Posted on 11/06/2015 8:59:28 AM PST by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
'We prayed. We cried. We thanked the Lord'
Lt. Commander Wesley J. "Wes" Modder, a decorated Navy chaplain with nearly 20 years of unblemished service, remembers vividly the moment he told his wife he could go back to the calling he loved, having been reinstated after a bitter battle that pitted religious freedom and individual conscience against the mandate to respect gay and women's rights.
Chaplain Modder said he drove home Sept. 3, took his wife into the bedroom and told her about the reinstatement letter he received that day.
"We prayed. We cried. We thanked the Lord," he said in a telephone interview. "We think the Navy did the right thing."
Until that letter arrived, the chaplain was staring at the end of a long and distinguished career, having received a "detachment for cause" notification for "substandard performance of duty" and "intolerant" treatment of gay and unwed pregnant personnel who came to him for comfort and counseling. Critics accused the chaplain of using his Christian faith to "belittle" gay and female sailors, a symbol of what they said was a larger push within the military to promote fundamentalist Christian ideas in the ranks.
But the chaplain also attracted a fierce band of defenders, including members of Congress and religious freedom advocates, who saw in his ordeal just one more skirmish in the battle to protect religious beliefs in the social and legal climate that champions sexual and minority rights.
Federal courts have made it clear that "religious freedom doesn't stop just because you join the military," said Michael Berry, a lawyer with Liberty Institute, which assisted in Chaplain Modder's case. Rep. Doug Collins, Georgia Republican and a Southern Baptist minister who is the only active military chaplain in Congress, also hailed the chaplain's vindication.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
I expect the powers what are in the uniformed services to be gunning for him now.
I do believe they will try and nab him for something else now.
That’s a given.
Amen.
They’ll stay quiet until makes his 20, then push him hard into retirement.
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