Points below:<\/p>\n
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The US Army has reportedly been training Chaplains<\/a> for the past month on the upcoming changes in the military’s policy on what was most commonly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”<\/p>\n For the past month the Army chaplain corps has been training its 2,900 members on what the policy changes will mean for them. The training stresses that not much will be different for chaplains, but that those who cannot “reconcile” the change in policy are able to seek a voluntary separation from the service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n LtCol Carlton Birch, a spokesman for the Army Chief of Chaplains office, had an interesting analogy for life as a Chaplain in the US military:<\/p>\n “Military chaplains are a little bit of an anomaly,” Birch said. “Representing our faith group faithfully and being soldiers full time, some people ask, ‘How can you do both?’ Sometimes I think of it as a demilitarized zone. You’ve got church on one side and state on the other. We live in the middle of that. Anytime you pop your head up you get shot at from both sides.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Washington Times <\/em>described this as “Military indoctrinat[ion] on gays kissing, behavior<\/a>,” and included the note that<\/p>\n \u201cMarines are expected to obey lawful orders and could be subject to discipline or adverse administrative action if they refuse orders, even if such refusal is based on strong, sincerely held, moral or religious beliefs,\u201d the briefing states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Likewise,<\/p>\n \u201cFree exercise of religious expression, with law and policy, remains unchanged,\u201d says one Army slide.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Army Chief of Staff General George Casey met with leaders at Fort Riley<\/a> to speak with them on the topic of DADT.<\/p>\n Advocates for homosexuals have complained the process is taking too long<\/a> and should be completed, in their estimation, within the next month and a half.<\/p>\n Mike Huckabee has indicated he would support re-instating the ban<\/a> on open homosexual service, “because that’s what the military wants.”\u00a0 Governor Tim Pawlenty has indicated a similar position; both are potential Presidential candidates.<\/p>\n The Alliance Defense Fund has indicated that despite reassurances, it expects that religious liberty will eventually come into conflict<\/a> with, and lose to,\u00a0sexual liberty in the military (as government officials have previously admitted<\/a>).\u00a0 Should that time come, the ADF promises to defend Chaplains’ “constitutionally guaranteed right[s].”<\/p>\n The trainers also talk about how religious liberty will be protected — but that is a flimsy defense, when we see how Christian prison chaplains have been forced to use worship leaders who openly practiced homosexual behavior, and how Christian counselors have been disciplined when they expressed moral reservations about affirming a same-sex relationship.<\/p>\n The moral conflict which was only a warning a few months ago is, unfortunately, becoming reality.\u00a0 If it does come to pass that DADT fully falls, the conflict will intensify.\u00a0 But so, too, will the resolve of ADF, its allies, and the chaplains it represents, to defend the God-given, constitutionally guaranteed right of a Christian chaplain to be both a chaplain\u2026and a Christian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n