Mikey Weinstein blasts Merchant Marine midshipmen as ‘insects’

An attorney from the nonprofit that pushed to relocate a historic Jesus painting at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in Kings Point, New York, called the midshipmen who recently cheered its restoration “cowards” and “Christian nationalist insects.”

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, accused the young midshipmen of violating their constitutional oath for applauding Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s call to bring the painting up from the basement where it was moved during the Biden administration.

Weinstein’s accusations come as a midshipman associated with an on-campus Christian fellowship group explained to The Christian Post why the image of Jesus saving sailors lost at sea is more than just a piece of artwork to them.

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

‘Filthy, ignorant, hateful, bigoted scum’

Weinstein, who offered nuance regarding “the full nature of satanism” during an interview with CP in 2024, issued a scathing statement threatening “World War 8” if the 1944 painting “Christ on the Water” is restored to the Elliot M. See Room inside Wiley Hall, where it hung for 76 years.

The 10-foot by 19-foot painting by Hunter S. Wood, a merchant mariner whose art drew on his own experiences, commemorated sailors whose boat was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean during World War II.

After Weinstein fired off a complaint letter in January 2023 to USMMA Superintendent Vice Adm. Joanna M. Nunan about the painting, first it was covered with a curtain during official Academy meetings. Ultimately, it was moved to a chapel basement that is prone to flooding, as noted by midshipmen who spoke to Fox News Digital that year.

Weinstein’s recent statement, which he sent to CP and has been published on Daily Kos, comes days after Duffy went viral on social media for eliciting raucous, prolonged applause from midshipmen during an April 3 speech he gave at the USMMA’s annual Battle Standard Dinner.

Midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy erupted in applause when @SecDuffy demanded a painting of Jesus saving merchant mariners be restored.

The Biden admin put a curtain over the painting before putting it in a flood-prone basement.

“Let’s bring Him up!” pic.twitter.com/qQvLKXKE5r

— Jon Brown (@JonBrownDC) April 9, 2025

Duffy, a devout Roman Catholic, appeared taken aback by the enthusiastic response, which he allowed to linger before noting it was the loudest of his entire speech.

“You want Jesus up from the basement, right? Great!” he said as the midshipmen cheered. “That was the loudest applause we got!”

One tweet of Duffy’s remarks has received more than 617,000 views on X as of Tuesday morning.

Weinstein accused Duffy of being a “stray, feral dog” who is “clearly bereft of any semblance of morality, ethical standard, or constitutional legality,” which he claimed is “obviously required with all MAGA filthy, ignorant, hateful, bigoted scum.”

Weinstein further implied the USMMA is anti-Jewish, dubbing it the “U.S. Merchant of Venice Academy” in reference to the Shakespeare play that some have deemed antisemitic. He also repeatedly referred to President Donald Trump as “tRump” in an apparent attempt to liken him to a backside.

“To the cheering robustious throngs of Christian Nationalist midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant of Venice Academy, and to their dear MAGA fascist cheerleader Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, MRFF commands: ‘Side Step HARCH!,’ you stinking piece-of-sh– Christian Nationalist insects!!”

“Do it USMVA!” he said, referencing his newly minted moniker for the school. “Move that giant Jesus painting back to its original place of bloody controversy in that huge secular conference room USMVA. What will happen if you do? Well, FAFO (F*** Around, Find Out)!!!”

Weinstein acknowledged in his statement that he would accept its relocation to “some secular place at your Academy (such as your museum).”

In a video posted on his website that echoed his public statement, Weinstein called Duffy a “piece of sh–” and accused the midshipmen who cheered him of exhibiting a “despicable, shameful disgrace of your oath to the U.S. Constitution.”

“You’re cowards to do that,” he said.

CP has reached out to both Duffy’s office and the U.S. Maritime Administration for comment.

‘Our generation has been trampled underfoot’

Hundreds of midshipmen who signed a petition circulated by members of the academy’s Kings Point Christian Fellowship Club are calling for the painting to be moved to the school’s Ackerman Auditorium.

The petition, which was submitted to the USMMA administration last Friday, also explained why the image of Jesus rescuing merchant mariners means so much to them, especially in recent years.

“We identify with those sailors,” the petition reads in part. “Our generation has been trampled underfoot by a country that has left us stranded out to sea with no intention of saving us. Our government, schools, and in some cases even our families have told us that we are not worth the effort.”

“Specifically, during the COVID pandemic we were told that our lives were worth so little that they could be put on hold for years. Our bodies were not our own but we belonged to the Federal Government and USMMA Admissions, who could decide what we must put in our bodies,” the petition continued.

“Through those difficult years and up to this very moment only one thing has proven to us time and time again, ‘whoever comes to me I will never cast out.’ That one thing is Jesus Christ, God of the Universe and Lord of our lives.”

The USMMA’s vaccine policies under Biden were the beginning of what midshipmen who spoke to Fox News Digital in 2023 described as an increasingly “woke ideology” seeping into the academy. According to midshipmen and their parents who spoke to the outlet at the time, unvaccinated midshipmen were segregated from their friends and some even struggled to get food.

Jackson Tolle, a midshipman in USMMA’s Class of 2026 who spoke to CP from a ship in the Gulf of America, said he is a member of the school’s Christian fellowship and played a role in drafting the petition, though he emphasized it was a group effort and he was speaking for himself.

“The main goal has always been to glorify God in this situation,” he said.

Tolle acknowledged the demographic at the USMMA skews nominally Christian, but pushed back against the idea that non-Christian midshipmen would find the Jesus painting alienating.

“Jesus Christ represents ideals that are not specific to one group of people or another,” he said. “Ideals of sacrifice, ideals of love, compassion and empathy; these are ideals and traits that we, as a culture, need to return to.”

Tolle also suggested the enthusiastic response to Duffy’s speech earlier this month was an example of young people showing they are hungry for something more than what the prevailing culture has offered.

“Moral relativism has failed the country and the world, more so than any belief system ever really has,” he said. “I think we’re returning to objective truth.”

The renewed uproar at the USMMA over Jesus comes in the wake of Trump’s executive order asserting that his administration will “not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians.”

According to a copy of an internal cable obtained by Politico last week, the U.S. State Department intends to work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias” during the Biden administration.