Chaplains fight repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'

By Jen DiMascio

Forty retired military chaplains are appealing to President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to retain the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell" ban on gays in the military.

The chaplains argue in a letter to the commander in chief and defense secretary, due to go out Wednesday, that allowing gays to serve openly in the military would discriminate against some Christian chaplains.

“We are deeply concerned that these changes would threaten the religious liberty of chaplains and service members,” the chaplains said in their letter, circulated Tuesday by the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund.

A change in the military policy would force chaplains into a moral conundrum, they said, “whether they are to obey God or to obey men.”

They also cite the recent dis-invitation of Family Research Council President Tony Perkins from an Air Force prayer meeting as evidence that a crackdown on those who oppose repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” is already under way.

The letter is coming in the same week that gay-rights advocates are intensifying their lobbying efforts ahead of next month’s mark-up of the annual defense authorization bill – which, particularly by the Senate Armed Services Committee, is fast becoming a focal point for interest groups on both sides of the controversial issue.

If the committee votes to include a repeal provision in the must-pass legislation, it could be the best chance at overturning the 17-year-old ban.

On Monday, former First-Class Petty Officer Lonnie Allen Howard-Stidham, who was discharged from the Coast Guard for being gay, and four others were arrested for refusing to leave the Phoenix office of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz..

Service members dismissed because they are gay are sending a letter a day to the president until lawmakers mark up the bill, telling their stories about how the military’s discriminatory policy led to their dismissal.

For instance, former Air Force Maj. Mike Almy deployed four times to the Middle East, including Iraq. His discharge proceedings started after someone checked his computer and found an e-mail to his partner.

“Approximately a year after I was relieved of my duties, my wing commander recommended I be promoted to lieutenant colonel, even though the Air Force was actively pursuing my discharge,” Almy wrote. “But instead, after 16 months, I was given a police escort off the base as if I were a common criminal or a threat to national security. The severance pay I received was half of what it would have been had I been separated for any other reason.”