While equality advocates celebrated another small step today toward federal recognition of equal marriage, the Family Research Council and the National Organization for (Heterosexual) Marriage demanded that Congress punish and suppress military chaplains whose faith compels them to affirm equality.
Both organizations, which oppose religious freedom for all, want Congress to pass “conscience” provisions that would suppress pro-equality chaplains, preventing them from celebrating the marriage or union of same-sex couples despite their religious conviction to do so.
FRC and NOM make the absurd contention that preventing chaplains from practicing their faith somehow “protects” them. The yellow NOM graphic which accompanies this post exemplifies NOM’s destroy-religious-freedom-in-order-to-protect-it strategy.
NOM further persists with its false contention that Navy regulations somehow require chaplains to perform any marriage, gay or straight, that they disagree with. No such requirement exists. FRC, meanwhile, cries that “the military should not be exploited to advance this [Obama] administration’s social agenda.” It appears that FRC and NOM are the ones who are exploiting and suppressing free religious expression.
