Whine, Alliance Defense Fund, whine:
“Our troops’ religious liberties are in unprecedented jeopardy because the government has caved in to pressure from small groups of activists to impose homosexual and bisexual behavior on our military,” ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Daniel Blomberg said in a statement Friday.
The ADF statement came just after the Obama administration cleared the last hurdle in ending the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which barred openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. The ban will end after the 60-day waiting period, on September 20.
Once that happens, the first casualty may well be the religious freedom of chaplains and service members, Blomberg said. “No formal protections have been adopted despite many having been proposed,” he complained. “No Americans, and especially not our troops, should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs.”
Gawd, they’re melodramatic when they’re playing victim. Let’s break this down.
First of all, this has nothing do to with “our troops’ religious liberties.” One of the ways the Christian Right lies is by delusionally acting as if they represent the mainstream of America, or in this case, the mainstream of our troops. They do not. The majority of troops don’t care what the sexual orientation of the people they serve with is. They care whether or not they can do their jobs. It is a declining minority of troops who are so uncomfortable in their skin/religiously brainwashed that they are obsessed with other peoples’ sexuality.
Moreover, this has nothing to do with “religious liberties” in the first place. Are gay soldiers going to prevent these few wingnut soldiers from worshipping as they see fit? No? Well then, their religious liberty is intact! I am quite aware that the Christian Right views itself collectively as the World’s Best Snowflake Baby, due all the care, concern and deference their little hearts desire, but nowhere in the concept of “religious freedom” is the idea that they should be protected from people who think differently from them. Moreover, the bitching about the chaplains is always cute, as chaplains in a diverse environment such as the military are expected, as part of their job description, to be able to minister to all different kinds of people, including the many, many straight troops who have no interest in their bewildering, Philistine beliefs about human sexuality. And the idea that a wingnut outfit such as the Alliance Defense Fund is blubbering about chaplains being denied their “right” to preach hatred against gay people tells us more about their whiny, weird obsessions than it does about anything involving DADT repeal in the US military.
Finally, the quote about troops being forced to “abandon their religious beliefs” is simply insane to anyone with a triple digit IQ so I’m not spending a paragraph correcting it.
Hey ADF: stop whining. The Military isn’t whining. Try to follow their example.
[h/t Andrew Belonsky]










Why does presence of LGBT soldiers put chaplains’ religious liberty at risk, but the military rabbi and/or imam in the cubicle next door doesn’t? Fundamentalist Christianity is not the only religion allowed in the US military, even though the AFA would like to repeal the First Amendment and make it that way.
Hey, AFA … Thanks for doing such a WONDERFUL JOB defending our US Constitution … the ENTIRE thing!
Chaplains aren’t ‘threatened’ by agnostic/atheist troops in their midst; I don’t see how this is any different. I don’t know if military chaplains only serve the religion of their own persuasion, but I believe hospital chaplains will talk to anyone in distress, not just religious folks. To me it’s just common human decency to comfort someone in need, even if they don’t share the same beliefs.
Military chaplains, like hospital chaplains, are charged with the spiritual needs of ALL the people under their care. They are not there to proselytize or preach hellfire and damnation to those with different beliefs; that was never the intention of the chaplaincy and those that do such things are in violation of their mandate.
They are whiners, aren’t they? It angers me that tax-payer money goes to pay the salaries of govt-sanctioned holy men to begin with.
Well, we all know that this pathetic, fact-free, blubbering about how horrible conditions are going to be if they can’t freely condemn their fellow soldiers, is spit out repeatedly so the loyal bigots that are their followers and personal pocketbooks will not waver in their devotion to this ever-more ridiculous blather.
Get a clue, asswipes, your hatred will get you nowhere, absolutely nowhere.