Senators Introduce Military Religious Freedom Act
Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) have introduced the “Military Religious Freedom Act” (PDF) which would impact the issue of homosexual marriage and chaplains within the US military:
Specifically, the bill would (1) prevent military chaplains from being forced to perform a marriage ceremony if the chaplain objects for reasons of conscience and (2) prohibit marriage or marriage-like ceremonies at military facilities that are not a union between one man and one woman.
This is the Senate version of the House companion act that was referred to committee in January of this year.
Critics will rightly point out there is currently no requirement that chaplains be forced to perform a marriage ceremony. As the sole reason for opposing the bill, however, the premise defies logic. Conduct contrary to a proposed law need not be taking place for the law to be valid or necessary. The law would prevent such a requirement from being emplaced within the military. It would also prohibit any repercussions should chaplains decline to perform a ceremony merely because the participants are homosexual — something viewed as actionable discrimination in other forums.
The Senators note the law would more explicitly explain how the Defense of Marriage Act, which is a federal law, would apply to the US military, which is a federal institution. (DOMA is currently being defended by the US House in court, as the Executive Branch declined to defend the law.)
While those are certainly the controversial points of the law, it is actually more broad:
The armed forces shall accommodate the conscience and sincerely held moral principles and religious beliefs of the members of the armed forces concerning the appropriate and inappropriate expression of human sexuality and may not use such conscience, principles, or beliefs as the basis of any adverse personnel action, discrimination, or denial of promotion, schooling, training, or assignment.
The Senators propose an explicit protection against adverse action merely because a person opposes (or supports) homosexuality for moral or religious reasons. Such a paragraph seems entirely consistent with those who trumpet the need for protection of “civil rights.”
Wait – according to the letter of this law, if someone has a “sincerely held moral principle” that public sex in the middle of the the parade grounds is just fine, this law now protects that public sex act and prevents any adverse personnel action, regardless of any previous regulations governing appropriate conduct. How can you possibly support that? This law is broad to the point of absolute insanity.
You have to love a law that is called a Religious Freedom Act that bans certain religious activity which harms the freedom of nobody.
@Alex
You’re wrong. Next time read for comprehension.
@Donalbain
We’ve been over this before. No US government, at any time in history, has blindly accepted behavior as acceptable simply because someone says it is part of their religious beliefs. Your assumption they should be different now is based on what, exactly?
You are also incorrect: No religious activity is banned because the banned activity is not part of any religious belief system.
Yes it is. Lots of religious groups offer marriages to gay couples. That is just an objective fact.nbut then, you have lied about this in the past, so I have no reason for a liar to stop lying.
@Donalbain
The fact “marriage to gay couples” is “offered” by religious groups does not make it a religious belief. Some religions have potlucks on Sunday, too. That doesn’t make eating chicken a religious belief.
Your logic is untenable: Polygamy actually is a religious tenet of some religions, yet it is still illegal. Again, contrary to your apparent belief, “it’s my religion” has never been blindly accepted as a ‘get out of jail free’ card for otherwise illegal conduct. (The judicial treatment of peyote and polygamy make interesting contrasts.)
You probably need to look up the definition of the word “lie.” To mangle a movie quote, you don’t seem to know what that word means…
@JD
In what way am I wrong? Either this law supersedes other regulations that would have restricted people’s personal freedom or not. Would this law allow a chaplain to tell a gay soldier that he is living in sin and should change his practices without that chaplain being guilty of religious harassment? If so, then why wouldn’t it allow public sex acts provided that the person engaging in them was acting on what they believed to be a “sincerely held moral principle”?
@JD
The difference with your potluck example is that no one is proposing making it illegal for chaplains to host a Sunday potluck that happens to feature a pork potroast just because some other religions don’t approve of the consumption of pork.
This proposed law goes far beyond DOMA. DOMA merely states that the federal government shall only recognize “marriage” as a union between a man in a woman. This does not currently constrain chaplains from presiding over religious marriage ceremonies because chaplains may freely preside over ceremonies that are not formally recognized by the government (e.g., baptisms, blessings of the animals, confession and absolution of sins, same-sex marriages, etc.). There is nothing in the current text of DOMA that would forbid a chaplain from presiding over a domestic partnership ceremony between two women, but this law would change that.
