{"id":19765,"date":"2012-09-30T00:24:38","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T03:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=19765"},"modified":"2013-11-01T22:57:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-02T01:57:38","slug":"chaplains-group-says-military-homosexuals-demand-privileges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/30\/chaplains-group-says-military-homosexuals-demand-privileges\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaplains Group says Military Homosexuals Demand Privileges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retired Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews penned a lengthy commentary at The Washington Times <\/em>entitled “Homosexuals in the military demand special privileges<\/a>: Toleration doesn\u2019t cut both ways.”\u00a0 The article collects many of the tidbits that have been mentioned off-hand in other media articles claiming DADT repeal has had no effect — the one liners have been quoted as asides that ‘some are claiming otherwise.’<\/p>\n

The first anniversary of the repeal of \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell,\u201d Sept. 20, has come and gone. Now, there is mounting evidence that proves our warnings were not idle chatter. The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article contains an extensive list of examples of negative repercussions from the acceptance of homosexuality in the US military:<\/p>\n

Officials have allowed personnel in favor of repeal to speak to media while those who have concerns have been ordered to be silent. Two airmen were publicly harassed…[for] privately discussing their concerns about the impact of repeal.<\/p>\n

A chaplain was encouraged…to resign [or] \u201cget in line with the new policy…\u201d Another chaplain was threatened with early retirement, and then reassigned to be more \u201cclosely supervised\u201d because he had expressed concerns with the policy change…<\/p>\n

Service members…protested a service school\u2019s open-door policy…The protesters claimed that they had a right to participate in sexual behavior with their same-sex roommates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While this article lacks detail in most of the examples, many have been discussed in greater specificity before.\u00a0 For example, as discussed here<\/a> the chaplain told to “get in line” was in a briefing in 2010 — and the comment came from then-Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm Mike Mullen.<\/p>\n

The “problem” with the examples isn’t specificity; it is\u00a0that in and of themselves they are largely not actionable.\u00a0 An Admiral telling an officer to ‘get in line or get out’ is perfectly militarily acceptable — unless <\/em>one is willing to consider the Admiral was failing the military’s own directive to demonstrate tolerance for the officer’s religious viewpoint.\u00a0 Even then, it is, at best, an indicator of the military\u00a0culture, and not necessarily an actionable violation of a specific regulation.\u00a0 Being harassed for opposing homosexuality is currently in vogue, and demanding an exception to the open door policy is reprehensible (and unwise), but it is not illegal.<\/p>\n

In other words, most of these examples demonstrate a negative impact on servicemembers as a result of the repeal of DADT.\u00a0 In fact, they may be\u00a0indicators of the greater cultural narrative being pushed in the military today.<\/p>\n

The difficulty is in challenging <\/em>that narrative.\u00a0 While these examples may demonstrate a cultural shift toward an environment hostile to those morally opposed to homosexuality (and supportive of those who defend it), it is difficult or impossible to cite chapter and verse of military regulations against a “culture.”<\/p>\n

In the end, those who are morally opposed to homosexuality are left with evidence of a potentially hostile culture in the military — despite reassurances to the contrary.\u00a0 However, since that cultural shift does not technically violate any regulations, those who support military service by open homosexuals are able to simply say “tough.”<\/p>\n

On the other hand, this may be evidence that specific rules protection the religious liberty of those morally opposed to homosexuality are, in fact, required.\u00a0 They have been proposed in Congress before and failed to make it through conference committee.\u00a0 They were proposed again this year<\/a>.\u00a0 Were such legislation to be passed, action taken against a servicemember because of their expression of moral or religious opposition to homosexuality would be explicitly prohibited.\u00a0 In other words, there would <\/em>be a chapter and verse regulation to cite, even if a “hostile” culture existed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retired Chaplain (Col) Ron Crews penned a lengthy commentary at The Washington Times entitled “Homosexuals in the military demand special privileges: Toleration doesn\u2019t cut both ways.”\u00a0 The article collects many of the tidbits that have been mentioned off-hand in other media articles claiming DADT repeal has had no effect — the one liners have been quoted as asides that ‘some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[5284,78,219,442,2,1997],"class_list":["post-19765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-chaplain","tag-congress","tag-dadt","tag-homosexual","tag-military","tag-ron-crews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}