Bill Filed to Protect Conscience Rights of Chaplains

U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) has introduced the Military Religious Freedom Protection Act (H.R. 3828) — a bill that would protect the conscience rights of chaplains serving in the United States Armed Forces.  Illinois U.S. Representative Randy Hultgren (R-Geneva) has joined Huelskamp in co-sponsoring the legislation.

 

The proposal would ensure that no chaplain can be required to officiate at any same-sex commitment ceremony.  The language provides that a chaplain cannot be required to perform or participate in “any duty, rite, ritual, ceremony, service, or function that is contrary to their own conscience, moral principles,or religious beliefs.”

 

The Defense Department recently announced that it would permit so-called same-sex “marriages” and civil unions to be performed in military chapels in states where those unions have been legalized.  The action by the Pentagon flies in the face of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that provides that the federal government can only recognize traditional marriages.

 

“This bill will ensure that none of our men and women in uniform are asked to compromise their religious and spiritual beliefs,”  Huelskamp says.  “It will make certain that our military facilities are not used in contravention to DOMA.  Military installations exist to carry out the national defense of our country, not to facilitate a narrow social agenda.”

 

Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty, says that chaplains have experienced an increasingly hostile environment since Congress acted to open the ranks of the Armed Forces to active homosexuals.

 

Crews says that the normalization of homosexuality in the military has created a chilling effect on free speech among the troops and a “climate of fear” among chaplains.  Chaplains are already experiencing “retaliation, including having their careers threatened, for being ‘politically incorrect.'”