Soldiers’ Rights: Chaplains worry re non-gays

The following comes from a May 23 press release from the Alliance Defense Fund. 

WASHINGTON — Twenty-one religious agencies providing chaplains to the U.S. military sent a joint letter to the military’s chiefs of chaplains Monday voicing strong concern over the continuing absence of religious liberty protections if openly practiced homosexual behavior is definitively imposed on the military. The letter asks the chiefs for their help in urging Congress and the Department of Defense to adopt such protections.Alliance Defense Fund attorneys helped draft and propose religious liberty protections for the Pentagon’s working group on the matter, but the law designed to dismantle the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy still lacks any such protections. 
“Service members should not be denied the very constitutional liberties they volunteered to defend,” said ADF Legal Counsel Daniel Blomberg. “If this government truly cares about protecting religious liberties as it says it does, why has it been afraid to put it in writing?” 
The letter is signed by endorsing agents representing major Christian denominations that provide chaplains, including the military’s largest chaplain endorser, the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board. 
The Roman Catholic Archbishop for the Military Services USA issued his own statement Friday. [The current archbishop is Timothy Broglio.] The archbishop’s letter expresses additional concern that the endorsing agents, who are highly respected veteran military officers and chaplains themselves, have rarely been sought for input. The letter specifically cites a recent Navy chaplaincy directive that would allow same-sex “marriage” ceremonies at Navy chapels in some states even though doing so would be illegal under the federal Defense of Marriage Act. “We are likewise concerned that endorsers and faith communities had no voice in the formulation of such a significant policy change. Defense of Marriage remains the law of the land. There is no clear reason why it does not apply to Federal military facilities, particularly base chapels…. Since the current administration has publicly stated that it will no longer support and defend Defense of Marriage, this action has every appearance of selective disregard for the law and raises significant concerns.” “It is not sufficient to posit… that chaplains and service members remain free to exercise their faith in chapel services,” the letter continues. “Service members should know that chaplains’ ministry and their own rights of conscience remain protected everywhere military necessity has placed them. We hope that you will join us in urging the Department of Defense and Congress to adopt such specific and intentional conscience protections.”