Last month a chaplain in Alaska was ordered to remove a religious column he had written because it supposedly offended atheists at his Air Force base. Now a young soldier says she was reprimanded for a Facebook post about homosexuality.
A female Army chaplain’s assistant told Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes she was accused of creating a “hostile and antagonistic” environment after writing a message on her personal Facebook page in which she called homosexuality a sin.
The 26-year-old soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she took to her social media page after returning home from church one Sunday and watching a documentary about a minister who endorsed homosexuality.
“I was frustrated with what I saw so I posted a Facebook message about it,” she told Starnes.
The Facebook posting in question said, “A lot ticked off, now to all my gay friends you know I care about you so don’t think otherwise. I’m watching this documentary and this gay guy went to a church and the Pastor was telling him that he needs to embrace his way and know that it is not a sin. Ok umm wow, dude it is. I’m sick of people making Gods word what it’s not. Yes God loves you as a person but He hates the sin. Tired of hearing about Pastors being ok with homosexuality.”
The chaplain’s assistant, who believes individuals within her unit reported her, was ordered to the commander’s office the next day and was told she must either remove the post or face a reduction in rank and pay.
“He said I was creating hostile and antagonistic environment in the unit by posting that on Facebook,” she said. “He said I needed to either take it down or face a UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).”
But the evangelical Christian refuses to remove her post.
“I haven’t taken it down, and I won’t take it down,” she told Fox News. “It is frustrating that people are trying to silence me for something that I believe in. We fight for the freedom that I can’t enjoy right now. That’s not right.”
The unnamed soldier reached out to Todd Hudnall, her pastor at Radiant Church in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“I read what she posted, and there was absolutely no trace of animus, disrespect or hostility,” Hudnall told Fox News. “Instead, she expressed love for her gay friends but insisted that biblical values should not be compromised. Her issue wasn’t with anyone who is gay but with pastors who refuse to acknowledge scriptural teaching about homosexual behavior.”
Hudnall, who said the soldier was reprimanded for “holding to orthodox biblical instruction,” said this is not the first time he has heard of Christian soldiers being threatened for their religious beliefs.
“It sounds more like totalitarianism than keeping with our heritage of liberty,” he said. “I’m becoming quite concerned that we are losing the freedom of speech and religion in the name of tolerance and over shifting norms of morality and behavior.”
