Religious liberty group to fight defense bill provision citing troops' free speech

July 20 (UPI) -- The founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation said he has assembled a "litigation strike team" to challenge an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit service members from communicating with his civil rights advocacy organization.

Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, a lawyer, and U.S. Air Force veteran who is the foundation president, said the provision violates military members' First Amendment rights to free speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The New Mexico-based nonprofit works to protect the religious freedom rights of service members and protect them from discrimination, harassment and aggressive proselytizing.

The amendment -- which was added to the annual defense funding bill by Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, a member of the House Armed Services Committee -- also would bar military leaders from taking any action or making any decision as a result of a claim or protest made by the organization "without the authority of the secretary of defense."

Even responding to a request for records under the Freedom of Information Act would require approval of the defense secretary, Weinstein said.

"We will go into federal courts, not quickly, but at lightning speed, warp speed," he said, calling the amendment "completely and totally unconstitutional in every possible way."

"This is an evil, pernicious, repugnant, despicable, cowardly attempt led by Turner to try to assassinate a civil rights organization," Weinstein said. "We are fighting as hard as we can."

Turner's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The bill was passed Friday by the U.S. House of Representatives on a 219-210 vote after several conservative amendments were added. Four Democrats voted for the legislation and four Republicans voted against it.

The Senate will need to pass its version of the bill and the two chambers then will have to negotiate a compromise.

The amendments that were adopted last week prohibit the Defense Department from funding abortion-related expenses for service members, block payments for transgender surgeries and hormone treatments, stop federal funds from being used by military service academies to establish quotas on the basis of race or ethnicity in the admission process and block the Defense Department from implementing climate change executive orders enacted by President Joe Biden.

Under the amendment, a service member could be prosecuted for speaking with the foundation, Weinstein said.

He described the provision as a bill of attainder, which is legislation that declares a party guilty of a crime and states the punishment without going through the trial process first. Bills of attainder are prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.

Weinstein said other leaders of civil rights organizations are concerned they also could be targeted. He believes the amendment might have been prompted in part by the organization's successful push to get a Bible removed from a POW/MIA display at the medical clinic at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

A foundation staffer emailed base leaders in April 2016 saying numerous soldiers and airmen of a variety of faiths had complained about the display of a Christian New Testament. The Department of Defense cannot endorse, promote, or favor one religion over another, the email said.

"Healthcare clinics are for healing, not proselytizing," the email said.

The Bible was removed three days later.

The foundation says it has served more than 84,000 service members, about 95% of whom self-identify as practicing Christians. Other clients have been atheist, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Native American Spiritualist, humanist, pagan and members of other minority faiths.

In addition to the Department of Defense clients, the group also serves employees of all national security agencies.

Among its successes, the foundation lists:

• Getting a large painting of Jesus in the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy's administration building moved to the chapel
• Getting a Christian cross removed from the lobby of a Veterans Administration hospital
• Stopping mandatory military training titled "Leadership Lessons of the Lord Jesus Christ"
• Fighting the religious harassment of a Jewish pilot whose commander kept pestering him to attend his Bible study
• Reversing a commander's order that a service member stop reading Catcher in the Rye because as a "believing Christian," it offended him.