In many religious circles, the repeal of a military ban on openly gay members is considered practically a done deal. But the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which has many more active-duty military chaplains than any other denomination, is not giving up without a fight.
The SBC is battling the expected repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” on a number of fronts. Its agencies are contacting Congress and the Pentagon, retired chaplains are sending letters to President Obama and a resolution condemning allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military was adopted at the denomination’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., June 15–16.
The resolution said in part, “Normalizing the open presence of homosexuals in the armed forces will result in pressuring Southern Baptist and other biblically faithful military chaplains to restrict or redefine the gospel message.”
Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said, “If a policy makes it more difficult — in fact, discourages — one of the groups that provides one of the largest numbers of chaplains to the military from continuing to engage in chaplaincy ministry, that should raise significant concerns for them about the … spiritual well-being of our men and women in uniform.”
With about 16 million members, the SBC is the country’s largest Protestant denomination but falls well short of the Roman Catholic Church’s 68 million members. But whereas the Catholic Church has 252 active-duty chaplains, the SBC has 448 — the most in the military. There are about 3,000 active-duty chaplains overall.
The number of active-duty personnel who say they are Southern Baptist is far smaller than the number of Catholics, but there is no quota system for chaplains. Chaplains serve members of all faiths rather than solely troops of their denomination.
More liberal denominations with smaller numbers of military chaplains worry that the SBC might be more influential in the gay debate.
“We have some concerns about that, sure,” said John Gundlach, a retired Navy chaplain who serves as minister for government chaplaincies for the United Church of Christ, which had 17 military chaplains as of March, according to the Defense Department.
Gundlach’s denomination joined other groups like the Episcopal Church, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and the Alliance of Baptists in writing to Congress this spring, saying, “This policy of government-sanctioned discrimination is morally wrong.”
Southern Baptist leaders have warned their chaplains may have to leave the military if “don’t ask, don’t tell” is repealed. Even their allies aren’t willing to go that far.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, leader of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, has urged Congress not to repeal the current policy. But John Schlageter, general counsel for the archdiocese, said there are no plans to remove Catholic chaplains if the repeal occurs.
“We don’t think that the free exercise would be that restricted that we have to pull out,” he said, referring to the constitutional principle of freely exercising religious freedom.
The House of Representatives voted in May for the repeal, and the Senate could consider it at any time. If both houses of Congress pass the repeal, then it would not go into effect until a Defense Department review is completed by Dec. 1 and President Obama and top military officials determine it won’t harm military readiness or retention.
Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the review panel’s mission “is not to engage in a debate about whether to repeal the law” but rather to learn how it might affect service members and their families.
Asked if a large group like the SBC might have more influence than others, she said, “Our review is going to be thorough and very objective.”
Southern Baptists, who say their presence in the military chaplaincy totals 1,300 chaplains when Reserve and National Guard units are included, have told Congress and the Pentagon that chaplains could lose their freedom to preach and counsel against homosexuality if openly gay members are accepted by the military.
“For instance, a chaplain could be told there are certain passages of the Scripture that you shouldn’t preach from,” said David Mullis, Southern Baptists’ chaplaincy associate for military chaplaincy. “If there was a prohibition about certain kinds of literature that did not espouse homosexuality, I can see the Bible being banned in the military.”
But Herman Keizer, a retired Army chaplain who once served as the European Command chaplain, who has endorsed chaplains for the Christian Reformed Church, said he doesn’t think Bibles will be removed from military chapels and he doubts most Southern Baptists would leave if the repeal were put in place.
“They’re dedicated enough to the whole notion of evangelism that they’re not going to abandon a missions field,” he said. (RNS)
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