A religious freedom advocate told U.S. News he is considering suing Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) over allegedly slanderous comments she made in a fundraising pitch.

“We are caucusing with our legal counsel to consider the most expeditious course of action we can take in a federal court to stop these bald-faced lies,” Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) said. “About 96 percent of our members [at MRFF] are Protestant or Roman Catholic… of our unpaid volunteers, at least well over 80 percent are Christian… I say [to Bachmann]: Tell it to the judge.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Earlier this month conservative bloggers falsely claimed that Weinstein was behind a plan to court-martial Christians in the military who shared their faith. The conspiracy was quickly debunked by the Pentagon itself, which noted that proselytizing — a form of religious harassment — has long been prohibited, but service members are free to evangelize and speak about their faith.

But as of Wednesday Bachmann’s website still stated that Weinstein’s conspiracy with the Pentagon could “prevent our military from practicing their own faith.” She described Weinstein as a “left-wing, anti-Christian activists” and a “radical.” She also claimed that Weinstein had compared “sharing the gospel to ‘spiritual rape’ and ‘treason,'” when he actually described misogyny, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism as “spiritual rape” and “treason.”

Weinstein accused Bachmann of “propagating complete and utter lies.”

As a proponent of the separation of church and state, Weinstein has clashed with fundamentalist Christians like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council. He described the groups as “pitiable unconstitutional carpetbaggers” who “have taken refuge behind flimsy, well-worn, gauze-like euphemistic facades such as ‘family values'” in an article published at the Huffington Post earlier this year.

— —

[Image via Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons licensed]