The Patriot Post® · Army: Chaplain Didn't Discriminate Against Homosexuals

The seemingly ever-encroaching, Liberty-suppressing ideology known as “political correctness” was recently dealt a blow when the U.S. Army rejected the findings of an investigation into chaplain Scott Squires over allegations of “dereliction of duty” for his refusal to facilitate a marriage retreat for homosexual couples. Squires is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, a Christian denomination that holds to Biblical teachings on the sinfulness of homosexuality and consequently forbids its chaplains from facilitating the homosexual lifestyle. He argued that he was well within his right to refuse the request to administer the retreat based upon the rule that he must follow the guidelines established by his endorsing agency.

Squires noted that he made sure another chaplain could help the soldier who had made the request. But for those seeking to force everyone to capitulate to certain views on sexuality, this was not good enough, and so the Army launched an investigation into whether Squires’s refusal amounted to sexual discrimination. Fortunately, after the investigation, the Army ruled in Squires’s favor, rejecting any notion that he had engaged in sexual discrimination. Mike Berry, deputy general counsel and director of military affairs to First Liberty, the group that represented Squires, stated, “The United States military is no place for anti-religious hostility against its own military chaplains. Chaplains like Scott Squires and assistant Kacie Griffin do not have to give up their First Amendment rights in order to serve their fellow soldiers.”

It’s becoming a repeated pattern that if any discrimination occurs, it’s against those who hold true to their religious convictions on homosexuality. Unfortunately, the classic notion of “live and let live” is no longer considered an acceptable expression of tolerance for those motivated by the Left’s politically correct and tyrannical view of “morality.”

Furthermore, the military should not be the primary battleground for waging the culture war. As Nicole Russell of the Washington Examiner writes, “It’s imperative that the military and its resources remain focused on the task at hand — defending this country, here and abroad — rather than concern itself with whether a chaplain is discriminating against someone else’s right to a marriage retreat in violation of his own conscience. These issues are not only a distraction from the purpose of the military but a frivolous effort that cloaks political correctness in discrimination and requires members of faith to violate their conscience for another’s demands.” Can we get an “amen”?