“Changing the current law is a grave threat to their First Amendment protected rights because it could force them to deny the teachings of their faith in order to serve.”

The Alliance Defense Fund was founded in 1994 by evangelical leaders such as Bill Bright, Larry Burkett, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy and many others as an organization with the goal of “defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

The Family Research Council was founded 1983 as an organization dedicated to the promotion of marriage and family and the sanctity of human life in national policy. It also strives to assure that the unique attributes of the family are recognized and respected through the decisions of the courts and regulatory bodies. The group was formed under the leadership of James Dobson, and in 1988 became a division of Focus on the Family, with Gary Bauer, a former Reagan cabinet official taking leadership.

These two groups are supporting an effort of a large number of retired U. S. military chaplains who have written a letter to the President and the Secretary of Defense asking that the current ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy concerning homosexuals serving in the military NOT be changed.

A press conference has been announced at 2:00PM Wednesday, April 28, at the office of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Representing the more than forty retired chaplains who have signed the letter will be Chaplain (Brigadier General) Douglas E. Lee, U.S. Army, Retired, and Chaplain (Colonel) Richard R. Young, U.S. Army, Retired

Joining them will be FRC President Tony Perkins and ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence

The event’s purpose is to announce and call attention to the release of a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, signed by more than 40 retired military chaplains. The letter addresses the chaplains’ religious liberty concerns with the proposal to overturn the law against the practice of open homosexual behavior in the military, frequently referred to as the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.

Editor’s note: to read a full copy of this letter, go here: http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/DADTLetter.pdf

“Military chaplains who have volunteered to defend the liberties protected in our Constitution shouldn’t be denied those very same liberties,” said Lorence. “Changing the current law is a grave threat to their First Amendment protected rights because it could force them to deny the teachings of their faith in order to serve. That, in turn, would be detrimental to the spiritual health and morale of the men and women in uniform who depend on them for guidance and support.”

The letter states in part, “Put most simply, if the government normalizes homosexual behavior in the armed forces, many (if not most) chaplains will confront a profoundly difficult moral choice: whether they are to obey God or to obey men. This forced choice must be faced, since orthodox Christianity–which represents a significant percentage of religious belief in the armed forces–does not affirm homosexual behavior…. By raising homosexual behavior to the same protected class as innate, innocuous characteristics like race and gender, the armed forces will cast the sincerely held religious beliefs of many chaplains and Service members as rank bigotry comparable to racism…. If chaplains are limited in teaching and counseling on their beliefs, then the men and women in uniform who share their faith and rely on their instruction will necessarily face a reduction in the free exercise of their faith.”