Tuesday Evening, April 2, 2019
MRFF's 21 VETERAN CLIENTS
BETRAYED BY
VETERANS ADMINISTRATION,
SIOUX FALLS SOUTH DAKOTA!

Sioux Falls VA Replaces Larger Christian Bible on POW/MIA Table
With So-Called "ARTIFACT", Which Is In FACT
Just Another Smaller Sectarian Christian Bible
Photo credit: Military Religious Freedom Foundation
CROOKS AND LIARS
COVERS MRFF

Sioux Falls VA Respects The Dead —
As Long As They’re Christian

By: Paul Rosenberg

Saturday, March 30, 2019

(Excerpts from Crooks and Liars/Emphasis added by MRFF)

The VA hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota has a serious problem. Not with health-care—they’re one of the best in the nation—but with the US Constitution that the veterans they serve risked their lives to defend. And with the veterans whose rights they are trampling on. And the dead they are disrespecting.

A POW/MIA Missing Man display in the main lobby features a Christian Bible, despite a slew of complaints which the VA has not simply ignored, but made a mockery of, by replacing one Bible with another, thus pretending to “resolve your concerns,” in an email to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which is representing 21 VA patients who have contacted them with complaints.
Email Exchange Between
MRFF's Mikey Weinstein & Barbara Teal,
Acting Director at Sioux Falls VAHCS

Original Complaint: One of MRFF's Twenty-One Clients Emails
Initial Complaint Showing Bible on POW/MIA Table in
Main Entrance/Front Foyer at VAMC, NH:


From:  MRFF Client's E-Mail Address Withheld
Subject:   VA in Manchester NH display
Date:  January 27, 2019 at 2:23 PM CST
To: Michael L. Weinstein.

Unconstitutional display at the Manchester NH VA... Holy Christian Bible on the table...
Mikey Sends Barbara Email Regarding Unconstitutionally Displayed Holy Christian Bible on POW/MIA Table at VAHCS, SD:

From: Michael L. Weinstein
Subject: Egregious Constitutional Violation at Your Sioux Falls VAMC
Date: March 28, 2019 at 1:14 PM MDT
To: Teal, Barbara A.
 
Acting Director Barbara Teal, 

My name is Mikey Weinstein and I am the Founder and President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF)….MRFF currently is representing 21 military veteran patients of your Sioux Falls, SD Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) who have asked MRFF to advocate on their behalves for the immediate removal of the illicit, sectarian, Christian bible from the POW/MIA table you currently have prominently displayed in the main lobby of your VAMC facility. (see photo below)

The placement of that Christian bible blatantly directly violates inter alia the No Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and, thus, MUST be removed immediately…That Christian bible on that POW/MIA table represents only the worst type of fundamentalist Christian supremacy, exceptionalism, triumphalism and domination and is terribly insulting to brave and patriotic veterans of many faiths and no faith traditions…indeed, plz see the e-mail below sent by just one of MRFF’s 21 clients on this matter…

Just so you know, Acting Director Teal, 2/3’s of MRFF’s veteran clients in this matter are practicing Christians, either Protestant or Roman Catholic….the other 1/3 are Jewish, Islamic, Native American Spiritualist, Buddhist or Atheist/Agnostic….they all demand that the sectarian Christian bible be removed forthwith from that POW/MIA display….it is not only wrong ethically and morally, it is wrong legally…..I shouldn’t even HAVE to explain why to you….but am happy to so expound if needed….

I have spoken to 3 or 4 of your Executive Office subordinates this week asking to speak either to you or a designated Sioux Falls VAMC representative….each day they have told me to “be patient” and someone will call me back….no one ever has…no American citizen, let alone honored military veterans and patients of your VAMC facility, should EVER have to wait for their Constitutional rights….you see, Acting Director Teal, these are not mere civil PRIVILEGES, they are foundational civil RIGHTS!!…

MRFF will not wait forever for one of your VA staffers to call us anymore……but we will wait one more day…..until 2 pm MDT tomorrow, Friday, Mar 29. ’19….

Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein”, Esq….Founder and President, MRFF

standing by at 505-250-7727

(please see the below)
Response from Sioux Falls VA Health Care System (VAHCS)
Acting Director Barbara Teal

From: Teal, Barbara
Subject: Final: Response to your inquiry
Date: March 29, 2019 at 11:38 AM
To: Michael L. Weinstein


Thank you for contacting the Executive Office and sending your email dated March 28, 2019. Our mission is to provide excellence in health care and service, and your correspondence is important in helping us achieve that mission. 

You expressed concerns about a Bible being in the front lobby and requested immediate removal. An inspection of the front foyer was conducted, and there was one displayed in the POW/MIA Missing Man display.

After consulting our legal counsel, we do not agree this display violates the U.S. Constitution, particularly the Establishment Clause. In an effort to resolve your concerns, the Bible was removed from the enclosed historical Missing Man case on March 27, 2019 and replaced with a donated artifact belonging to a former WWII POW.
 
