Dr. Israel Drazin: Repealing the military’s gay ban will enhance religious freedom

  Sixty-five retired military chaplains wrote to President Barack Obama earlier this year urging him to maintain the military’s ban on service by openly gay men and women. These chaplains alleged that allowing gay men and women to serve openly would compel them to violate their religious principles, such as forcing them to perform same-sex marriages. They claim that if they would not officiate at such marriages, the military would discipline, demote, and perhaps even dismiss them from military service. Repealing the ban, commonly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” will force them to either “obey God or to obey man.”

  Nothing could be further from the truth. As a lawyer and retired assistant chief of chaplains with the rank of brigadier general, let me set the record straight.