What caught my eye in the article is the discrimination of chaplins from more conservative denominations in promotion.
Please see #18 in which I address concerns about promotion
See #25 for concerns about serving homosexuals in the “new” military
The bottom line about promotion, Wmfights, is that in an effort to keep a balance of chaplains in the military, the military looks at both the representation of any denomination in the US and in the military and any special concerns of the chaplaincy. If Catholics have 25% and southern baptists have 9%, then ROUGHLY 25% of your chaplains should be Catholic and 9% should be Southern Baptist. In actuality, there are very few Catholic priests in the military, given the number of soldiers of the Catholic faith in the military. This is due to far fewer men in Catholicism choosing to go into the priesthood.
Therefore, the number of Catholic priests in the military should be about 300, and it is slightly less than 100. The number of Southern Baptists should be about 120 and it is 300+. Remember, the point is to accomplish the best coverage of all denominations as is humanly possible.
Within reason, these proportions should also hold across most ranks (Cpt, Maj, Ltc). When one gets to Col thru 2-Star general in the Chaplaincy, the numbers are so small, that the proportional discussion is moot. There is only one 1 star and one 2 star, and the 1 star should almost 100% of the time follow the 2 star into that 2 star position. With 100’s of denominations, it will be hard to share that around proportionally. You’d be talking in terms of hundreds of years to complete a cycle.
The same with Col (0-6) positions. There just aren’t that many to go around in a corps with a total of something like 1200 - 1300 chaplains.