Goodbye, Military Chaplains
17th May 2012
Rod Dreher sounds the alarm.
Remember how no clergy member will be forced to perform same-sex marriages against their will. If the Obama administration has its way, all US military chaplains will have to do so. Excerpt:
The Obama administration “strongly objects” to provisions in a House defense authorization bill that would prohibit the use of military property for same-sex “marriage or marriage-like” ceremonies, and protect military chaplains from negative repercussions for refusing to perform ceremonies that conflict with their beliefs, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
If this goes through, the Catholic and the Orthodox chaplains will have to be withdrawn from the US military. Many Evangelical chaplains will choose to leave. If same-sex marriage is constitutionalized by Supreme Court ruling, then I don’t see how even a legislative exemption would be possible. This is another one of the answers to the question, “How does my gay neighbor’s marriage to his partner affect me?”
It should come as no surprise that politicians lie to get their programs passed, and then let the hammer down.
The strategy of the pro-SSM side seems to be to deny that anything like this could possibly happen, and that people who say it could are being irresponsible scaremongers. Then when it actually happens, they’ll say oh, who cares; those bigots deserve what they get.
My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
May 17th, 2012 at 23:59
That may not be a bad thing, actually; Christians should really question whether they should be in the business of endorsing the State’s wars, by having embedded chaplains, providing theological cover, so to speak, for whatever the government wants to do.
I don’t like Muslims any more than you, and recognize them as our spiritual enemy, but they don’t have to be our political enemy as well, if we avoided antagonizing them by knee-jerk siding with Israel. If we want to buy their oil, we should consider what benefit it is to us in the West to support Israel; IMO, we’d do well to stop subsidizing them, and trade with everyone in the Middle East as suits us, without taking sides in their regional disputes.
May 18th, 2012 at 00:13
BTW, I don’t hate Israel or anything; but as a Christian, I don’t see that we have a dog in the fight between Jews and Muslims. We’re God’s people, not the Jews. They don’t deserve any special consideration; if God really favours them especially, He can defend them Himself, without requiring our help; that’s my opinion, anyway.
Oh, and I see you don’t care for sports and don’t watch TV; me too. 🙂 Though I’m ESTJ, and like much popular music, and otherwise probably differ a fair bit from you, esp. since I’m Canadian. 😉
Cheers.
May 18th, 2012 at 01:23
The function of chaplains is not to ‘provide spiritual cover for whatever the government wants to do’ (although they may do that in some cases) but to provide for the spiritual comfort of service members. Whether the government ought to be paying for this, of course, is certainly a legitimate question for debate, but the fact remains that it always has, and historically most governments do the same thing. Chaplains are the primary means whereby the ‘social welfare’ of servicemembers and their families is taken care of, so unless they’re going to be replaced by psychologists or whatever, they do have a useful function and one that would be missed.
Unfortunately, Muslims ARE our political enemy, because they are an expansionist totalitarian POLITICAL ideology under the guise of a religion. IT IS PART OF THEIR RELIGION to attempt to conquer us, and (as with Communism) that makes them our enemy whether we like it or not. It only takes one to start a fight, and they are committed BY THEIR RELIGION to do so. So we don’t have any choice.
May 18th, 2012 at 01:56
I get what you’re saying about the role of military chaplains being there for the soldiers; I guess I also think Christians should ask themselves whether they ought to participate in wars not of defense, necessarily (unlike in the case of an actual invasion).
As for jihad, and the Islamic imperative of the dar-al-Islam to conquer the dar-al-Harb, I am aware of that; I guess I don’t see them as as much of a threat, in spite of their ideology, as Hitler, Stalin and Tojo were, for instance; IF we were to not have them immigrate to our shores, and encourage those who are in our lands to return home, and IF we were not to antagonize them further by supporting Israel, I wonder whether they’d be much of a real threat, notwithstanding their ideology of world conquest, which I know is part and parcel of their religion. Esp. if, instead of buying their oil, we developed energy alternatives and/or used up our own oil, thus starving them of funds for weaponry…
But, perhaps I’m naive.
May 18th, 2012 at 06:43
Despite a lot of blather about tolerance, respect, and the like, the purpose of legislating morality is to compel obedience and punish dissenters.
May 18th, 2012 at 07:09
If everyone thought as you do, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem.
May 18th, 2012 at 10:14
@ Will S.: So I guess the free exercise of religion is a North American value–so long as they do it elsewhere.
As to military chaplains: I guess the perennial argument used to justify continued discrimination is always, “Look at the people we’ll hurt if we stop it!” (The oppostition to ending slavery in the British Parliament was based around, “It’ll ruin our economic interests in the Americas; it’ll ruin the plantation owners!”) This is what comes from having a discriminatory institution (Christianity) coupled to an institution (the Army) which, by law and tradition, must be non-discriminatory. Conflict is inevitable.
ALL laws seek to legislate morality inasmuch as they attempt to establish standards of right conduct between citizens and between citizens and the state. That’s what the Bill of Rights is all about. Discrimination or favoritism based on arbitrary distinctions such as race, color, sex, national origin, religion, eye color, right- or left-handedness, etc., is morally repugnant and so prohibited under law. Unless a substantive argument can be made for NOT allowing an individual or group to participate in ALL the freedoms and responsibilites of citizenhood, they are allowed. ‘Collateral’ damage is not a substantive argument, or no one’s rights would be protected.
If Christians in the military want ministers available, let their churches fund them. If such ministers don’t wish to uphold the fairness doctrin of ALL men being created equal, then they have no place in the armed forces.