WASHINGTON — In a guest editorial in Thursday’s Stars and Stripes, former Army Reserve Chaplain, Colonel Alexander F. C. Webster, calls the Sept. 20 official repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as “a date that will live in infamy.”
Borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech to Congress following the attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet moored in Pearl Harbor that triggered America’s entry into the second World War, Webster wrote:
“On Sept. 20, 2011, a date that will live in infamy, the U.S. armed forces were deliberately and successfully attacked by advocates of the scourge of homosexuality. The elimination of the last vestige of moral restraint on sexual perversion in the U.S. military, commonly known as the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, ushers in a new Orwellian era in which the military leadership of our nation will proclaim the unnatural as natural, the unhealthy as healthy and the immoral as moral.
[…]
“As an Orthodox priest who still loves all of the troops I served as a chaplain for a quarter of a century, I pray that God the Holy Trinity will preserve and protect the U.S. armed forces — especially in this new Dark Age.”
Webster has written previous anti-gay columns denouncing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the former ban on openly gay service members. On Aug. 25, 2010, Webstaer said repealing the policy would lead to a celebration of the “gay lifestyle.”
“A ‘nondiscrimination’ policy would surely mutate into approval and celebration of the ‘gay’ lifestyle, followed by ‘affirmative action’ recruitment of homosexuals, politically correct ideological indoctrination throughout the armed forces including family members, and, finally, active discrimination against — and persecution of — those who dare to express a dissenting opinion.”
Webster is an archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America who retired in June 2010 as an Army Reserve chaplain at the rank of colonel after more than 24 years of military service. He is the author or co-author of four books on topics of social ethics, including “The Virtue of War: Reclaiming the Classic Christian Traditions East and West.”
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