The nonprofit group Wreaths Across America is guilty of “carpet-bombing” the country’s 155 national cemeteries with “Christian gang signs.” That is according to the leader of a group opposed to faith-based military observances.
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told Fox News he’s not opposed to Christmas wreaths but argued it’s problematic to place them on thousands of veterans’ tombstones across the U.S.
“That’s like carpet-bombing,” he told the news site. “That looks like it’s a Christian gang sign, that you’re creating territory that is a Christian territory.”
Weinstein first issued a statement against the annual holiday gesture in late November, condemning Wreaths Across America for “indiscriminately” decorating tombstones with Christmas wreaths.
“The gravesites of Christians and non-Christians alike will be adorned with this hijacked-from-paganism symbol of Christianity — circular and made of evergreen to symbolize everlasting life through Jesus Christ — whether the families of the deceased veterans like it or not,” he said.
Karen Worcester, executive director of Wreaths Across America, told Fox News her holiday-oriented organization is neither Christian nor in any way religious. In fact, she said, her nonprofit has had a policy against laying wreaths on tombstones marked with Jewish Stars of David since starting the goodwill initiative in 1992.
Worcester added Wreaths Across America have “never been asked not to” place wreaths on the graves of veterans of other non-Christian faiths, such as Islam. Worcester noted her organization has never “placed those wreaths unless asked by the families to do so.” “We live in a country where there is freedom of religion, and we respect that,” she said. READ MORE
