Queen Pelosi: Don’t Protect Military Religious Leaders From Decisions Against Their Faith

18 May, 2012 by William Teach

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What she’s saying is that there she prefers laws that restrict people from the free practice of their religion

(CNS News) House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she stands with the White House in opposing a provision in the House defense authorization bill that would prohibit anyone in the military from ordering a chaplain to act against his or her “conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs” or against the religious beliefs of the denomination to which he or she belongs.

Pelosi described the conscience-protection provision as a “fraud.”

The provision is broadly written to deny anyone in the armed forces the authority to “direct, order, or require a chaplain to perform any duty, rite, ritual, ceremony, or function” that is contrary to his or her conscience, moral principles or religious beliefs or the principles or beliefs of his or her religious denomination.

Among other things, the provision would protect a chaplain from deleterious career repercussions if he or she refused to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony because it violated their religious beliefs.

Shockingly, many chaplains might have a problem with being forced to marry gays, just like gays might have a problem with not being allowed to be married.

Interestingly, in Pelosi’s world, if chaplains should have no dispensation to follow their faith, then “conscientious objectors” should have no dispensation to avoid combat duties based on their beliefs. Fair is fair.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.