Former military chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who performed an exorcism on a lesbian service member who sought his counseling after she was raped, appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday, where he declared that “Christians no longer have a sacred place to worship” following the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Klingenschmitt was discussing a decision by the Pentagon that permitted same-sex marriages in bases where they are legal by giving chaplains the right to “participate in or officiate any private ceremony, whether on or off a military installation, provided that the ceremony is not prohibited by applicable state and local law.” The Pentagon also said that “determinations regarding the use of DOD real property and facilities for private functions, including religious and other ceremonies, should be made on a sexual-orientation neutral basis, provided such use is not prohibited by applicable state and local laws.”
But Klingenschmitt falsely claims that this opens the door to same-sex marriages in all fifty states, including states where they are illegal. He warned that chaplains now do “not have the option to keep his sacred space, and keep the chapel, from being desecrated” by same-sex weddings:
Mefferd: What is the condition now, since the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, what is the story now on what is going on for Christian chaplains within the military and the kind of pressure they are facing on the homosexual issue?
Klingenschmitt: Well it’s getting worse, not better. Last month, the Pentagon issued very strict guidelines that mandate, mandatory, all chapels in all fifty states on military bases must be opened up to homosexual weddings now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed. You can get, if you’re a gay couple, you can get a license from Massachusetts and have a wedding in a military chapel in Texas or any of the fifty states and that is supposed to be protected. Well that means that Christians no longer have a sacred place to worship. A Catholic chapel, a Protestant chapel, must be opened up or the chaplain who refuses to do that will be punished for disobeying disorders, or discriminating against homosexual weddings. Of course, the chaplain may have the option to not preside at the wedding ceremony itself but he does not have the option to keep his sacred space, and keep the chapel, from being desecrated.
