Two armed security guards greeted UNM students as they walked into their Peace Studies class on Tuesday.
Although the scene was unfamiliar to students, it has been all too familiar for the guest lecturer, Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
“We had two death threats before coming in,” Weinstein said. “But somebody has to stand up and do something. We cannot be a bystander.”
According to the group’s Web site, the Foundation “is dedicated to ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom which they and all Americans are entitled by the First Amendment.”
Weinstein, a Jewish Republican, is an Air Force Academy graduate, was a White House aid during the Reagan administration and was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
Weinstein told the Peace Studies class that every mandatory military formation has forced Christian undertones.
“Whether it’s a staff meeting, a combat briefing, a promotion ceremony, a retirement ceremony — there is always a prayer, and it’s always in Jesus’ name,” he said.
In an e-mail, the Peace Studies instructor Desi Brown said Weinstein received angry e-mails from the UNM Campus Crusade for Christ.
“Mr. Weinstein has already received a number of threatening phone calls and e-mails from the on campus group ‘Campus Crusade for Christ’ and members of the
public off campus,” Brown said in the e-mail. “Some have threatened to call UNM President Schmidly’s office to try to shut down the lecture, and others have said they will protest the event.”
Representatives from the Campus Crusade for Christ have not returned phone calls since Wednesday, but a representative told the New Mexico Independent that the group was not responsible for the e-mails.
“No one has been authorized on our behalf to say anything regarding Mr. Weinstein,” the representative told the Independent. “To my knowledge, no one involved with Campus Crusade for Christ in New Mexico, officially or unofficially, has contacted him in any way, threatening or not.”
While at the Air Force Academy, Weinstein said he faced constant discrimination and heard repeated derogatory remarks from his superiors about his religion.
“I was beaten unconscious by my two Christian roommates,” Weinstein said. “We are facing a national security threat of fundamentalist Christianity awash like a tsunami in the military, or what I refer to as technologically, the most lethal organization created by mankind.”
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Weinstein’s stance on the separation of church and state has drawn numerous attacks from his opponents. His home was marked with swastikas and his family has endured ruthless threats. Weinstein’s daughter Amber is a UNM senior. She is active with her father’s organization and said she faced religious discrimination while enrolled at UNM’s Air Force ROTC.
“I sleep with a gun under my pillow,” Amber said. “I was not feeling good about being involved with the program. I told a friend and she said, ‘It’s probably because you’re Jewish.’ I was shocked.”
Before his UNM appearance Weinstein said he received a familiar call.
“I’ve been receiving this message for years,” he said, “It’s a child talking on the phone chanting, ‘Now we lay you in your grave, there was no way you could be saved, you hate our lord Jesus and he can tell, which is why you will burn in hell.’ They called again after Thanksgiving.”
Despite the problems that surround it, the lecture provided students the opportunity to see a real local activist, Brown said.
“I hope that it motivates them to really get active in something that they’re passionate about,” Brown said. “Peace Studies is not a practice of passivity. It’s active work.”
