“I am relieved the Navy sided with me,” Modder said in a statement released by Liberty Institute, which represented him. “I have served honorably for 20 years in diverse units in the Marine Corps and Navy.”
The Navy has exonerated a highly decorated and respected chaplain, denying a formal request by his commanding officer to dismiss him from the military based on statements he made to sailors during private counseling sessions.
Chaplain Wesley Modder’s former commander, Capt. John Fahs, commanding officer of the Navy Nuclear Power Training Command (NNPTC) in Goose Creek, S.C., had sought to remove Modder because he expressed his Christian beliefs on issues of sexuality, marriage, and homosexuality during counseling sessions with sailors. But after reviewing the evidence, the Navy disapproved Fahs’ request.
The decision by the Navy’s Personnel Command also overrules a March 16 letter by Fahs in which he denied Modder’s formal request for religious accommodation under Navy regulations.
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