I’m sure they were two or three of the most mature, qualified ones too:
Col. Timothy Wagoner has been an Air Force chaplain for 20 years, serving a denomination — the Southern Baptists — that rejects same-sex relationships.
Yet here he was at the chapel he oversees, watching supportively as an airman and his male partner celebrated a civil union ceremony.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Wagoner said at the McGuire Air Force Base chapel, days later. “I don’t feel I’m compromising my beliefs … I’m supporting the community.”
[...]
Prior to repeal, various conservative groups and individuals — including many conservative retired chaplains — warned that repeal would trigger an exodus of chaplains whose faiths consider homosexual activity to be sinful. In fact, there’s been no significant exodus — perhaps two or three departures of active-duty chaplains linked to the repeal. Moreover, chaplains or their civilian coordinators from a range of conservative faiths told The Associated Press they knew of virtually no serious problems thus far involving infringement of chaplains’ religious freedom or rights of conscience.
Well then. The article goes on to point out that, though many chaplains come from conservative religious backgrounds, they are nonetheless grown-ups whose jobs, in fact, revolve on supporting all the servicemembers around them, and in fact have nothing to do with whining about homosexuality.
At what point will people, and the media, recognize that if the Religious Right is screaming about the sky falling, they’re either lying or just generally being hysterical approximately 100% of the time?
[h/t David Badash]
I vote for lying, which is the same as bearing false witness. I’m pretty sure there’s a commandment against that somewhere in their book.
David Badash-
Read the whole article. The “2 or 3″ resignations are not confirmed. A conservative chaplain simply notes that there were 2 or 3 resignations recently and he “guessed” that DADT might have played a part in that, although none of the chaplains cited it as a reason and the resignations themselves were not timed to the date of the repeal.
The whole story is based on interviews with a few chaplains who opposed repeal and are now desperately scrounging for whatever scraps they can find to justify their position. So when a chaplain resigns and doesn’t say why, it is convenient to guess that it is because of DADT repeal, even though the repeal hasn’t prompted resignations among 3,000 other chaplains.
I really applaud these two guys for doing this while still in the Air Force, which from what I understand, is the most homophobic branch of the military. The Air Force Academy in particular has been a hot bed of fundamentalist religious bullying.
These “chaplains” have a pretty cush job. Gonna give up that govmint paycheck cause a couple of homasexyals might decide to get hitched, and they don’t even have to do the dirty? Fundagelicals may be stupid, but their not dumb!
Don’t feed the troll, but ban him for using dehumanizing language.