A Chaplain Speaks Out…

Against President’s Biden’s Executive Order lifting Trump’s ban.

Army investigating Texas chaplain for comments about transgender soldiers
The Hill
By Ellen Mitchell
January 28, 2021


Army officials are investigating a Texas chaplain after he made disparaging remarks against transgender soldiers in a social media post.

Maj. Andrew Calvert, a chaplain with the 3rd Security Force Assistance Brigade at Fort Hood, wrote on the Army Times’s Facebook page on Monday that transgender soldiers were “mentally unfit” and “unqualified to serve.”

President Biden the same day signed an executive order to repeal former President Trump’s ban on most transgender people serving in the military.

Military chaplains are not like regular clergy because they are under military law and are subject military regulations. Therefore they must follow orders and criticizing an order is not allowed.

The Army Times ran this from a trans major and chaplain,

Letter to the editor: Countering Army chaplain’s views on transgender community

I want to thank you for writing your story about CH (MAJ) Calvert for the Army Times [re: Chaplain’s Facebook post denigrating transgender troops under investigation by Army]. It is important to inform people in the military of some of the real issues and views some chaplains in the corps really hold — not just the ones they publicly ascribe to — which inform and influence the way they do business and to whom and how they care for our nation’s finest.

While it is upsetting that the transgender community has been publicly compared to someone with mental illness, this is hardly the first time we have heard that, and we have endured much worse. I believe there are several issues related to CH Calvert’s views and the way he espouses them, and points to what I and many others feel is a fundamental issue in the Army Chaplain Corps. As an Army chaplain, first and foremost, I must be able to hold my personal opinions and beliefs at bay when they come into conflict with another’s — most significantly when someone comes to me seeking counsel. It is only when invited to share my perspective is it appropriate to overtly and directly challenge a perspective or belief someone brings to me. Based on CH Calvert’s post I would find it very difficult to believe he actually practices the statement — core to the beliefs and workings of the Army Chaplain Corps — that he supports the free exercise of all faiths and belief systems of those under his charge. To think he can hold other’s faith, religion, spirituality with a different level of dignity and respect he affords the transgender community is naïve, at best, and dangerous, at worst. If he were to publicly denounce that core tenant of the Chaplain Corps he should certainly be swiftly removed from the service. I believe I could say with confidence that his true colors may never be publicly seen or spoken, regarding this most-important reason why we exist — support of all faiths, religions and spiritual expressions — because it would mean a sure and swift end to his career.

“As an Army chaplain, first and foremost, I must be able to hold my personal opinions and beliefs at bay when they come into conflict with another’s — most significantly when someone comes to me seeking counsel.” and that is the fundamental issue, unlike a regular clergy a military chaplain must minister to all faiths and beliefs, they cannot allow personal bias to get in the way.