Ethics

Bigots Try to Become Conscientious Objectors Over DADT

By Ed Brayton

The New York Times reports that with the impending end of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in the military, the G.I. Rights Hotline run by the Center on Conscience and War has begun receiving calls from active duty soldiers asking if they can claim conscientious objector status and get out of the military if that policy is changed.

But when the House of Representatives voted May 27 to allow the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, paving the way for gay men and lesbians in the military to be open about their sexual orientation, Ms. McNeil got a hot-line call that raised a new issue: the caller said he considered homosexuality an abomination and wanted to be a conscientious objector because he could not serve in the military alongside gay soldiers...

The next day, while Ms. McNeil was thinking through the legal ramifications, the center got an e-mail message raising the same issue.

"This is just the beginning," Ms. McNeil said. "When the other shoe drops and the policy actually ends, I think we're going to get a lot of these."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).