{"id":5072,"date":"2010-05-05T00:35:35","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T08:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2013-09-24T21:25:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T00:25:19","slug":"groups-servicemembers-silenced-over-dadt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/05\/groups-servicemembers-silenced-over-dadt\/","title":{"rendered":"Groups: Servicemembers “Silenced” over DADT"},"content":{"rendered":"

A report from CNS News says that military Chaplains and servicemembers are being “muzzled”<\/a> with respect to their views on DADT:<\/p>\n

Arthur Schultz [sic<\/em>, Schulcz], 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.<\/p>\n

“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,” [Schulcz] told reporters. “And so that’s the unofficial, ‘official’ language to say, ‘Keep your mouth shut, or else.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tony Perkins, the disinvited<\/a> former Marine and president of the Family Research Council, supported that assessment and said\u00a0“many” on active duty also oppose the policy change.<\/p>\n

Perkins, a former Marine, told reporters in no uncertain terms that there are many chaplains and service members on active duty who oppose the removal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.<\/p>\n

“Those who serve in uniform are not free to speak on this issue. Do not misinterpret the silence of the rank and file as approval of this policy,” Perkins said. “That is why you will repeatedly see those who are retired and who are free to speak, speaking out for those who are not.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These statements are an interesting contrast to those by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who had previously said he’d seen no pushback from servicemembers:<\/p>\n

[In my] all-hands calls since that time…Most of what I’ve heard has actually been very supportive of moving in this direction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the same briefing, Mullen also said servicemembers\u00a0could “vote with\u00a0their feet<\/a>” if they disagreed with a policy direction.\u00a0 In what appears to be a slight reversal of that reaction, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Admiral Mullen reportedly wrote to Congress and told them not to repeal DADT too soon.\u00a0 They appeared to indicate\u00a0the perspectives of miltary servicemembers are important<\/a>, and ignoring them would be “damaging:”<\/p>\n

Gates says he supports lifting the ban but wants to survey the troops first on how it should be done. He has ordered a study by Dec. 1 that will look at whether housing arrangements would have to be altered and gay partners would be allowed military benefits.<\/p>\n

If Congress acts before then, “it would send a very damaging message to our men and women in uniform that in essence their views, concerns and perspectives do not matter,” he told Skelton.<\/p>\n

Defense officials hope the protracted timeline will also help troops adjust to the idea of serving with openly gay colleagues before they have to accept the change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To clarify, the “views, concerns, and perspectives” to which the\u00a0military leadership is referring are those\u00a0on how to carry out<\/em> the change in policy<\/a> on homosexuals, not on whether or not the policy should<\/em> be changed:<\/p>\n

“Our military must be afforded the opportunity to inform us of their concerns, insights and suggestions if we are to carry out this change successfully,” Gates and Mullen wrote to the panel\u2019s chairman, Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report from CNS News says that military Chaplains and servicemembers are being “muzzled” with respect to their views on DADT: Arthur Schultz [sic, Schulcz], 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[467,219,280,334,239],"class_list":["post-5072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-arthur-schulcz","tag-dadt","tag-mike-mullen","tag-robert-gates","tag-tony-perkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072","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=5072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}