A group of retired military chaplains and lawyers gathered at the conservative Family Research Council on Wednesday to speak out against repealing the military policy on homosexuality, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), and suggested that current chaplains were being kept from doing the same.
-- From "Chaplains fight 'Don't Ask' repeal" by Jen Dimascio, Politico 4/27/10
Forty retired military chaplains are appealing to President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to retain the Pentagon’s "don’t ask don’t tell" ban on gays in the military.
The chaplains argue in a letter to the commander in chief and defense secretary, due to go out Wednesday, that allowing gays to serve openly in the military would discriminate against some Christian chaplains.
“We are deeply concerned that these changes would threaten the religious liberty of chaplains and service members,” the chaplains said in their letter, circulated Tuesday by the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund.
A change in the military policy would force chaplains into a moral conundrum, they said, “whether they are to obey God or to obey men.”
They also cite the recent dis-invitation of Family Research Council President Tony Perkins from an Air Force prayer meeting as evidence that a crackdown on those who oppose repealing “don’t ask don’t tell” is already under way.
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From "Military is Muzzling Chaplains and Others Who Support ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy on Homosexuality, Former Chaplains Say" by Christopher Neefus, CNSNews.com 4/29/10
Arthur Schultz, a former Army chaplain who now is legal counsel to the National Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers, told reporters that servicemen overseas have been told not to speak in support of DADT.
“One of the chaplains . . . spoke to me, who recently came back from overseas from a major command, and he said that the word is out to chaplains: don’t speak about this and particularly, don’t raise issues about why you can’t support it,” Shultz told reporters. “And so that’s the unofficial, ‘official’ language to say, ‘Keep your mouth shut, or else.’
“(The chaplain) implied or he told me that it was made clear that it would be damaging to anybody who raised his head above the parapet, so to speak.”
Another former Army chaplain, Col. Rich Young, a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield, [said] “Compelling chaplains to replace biblical truth with political correctness not only steals from the chaplain their religious freedom, it also directly harms our military,” Young said.
“One of the reasons I feel it is important to make a statement is because those chaplains who are still serving on active duty are not able to do so. Chaplains’ religious freedom is at risk,” said Young
Attorney Jordan Lorence, a senior counsel with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, said that over 40 former military chaplains have sent letters to Defense Secretary Gates and to the president, telling them that the repeal of the military ban on homosexuality would not only mean a crisis of conscience for many of the military’s chaplains – it would create a situation never before encountered in American history.
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