It wasn’t so much a choice as it was a demand.Chaplain David Wells was told he could either sign a state-mandated document promising to never tell inmates that homosexuality is “sinful” or else the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice would revoke his credentials.
“We could not sign that paper,” Chaplain Wells told me in a telephone call from his home in Kentucky. “It broke my heart.”
The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice revoked his volunteer credentials as an ordained minister – ending 13 years of ministry to underage inmates at the Warren County Regional Juvenile Detention Center.
“We sincerely appreciate your years of service and dedication to the youth served by this facility,” wrote Superintendent Gene Wade in a letter to Wells. “However, due to your decision, based on your religious convictions, that you cannot comply with the requirements outlined in DJJ Policy 912, Section IV, Paragraph H, regarding the treatment of LGBTQI youth, I must terminate your involvement as a religious volunteer.”
This effectively delegitimizes Christian clerics from serving the inmates of state prisons and juvenile correction centers. No priest or minister of a recognized Christian denomination could accept such limitations in good conscience. It would amount to giving government a veto power over one’s chaplaincy.
Wonder when the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent State will get around to declaring adultery a legally protected practice that priests and ministers cannot criticize? When will our masters get around to making abortion an off-limits subject? And how about the most common form of inmate abuse in our prisons: rape? Well, maybe only as it applies to elected officials...
One has to wonder where the alphabet soup of LGBTQIXYZPDQ will ever end.
ReplyDeleteAlso, does this decision mean that no islamic chaplains will be allowed? I can never remember if they think homosexuality is wrong or not. Or does that depend on the sex of the goat?
It is safe to say that Islam will likely be winked at, regardless of the law.
ReplyDeleteWeetabix, the goats fall under the embraceable ewe clause in the Koran...so no problem there...however, as far as same sex goes with Islam (and to a greater extent, any sex outside of marriage) if it is with an infidelconsentual or NON consentual....it is okay. Because they do not count (The same applies with goats, camels, etc...but I gather you may have already understood that.)
ReplyDeleteGuy S.