Reinventing the premise of "Don't ask/Don't tell"

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Air Force Eases Rules on Religion in response to pressure from Evangelicals.

The Air Force, under pressure from evangelical Christian groups and members of Congress, softened its guidelines on religious expression yesterday to emphasize that superior officers may discuss their faith with subordinates and that chaplains will not be required to offer nonsectarian prayers.

"This does affirm every airman's right, even the commanders' right, to free exercise of religion, and that means sharing your faith," said Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, the Air Force's chief of chaplains.

....

The guidelines still warn superior officers to be "sensitive to the potential" that personal expressions of faith may appear to be official statements. But they say that, "subject to these sensitivities, superiors enjoy the same free exercise rights as all other airmen." They now add that there are no restrictions in situations "where it is reasonably clear that the discussions are personal, not official, and they can be reasonably free of the potential for, or appearance of, coercion."

That last sentence seems to leave a great deal of wiggle room. In particular I find it noteworthy that the new guidelines allow superior officers to "share (their) faith" even if they perceive that it could come across as coercive by setting the bar at "reasonably clear" which is a highly subjective criteria. Given the absolutely central role given to chain of command respect and obedience in any professional military force, including the U.S. Air Force, I would think that the previous guidelines made a lot more sense.

The contrast between how religous sectarianism and homosexuality are being treated by the military strikes me as quixotic, to say the least. I mean, isn't human history chock full of examples of religious-based violence and wars? Even today I can easily name half a dozen armed conflicts around the world that find their basis in sectarianism. Even within our own military forces we have examples of sectarian-based violence like the grenade attack in Kuwait at the beginning of the Iraq War.

How many wars have been fought along sexual orientation lines?

What sense does it make to, on the one hand, argue that gays being open about their sexuality will be a detriment to unit cohesion and on the other hand insist that superior officers being able to prosyletize won't have any detrimental effects on unit cohesion?

Think about this. Many evangelicals have been raised to believe as a matter of faith that Catholicism is tantamount to demon worship and that Papists are quite literally agents of the Anti-Christ. So some shmuck who attended Bob Jones University gets into the Air Force and finds himself assigned under a devout Catholic who insists on exercizing his/her newfound freedom to proselytize junior officers and grunts alike. The evangelical enlistee interpretes that as essentially tantamount to a personal attack by "dark forces." And that's supposed to be a good thing???

Again, how many wars have been fought along sexual orientation lines? How many have been fought along religious orientation lines?

(Hat Tip to fellow Oregon Indie Ron Beasley at Middle Earth Journal)