Retired chaplains speak out against DADT repeal

[Broomstick]

First, I question that MOST military chaplains would find serving gay personnel incompatible with their religious beliefs. Undoubtedly some would, however, MOST would not. That's like saying they can't provide services to those soldiers who members of the chaplains religious group who are sinners, because they're violating some tenant of the religion. It's ridiculous. Will they next argue they can't serve those having heterosexual sex outside of marriage? They can't serve those who kill? (Nevermind that killing the enemy is a non-trivial part of being a soldier in the first place!).

In addition, there are established policies on what to do when such conflicts do arise, such as when a Christian of one sect is not supposed to provide communion to those outside of his sect even when those are others are Christians, and how to serve those who are not members of the chaplain's group. Military chaplains are already required to provide services to those who don't share their beliefs and practices. If the can't do that they shouldn't be military chaplains in the first place.

It's just flat-out bigotry, nothing more.

[SVPD]

But Broomstick, doesn't all that run contrary to the OP? These retired chaplins are arguing that they can't function in their capacity as chaplins if they are forced to accept gay people because of their personal religious beliefs. The argument is that since homosexuality violates most of the chaplins in the militaries personal religious beliefs, then repealing DADT and allowing gay men and women to serve actively impairs their job function. If your description is accurate, then it wouldn't be an issue because their personal religious beliefs are irrelevant to their service to a hypothetical gay soldier, but they are arguing that this is clearly not the case.

The problem here is not the Chaplain's personal beliefs so much as their accredation.

According to the regulation I linked, Chaplains must be accredited by a religious agency. If they lose that accredation they must leave the service. If the Chaplain is put in a situation where he must handle a homosexual soldier's problems relating to sexuality and isn't allowed to express religious disapproval of it, he could violate his accrediting agency's standards and lose his accredation and thus be removed from the service.

That's easily fixed though. Let them pull their accredation and all their representation in the Chaplain Corps. Good riddance. We can recruit new chaplains from the more tolerant denominations. I don't think they will though. I think they're bluffing.

[Raxmei]

The source here is retired chaplains, ie old religious guys with nothing better to do. I'm not surprised a bunch of them got together to protest in favor of the status quo. Now if someone with authority in a major denomination started making noise about pulling their chaplains, that would be a lot more newsworthy.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Now if someone with authority in a major denomination started making noise about pulling their chaplains, that would be a lot more newsworthy.

I wouldn't be, what you would see happen is the military would start offering more incentives ($$$$$) for people to be Chaplains if there were a shortage of them. People being people and liking money, those accredited by more liberal denominations would fill in the gap and the fundamentalists that do exist in the Armed Forces would lose that avenue to proselytize and de facto cede it to the liberals.

They're caught in a Catch-22.

[Raxmei]

I wouldn't be, what you would see happen is the military would start offering more incentives ($$$$$) for people to be Chaplains if there were a shortage of them. People being people and liking money, those accredited by more liberal denominations would fill in the gap and the fundamentalists that do exist in the Armed Forces would lose that avenue to proselytize and de facto cede it to the liberals.

They're caught in a Catch-22.

It'd be more newsworthy in the sense that there would be some chance of people actually doing something. Yes, if it did happen it would be a losing gambit for many reasons.