Perkins argues that what happened to him is just the beginning of a trend in the military where civil rights will trump the religious freedom to oppose homosexuality. “People don’t understand that in the military there is a chain of command, and you have to follow orders,” Perkins said. “You’re not free to disagree.”When the military was desegregated, presumably, officers who didn't like black people were required to pretty much keep shut about it. And of course, they probably didn't entirely. But surely there was some movement by the upper-brass to enforce discipline. Racial slurs? Probably not too much attention was paid to them, but, I would hope, that persistent articulation of hate was disciplined. But apparently the same thing can't hold for anti-gay beliefs. Why? Because these are supposedly rooted in religion.
Now there are all sorts of chauvinisms: let's suppose that there was a Muslim marine, who kept talking about how serving with infidels disgusted him, and kept talking about his opposition to any religion but Islam. Hell, he might even say that being forced to serve with Christians was likely to undermine morale and cohesion among the Muslim troops. Now how many conservatives do you think would jump to his defense if he were disciplined? What about a religion that taught certain races would be inferior, and its adherents in the military kept insisting on this fact, loudly and repeatedly asserting that their fellow soldiers were inferior subhumans? Would there be much complaining if those attacking their comrades were disciplined? Probably a bit more than in the case with the Muslims, but pretty much all of the military brass and most conservatives would probably be okay with doing so.
But now let's say the Muslim believed this, but didn't talk about it, that the religious group that hates other races maintained their religious beliefs but didn't really make a stink about it. I think that in this case most people wouldn't much care. Sure they might not be the favorite among their comrades, but I can't see there being much of a fuss made. And rightfully so.
The point is that the right of religious freedom is the right to practice your religion, within certain bounds (no human sacrifice), and the right of religious conscience, namely to believe what you want. It is not the right to not serve (voluntarily no less) with those you dislike. It is not that civil rights trump religious freedom. In fact, the two aren't in opposition. The right being restricted isn't religious at all: it's the right to free expression. Now some might argue that soldiers should be entirely unconstrained in what they should be able to express. Most people, recognizing the unique role of the military, think that maybe they shouldn't be allowed to do this at certain times. And again, right to free speech is not a right to certain public policies, whereas civil rights entail some right that public policies will not be arbitrarily discriminatory against certain groups on the basis of their being considered a part of that group. So freedom of expression and civil rights aren't really in conflict here either. Freedom of expression is in conflict with what we believe to be necessary characteristics of the military (there wouldn't be much of a fuss if a soldier was disciplined for advocating the murder of the president or mutiny). Civil rights is in conflict with current public policy.
Where civil rights and religious freedom would be in conflict would be if the state mandated that all churches have to perform gay marriages. That, I'd wager, has never ever been proposed by any prominent gay rights organization.
postscript: Of course non of this even applies to him, because presumably the military chaplain can invite anyone he wants to his events. If I'm organizing a conference on ethnic conflict, I'm not obligated to invite Proust scholars.
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