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.
So Teach you think it would be A-OK for muslim chaplins to advocate for not fighting against Islamic countries? Or christian chaplins to decide which wars were justified?
john,
That provision is already in the Constitution. It is called “treason.”
Furthermore, if you had bothered to read the article, the bill deals with “the authority to “direct, order, or require a chaplain to perform any duty, rite, ritual, ceremony, or function.”
This provision has nothing to do with following orders that are in the military interests of the country, but rather an attack on the First Amendment principles upon which this country was founded.
Your comment is, as always, off the mark and based on your ignorance of the subject matter.
What GT said.
And another example….
While john tries to liken the controversy as something it is not, to show there is not a religious bias in our opposition to this law (ie, we are perfectly willing to apply the same laws to all clergy – including Muslim clerics) this example could arise:
“A commanding officer decides that in order to lower costs, special meals to accommodate different religions will no longer be made. Pork will be served to Muslims and Jews. The Muslim restriction of fasting during holidays will be abolished and all personnel – including clerics – will be required to eat.”
Is that the type of religious freedom the men and women of the military have fought for? And continue to fight for?
John won’t respond to this as he is simply a “drive by troll,” but it is clear the White House and Pelosi are against the very freedoms this country was built upon.