Col. (Ch) Crews: Toleration doesn’t cut both ways
Colonel (Chaplain) Ron Crews writes in the Washington Times that which will surprise no one at this blog. That since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the tolerance that gays demanded from the military is not being afforded to to their ideological opponents. Crews recites a litany of examples of intolerance of people, including chaplains, who oppose homosexuality on the basis of faith;
Senior military 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 in a Post Exchange food court as they were privately discussing their concerns about the impact of repeal. A chaplain was encouraged by military officials to resign his commission unless he could “get in line with the new policy,” demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint. Another chaplain was threatened with early retirement, and then reassigned to be more “closely supervised” because he had expressed concerns with the policy change, again demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint.
Crews concludes, in regards to the recent report that life since the repeal is all rainbows and unicorns for everyone in the military;
Obviously, the recent “study” (aka propaganda) claiming that the repeal went off without a hitch should be shredded post-haste. It has no connection to reality.
Colonel Crews continues that chaplains are working with Congress to protect chaplains’ freedom of conscience. That it even needs to be done is a sorry statement on the whole process.
Category: Big Army
I have an active duty chaplain friend, in the SPECOPS community, and I want to ask him of his take on all this. My friend is as compassionate as anyone I know, and is very passionate about his religion. I seriously doubt that he would trade his convictions for comfort in his military career.
Tolerance does not equal acceptance. To tolerate something means you have to put up with it, you don’t have to agree with it…
Based on “cultural awareness and sensitivity training” I went to on active duty prior to the enactment of the repeal of DADT, I remember thinking that the Marine Corps’ approach to the matter was interesting and smartly approached, specifically, that the Corps would not make special concessions for those who claim who are gay/lesbian and that that the rules and regulations in place would be enforced. (This all came from the DADT guru’s from the Pentagon – JAG types – who gave the brief. Now, the issue seems to be (according to the article) is that some folks within the chain of command may not be enforcing the rules that are on the books in the interest of pacifying those who are “out of the closet”, and a litany of other issues that the service chiefs warned about. For those curious, as it pertains to BAH questions or other “entitlements” , since same-sex marriage is NOT legal in the military, members of the same sex cannot reside in base housing nor draw BAH with dependents, but that’s a whole different story. It seems our society is going to hell in a hand-basket.
Right before the repeal we all had to go through mandatory training about it. Basically nothing is supposed to change in regards to standards and UCMJ. Chaplins are supposed to be allowed to preach against homosexuality from the pulpit, but they can’t turn away a homosexual that seeks counseling from a chaplin. also Homosexuality does not fall under EO. It still remains to be seen if that is the case.
#2 I’d go even further and say that tolerance does not equal approval-and the activists seem to use the former when they really are trying for a mandate on the latter.
The way it was not long ago was that chaplains were not only allowed but encouraged to follow denominational dictates/doctrine in the pulpit so that military members would have that option available to them. Outside the pulpit at acheduled denominational service times they were expected to follow completely nondiscriminatory protocol.
It was a pretty simple system and it worked beautifully. Yes, there were some chaplains who had difficulty with the concept, but they were ushered out when that conflict became known. And it always did.
Couple of problems with all this. First, can someone show that there actually is a problem with chaplains preaching against homosexuality at military installations? No? Then why is this even being discussed?
Second, with chaplains already in short supply, why exactly are folks trying to run off more of them? Chaplains generally are the most tolerant, loving folks I have met. Yet they are under attack. Yes, that concerns me deeply.
I would suggest to the good Chaplain that if the recent report was ‘propaganda’, that he encourage the myriad of anti-gay groups to commission a study of their own.
Beyond that, Crews couldn’t be farther off base. Having a faith based opposition to gays does not affect the freedom that he claims it does. You treat your fellow Soldier with the respect due to him or her. If you cannot, because of an emotional unprofessionalism, then the military is not the place for you. People can continue to believe as they wish. Acting on said beliefs does not constitute “Constitutionally protected freedoms” as the Chaplain so hyperbolically states.
“That it even needs to be done is a sorry statement on the whole process. ”
Yep.
We wouldn’t have heard one word from conservatives about Westboro Baptist Church if they’d never brought service members into their protests.
We wouldn’t have heard one word from conservatives about Westboro Baptist Church if they’d never brought service members into their protests.
Right-WBC (headed by former Democratic candidate for Senate in Kansas Fred Phelps) never did anything loathsome that didn’t involve either GIs or gays http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/blogs/westboro-baptist-church-overwhelmed-at-coal-mine-protest
Ben: the WBC has at one time or another maligned Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, other Baptists, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism – indeed, pretty much any organized religion other than doesn’t share their strident and distorted view of right and wrong. They’re views are so ludicrous and out to lunch – and so ridiculously far out of step with those of most conservatives – that I’m guessing we’d have heard plenty of condemnation of them from other conservatives even without their strident anti-gay stance.
@10-I believe he also ran for Governor of Kansas 3 times on the Democratic ticket.
OK …
Before DADT … there was no real problem.
DADT was a problem (the real story of how the Clinton’s met with the Joint Chief, outside of the mandated time period, made them walk through the back door of the WH, escorted by a 20 something intern, and to be thrown the DADT option as a political pay back for the gay lobby is sickening).
The repeal of DADT has caused even a bigger problem.
I move to institute a new policy …
DON’T ASK … DON’T TALK ABOUT WHO YOU ARE BONING … DON’T CARE … GET THE FU*K BACK TO WORK.
I support the Chaplains and their duty to their God and military leaders who were handed this sh*t sandwich!
Amazing. I wrote about this last week and republished it yesterday at Flopping Aces (http://floppingaces.net/2012/09/26/one-year-anniversary-of-dadt-repeal). Honestly, I talk a lot about the DADT repeal with my fellow troops and pay attention at the food court and other places I go. I have not found a SINGLE Soldier that agrees with the repeal. I haven’t met someone that has had to deal with a gay Soldier in the ranks, so these “surveys” are bogus.
The Presidential enactment of and repeal of DADT goes to prove that if you’re going to be the CINC of the military, you need to have served. Only knowing what’s going on in the military through a cabinet memeber is just FUBAR.
#7 “People can continue to believe as they wish. Acting on said beliefs does not constitute ‘Constitutionally protected freedom’ as the Chaplain so hyperbolically states.”
Whatever happened to “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? If you cannot legally act upon your deeply held religious beliefs, the government is “prohibiting the free exercise thereof”…
@Miss Ladybug – Apologies, I should have been more concise, I am referring to people’s actions towards others.
I’m no preacher, but as best as I can tell, I can be a devout practitioner of Christianity [or whatever religion] and not have the sexual orientation of another affect the practice of my faith in the least.
Here’s another new problem that’s come up:
I just got back from a deployment on a ship around Southeast Asia. At our liberty ports we were allowed to get hotel rooms, with a number of restrictions. One of the most heavily enforced was that members of the opposite sex could not share a room. Probably for pretty obvious reasons.
However, if there were gay couples–and there were–there were no restrictions on them getting rooms together.
So what we are left with is this: Homesexual couples can room together as much as they want, in full few and knowledge of anyone, while hetero couples can not.
Now who’s being discriminated against?
Solution: remove all restrictions that don’t violate Chain of Command. Let people do who they want.
Heck, I’m waiting from the Aberdeen Proving Ground scandal (you know, male instructors on female trainees) to be repeated male-on-male… think of all the combinations we can have now. Moms and dads (not to mention the general public) sure won’t be ready for that.