Barbara A. Teal, BSN, RN, MSHP, NEA-BC | Acting Director I Sioux Falls VA Health Care System (VAHCS) | 605.333.6843 (phone) I 605.333.6872 (fax)
If you are a Veteran in Crisis call 1-800-273-8255 and press 1.
MRFF's Mikey Weinstein Responds to
Ridiculous, Dishonest and Disingenuous “Artifact” Substitution

From: Michael L. Weinstein
Subject: Final: Response to your inquiry
Date: March 29, 2019 at 12:11:37 PM MDT
To: Teal, Barbara


We have a picture of the replaced “artifact“ you are apparently talking about… how interesting that you didn’t describe the “artifact“ at all!?… Let me just describe it for you then: it appears to be yet another sectarian Christian bible.. ...seriously, Barbara?!?! ... are you ACTUALLY trying to posit that, because the new replacement“artifact”-ie. still a sectarian Christian Bible-was somehow allegedly & tangentially connected to a former WW2 POW, you are NOW trying to say that this transparently ridiculous, dishonest and disingenuous “artifact” substitution vitiates and indeed dispenses with any issues regarding the placement of the new bible’s unconstitutionality?… That is manifestly preposterous!!… This is not over…You can make that specious, fundamentalist Christian supremacy argument to me in this email exchange, but I wonder how well it will come across in another venue such as Federal court, Barbara…Our 21 MRFF clients, who are also your patients, will be disappointed and furious… You are violating their civil rights and we will not let that stand… Mikey Weinstein, Founder and President, Military Religious Freedom Foundation: 505-250-7727
Timely Confirmation Demanded from MRFF's Mikey Weinstein that "Replacement Artifact" is Indeed a Christian Bible

From: Michael L. Weinstein
Date: Fri, Mar 29, 2019 at 2:45 PM
Subject: Final: Response to your inquiry
To: Teal, Barbara


Barbara, I am officially & directly demanding that you timely confirm or deny that the new “replacement artifact” on your POW/MIA table (allegedly from a former POW in World War II) is or is not still a sectarian Christian bible as was the last bible you just took off that POW/MIA table as a result of our current MRFF demands on behalf of our 21 veteran MRFF clients who are also patients at your VA facility in Sioux Falls.... I can tell you that our clients have perceived the new “artifact“ to still be a Christian New Testament bible… Please confirm or deny this immediately… Standing by… Thank you… Mikey Weinstein… 505-250-7727…
MRFF PAST VICTORIES:
Bible Removals From
POW/MIA Tables at
VA Facilities/Military Installations
*MRFF's Top 2 Bible Removal Victories were within 2 days of each other.



 
 

 
 
 
 
 
TASK & PURPOSE
COVERS MRFF
HOMEPAGE LEAD STORY

A Muslim soldier says she's suing the Army
for being told to remove her hijab

By: Haley Britzky

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

(Excerpts from Task & Purpose/Emphasis Added by MRFF)

Spc. Cecilia Valdovinos — a soldier with the 704th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division who converted to Islam in 2016 — was granted permission to wear her hijab while in uniform by her brigade commander, Col. David Zinn in June 2018.'

But she told Yahoo News it was quickly met with "'extremely hateful' behavior."

"I got called a 'terrorist.' I got called 'ISIS.' I hear comments that I'm the reason why 9/11 happened," Valdovinos told Yahoo. She filed a complaint with the military's Equal Opportunity Office early last month after Command Sgt. Maj. Kerstin Montoya, according to the Army Times, forced her to remove her hijab in front of the other soldiers, saying that her hair was not done to regulation standards underneath it.

"She must have been born on krypton" in order to see Voldovinos' hair through her hijab, said Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which is helping with Voldovinos' case.

[...]
BARE NAKED ISLAM
(WARNING:** Islamophobic Website
According to C.A.I.R.)
COVERS MRFF

MUSLIM female Army soldier whose frivolous discrimination complaint has already been dismissed, now intends to file a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Army

Monday, April 1, 2019

(Excerpts from Bare Naked Islam/Emphasis Added by MRFF)

Alleging that her religious freedom was violated when she was forced to remove her hijab,“I want to let people know that’s it’s not a bad thing to stand up for yourself when you feel your getting mistreated (by being expected to follow the Army uniform code, even the one for Muslims),” Sgt. Cesilia Valdovinos, 26, claims.

[...]

“I felt embarrassed and religiously raped,” Valdovinos wrote in an email to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an advocacy organization that is representing her. “My religious preference is only to unveil in front of my husband in the comfort of my own home.”

That incident pushed her to file an official complaint with the Military Equal Opportunity Office (MEO) on March 7 (with the MRFF’s assistance), in which she alleges a series of troubling incidents — including being called a “terrorist” by a fellow soldier and seeing no action taken when she informed his commander; being removed from her assignment as “culinary arts specialist” at a dining facility because of her “religious preference to not handle pork”; and being referred to by her sergeant as “the girl with the hood.”

[...]

“This serious attempt to marginalize, dehumanize, trivialize the religious faith of a member in standing. We will not let this stand,” Mikey Weinstein, a radical anti-Christian atheist and  founder of MRFF, tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

[...]
MRFF Supporter Shares Post from His Own Facebook Page

His Moving Story of Describes Volunteering to go to Vietnam
to Avoid Facing Religious Discrimination while in the U.S. Military


"FB post"
From: Perry L.
Subject: FB post
Date: March 30, 2019 at 6:32 PM MDT
To: Mikey Weinstein


Just thought you'd like to see the post I just put on Facebook:

This morning I went to the second annual Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day Celebration for the state of Maryland. It was attended by over 1,000 VN vets with their spouses and some children. Talking with other VN vets and listening to the speakers brought back memories of my time spent there. Little scenes flit through my mind as I listened to them. But there was one speech that brought back the memory of how and why I ended up in Vietnam.

[...]

Perry L.
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