his post as formerly General Counsel for H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation.

Since last March, he has devoted his full time with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a grassroots organization he founded a year ago.

In his fight, Weinstein has employed his skills and experience as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the United States Air Force and the Air Force’s first Chief of Telecommunications and Information Systems Procurement Law.

His new book “With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military,” co-authored by Davin Seay and published last October by St. Martin’s Press, he describes his battles against illegal evangelization inside the Air Force Academy.

“It’s a war. It’s a fight,” said Weinstein in a telephone interview. “Elliot Spitzer, the new governor of New York, makes a statement that you can’t change the world by whispering. Well, my book is meant to be a primal scream.”

It’s a fight, though, that he is not fighting alone. Serving on the foundation’s advisory board are big names in the American politics and military circles, such as Richard T. Schlosberg III, the former CEO/publisher of The Denver Post and the Los Angeles Times; Gen. Robert T. Herres, former first Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Lamm, former three-term Governor of Colorado; and Joseph Wilson III, U.S. Ambassador.

The Iconoclast’s Nathan Diebenow recently spoke with Weinstein about the rise of the Religious Right in the U.S. military, the on-going smear campaign against him and his family, and the importance of the separation of church and state.

Here is that interview: