Most Americans, including Christians, now support equal rights for gays and lesbians serving in the U.S. military.
A new poll by the Pew Research Center indicates that 58 percent of Americans support equal rights for gays and lesbians in the armed forces. Large majorities of Democrats (70 percent) and independents (62 percent) favor allowing gays to serve openly. Republicans are divided (40 percent favor, 44 percent oppose).
But let's look at the religious breakdown too:
- 62 percent of white mainline Protestants support equal rights for gays in the military.
- 52 percent of black Protestants support equal rights.
- 66 percent of Catholics favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly.
Let me be clear, I'm very glad to have Christians moving toward a strong stance in support of equal rights for gays and lesbians in all sectors of society. This is a positive step forward for the society at large and Christians should be part of it.
The Pentagon report released yesterday finds significant support for repealing DADT among the younger "blue collar warriors," while a vocal minority of top brass will be uncomfortable with the shift. And don't get me wrong, I want the churches to continue to support fair and equal treatment for gays and lesbians.
However, there are other sticky questions I want to raise.
Are the Christians that want a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell also supporting gays and lesbians within their own churches? Do they advocate for LGBT justice and liberation? Do they invest in and promote gay and lesbian leadership and open their congregations to new, liberating ways of reading scripture in the context of the LGBT life experience?
Secondly, are the Christians that want a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell also calling into question military service in an era when the U.S. has the second largest standing army in the world (behind China) and has troops stationed on all six inhabited continents?
I can support equal rights for gays in the military, but there's the bigger question: As a Christian should I be supporting military participation at all? And how do Christians critique the prevailing "Empire consciousness" and offer instead our "prophetic imagination" or "alternative consciousness," as theologian Walter Brueggemann calls it, on issues of war and peace?
If Christians are supporting the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, then are they also advocating strong teaching in their churches on the Christian pacifist tradition or the rigorous moral "just war" process that any Christian -- gay or straight -- must go through before participating in any given war?
When Jesus says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God," what does he mean? Or when he says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you"? Or "To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic"?
Early generations of Christians refused to participate in war (though those who did were counseled and sometimes asked not to seek communion for a period of time, but were not cut off from community). Soldiers who subsequently converted to Christianity often left military service, viewing it as incompatible with their new life.
Why? Largely because of idolatry. Military service forced them to put the gods of nationalism ahead of the God of Jesus Christ. Military service also fostered hatred for an enemy, an attitude viewed as antithetical to Christ's teachings. "Love of enemies is the principal precept of the Christian," said the Tunisian theologian Tertullian in the first century. Until the time of Constantine no Christian writing allowed for Christians to participate in war. Military valor was not a virtue. True victory was won through love.
In a democracy that enshrines civil rights and "justice for all," it is right and good for Americans to support the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and promote LGBT civil rights in the society at large.
Christians, however, have another set of values to examine. For traditionalists it may be whether you can be gay and Christian. For progressives, it's whether you can be Christian and "Army Strong."
This post first appeared on Rose Marie Berger's personal blog.