Free Republic

Dr. Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. (AP Photo.) (CNSNews.com) – A national group representing more than 2,000 military chaplains from evangelical Christian and Orthodox backgrounds said on Wednesday that the Pentagon has launched a “direct assault” on marriage, and the chaplains they endorse will not be allowed to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies under any circumstances.Dr. Ron Crews, executive director of the newly formed Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, said his 2,000-plus membership is concerned about a Sept. 30 Pentagon memorandum that authorizes chaplains and military chapel facilities to be used for “any private ceremony,”...

An organization representing more than 2,000 of the nation’s 5,000 military chaplains announced Wednesday they would join forces with Catholic Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for Military Service, saying they will not perform same-sex ceremonies. The 2,000 members of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, a group of evangelical clergy, are concerned about the Pentagon’s memorandum – issued 10 days after the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal took effect – that authorizes chaplains to officiate “any private ceremony.” A Sept. 20 order lifted the military’s long-standing DADT policy, allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the armed forces. While the...

Much Ado About Nothing?Ledyard, N.Y.'s town clerk may be well within her rights. When New York legalized same-sex marriage in June, Rose Marie Belforti, the town clerk in Ledyard, N.Y., faced a dilemma: Either betray her Christian faith by granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, or resign. Or at least that’s the choice same-sex-marriage advocates gave her. Instead, Belforti devised a compromise: She asked a deputy to sign all marriage licenses for her, so the town could obey the law, and she could keep her job.But for Deirdre DiBiaggio and Katie Carmichael, that wasn’t good enough.In August, the lesbian couple...

Pope John Paul II, in "Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium," notes how, "If, on the one hand, the West continues to provide evidence of zealous evangelization, on the other hand anti-evangelical currents are equally strong. They strike at the very foundation of human morality, influencing the family and promoting a morally permissive outlook: divorce, free love, abortion, contraconception, the fight against life in its initial phases and in its final phase, the manipulation of life. This program is supported by enormous financial resources, not only in individual countries, but also on a worldwide scale....