I know of no religion that refers to their potluck as a religious ceremony. I know of lots of religious groups that refer to the ceremony they perform for gay and lesbian couples as religious ceremonies. And you are telling an untrue thing which you know to be untrue. You are lying.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-06-13/news/fl-jjpn-marriage-0613-20120613_1_avram-reisner-committee-on-jewish-law-jewish-law-and-standards
Just because you don’t like the ceremony, it does not mean it is not religious.
@Alex
You are wrong in that you are saying “this therefore allows…” when it would do no such thing. You are equating beliefs and actions, something the law does not do.
Again, you are wrong. Stop reading what you think it says and read what the words actually say. Read it again. Where does it say a chaplain can’t perform such a ceremony?
I see now you are removing comments that prove you are a liar. How unsurprising.
@Donalbain
Your conspiracy theory is incorrect. But that makes you mistaken, not a “liar.”
One of your comments was filtered out with the ads for imported wives, if that is to what you were referring. You need not be so sensitive.
No one has disputed that marriage between a man and a woman is a religious belief, but that does not make marriage between homosexuals, siblings, inanimate objects, or animals a religious belief.
Religious freedom does not mean you get to do whatever you want simply by putting the word “religious” in front of it.
A rose by any other name is still a rose, but calling a rock a rose does not make it so, no matter how much one believes it to be true.
OK. So you get to define what is a religious ceremony for every religion on earth? Then fact that a Jewish group has a religious ceremony for gay couples means they are incorrect about their own religion? How else would define what is religious other than by references to people’s beliefs?
@Donalbain
You’re being melodramatic. This isn’t an issue of the Earth, nor of any individual. You have repeatedlly refused to acknowledge that the US government has never recognized marriage as an unregulated activity, and that the US government has never accepted “religion” as a license to do whatever one wants. The situation here and now is no different than it has been for the history of the United States.
Stop trying to pin issues on a person or group when it is the US government that has, for more than two centuries, regulated marriage and assessed the legitimacy of claims to religious freedom. That you suddenly dislike it is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Are you allergic to answering simple questions? What on earth makes you imagine that a religious ceremony performed by religious Rabbis for religious Jews is not a religious ceremony?
@Donalbain
That’s a nonsensical question that presupposes its answer.
The issue you raised has been addressed more than once, and the responses apply to activity regardless of faith. If you refuse to read or understand, that is your option.
@JD
Your own article says that the law would “prohibit marriage or marriage-like ceremonies at military facilities that are not a union between one man and one woman.” That’s a change. Chaplains are currently allowed to use military facilities chaplains for ceremonies not recognized by the federal government (baptisms, confession and absolution of sins, same-sex ceremonies) and this law would change that.
@Alex
You have changed the parameters of your statement. The law does not prohibit chaplains from performing ceremonies, as you initially said. It prohibits the ceremonies from occurring in federal facilities.
Your categorical statement that chaplains can currently perform such ceremonies is not necessarily correct. The understanding of the current policy is bases must follow the laws of the states in which they reside — and 32 states have passed laws or amendments to their state constitutions defending traditional marriage.
Of course, if you’re willing to be creative, there’s some wiggle room there.
@JD
So long as the chaplain does not fraudulently represent the religious union ceremony as a legally-binding marriage ceremony, then what law currently prevents a chaplain from performing a same-sex religious union ceremony, even in states with no recognition of same-sex marriage and even using military facilities?
@Alex
See? All it takes is a little creativity. Of course, there were a couple of Congressmen who took issue with that creativity, given they were briefed by military leaders and understood military policies to ban such ceremonies.
Since Congress is the Constitutionally empowered branch of government to control the military, you might be able to understand their frustration.
@JD
Which military policies ban such ceremonies? Please be specific.
And yes, Congress passes the laws that govern the military, but that does not mean that individual Congressmen have direct command of military chaplains and get to tell them what not to do.