Michael Weinstein

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Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein is an attorney, businessman and former Air Force officer. He is founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and author of With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military (ISBN 978-0312361433) in which he describes his fight against alleged coercive evangelistic practices by some members of the military.

Weinstein graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1977 and later served as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) for ten years. He also spent over three years in the West Wing of the Reagan White House as legal counsel in the White House. In his final position there, Mikey was named the Committee Management Officer of the much-publicized Iran-Contra Investigation in his capacity as Assistant General Counsel of The White House Office of Administration, Executive Office of the President of the United States.

In October 2005, Weinstein sued the United States Air Force for permitting proselytization by evangelical Christian officers. U.S. District Judge James A. Parker, who presided over Weinstein v. U.S. Air Force, dismissed the case, stating, "No Plaintiff claims to have personally experienced any of the things described under “Factual Allegations"... while at the Academy or after leaving the Academy." "The only fair reading of Plaintiffs’ factual allegations limits them to practices and events at the Academy and policies as they affect persons, other than Plaintiffs, at the Academy." "Not a single Plaintiff has alleged any personal factual situation that has allegedly impinged on that Plaintiff’s constitutional rights since the Plaintiff left the Academy." [1]

Weinstein served as the first General Counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation and left Mr. Perot's employ in 2006 to focus his full-time attention on the nonprofit foundation he founded in March 2006 to directly battle the evangelical, fundamentalist religious right; the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. This foundation was formed as a watchdog organization to protect religious freedom in the Military in accordance with Department of Defense Directive 1300.17, Accommodation of Religious Practices Within the Military Services.[2][3]

On September 17, 2007, Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a Federal lawsuit[4] in Kansas City, KS against the United States Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Major Freddy J. Welborn, accusing the defendants of allowing a "pervasive and pernicious pattern and practice of unconstitutional religious rape of freedoms of our U.S. military.^[1] On March 5, 2008, the lawsuit was re-filed in Federal court to include allegations that co-plaintiff Army Specialist Jeremy Hall was denied a promotion due to the filing of the original lawsuit in September 2007.[5]

Mikey has appeared many times on major cable and network TV news networks and is a frequent guest on national radio networks as well. His constitutional activism has been covered and profiled extensively in the print media including the Associated Press[6], The New York Times[7], the Washington Post[8], the L.A. Times[9], the Denver Post[10], The Guardian[11] and many other national and international newspapers and periodicals[12] including Time magazine[13].

Mikey recently made his international film debut in the Hollywood adaptation of James Carroll's New York Times best selling book detailing the 2,000 year bloody history between the Church and the Jews, entitled "Constantine's Sword", and directed by Oscar nominee Oren Jacoby.