FYI, chaplains do not "command". Chaplain Waggoner may have been the chaplain to their unit, but he did not command the two airmen in the same-sex ceremony.

What was he thinking? Homosexual behavior is sin according to the Bible. Same sex marriage is an attempt to normalize and legitimize that sin. And attending that event gives support to those engaging in grievious sin. Seriously, what was he thinking?

I used to think that a military base was no place for a faint-hearted Chaplin. Now I am beginning to feel as if a multi-cultural, multi-faith military base is certainly no place for any but a “secular” Chaplin. If part of what a Chaplin has to do is to "affirm" the beliefs and practices of whomever that will make it exceptionally difficult for a Christian Chaplin to be true to his/her faith.

Col. Wagoner is in a no win position. He wants to show solidarity and support for fellow soldiers and military personnel under his pastoral care. However, at the same time he must knowingly violate the beliefs of the denomination of which he is a member. I say knowingly because as a former church pastor he must know his own Church' position on homosexual "unions".

When he says that he never intended to "embarrass or misrepresent the Southern Baptists whom I have faithfully served for 30 years as a pastor and military chaplain," we must believe him but ask him just what he expected his Church' response to be if it was going to stand on principle.

His resignation is proof that he either no longer agrees with or can no longer abide by what the SBC (and the Bible) teaches about homosexuality.

Who would have thought that the Church of Jesus Christ which has fought and won many a 'war' would find itself in a life and death struggle against homosexuality?

The Church of Jesus Christ must find some other way to serve the military since it is fast becoming obvious that chaplaincy is not the way of the future since one cannot serve both secular culture and God.

There's no such think as a secular chaplin. Secular is humanism not Christianity. As such the chaplin is either a Catholic or a Protestant and should know what his Church teaches. I doubt a Priest would have attended this "joining" no matter the fact he is attending to military personnel. He's still above all else a Priest in the Catholic Church first. And praying with soldiers and leading a worship service is not the same as approving a "joining of homosexuals" by attending a "joining". If this chaplin doesn't get that he is there to provide for soldiers as the Church who ordained him wishes I suggest he needs to restudy his Church's beliefs instead of leaving the Church to go to a weaker Church which shows his weakness. He doesn't have his soldiers' backs which is a real baddy in the military. Would he run in battle or stay with the soldiers. And he serves only soldiers who want to be served and I doubt these homosexuals want to be served by the Church because if so they wouldn't be getting joined outside of the Church, they would abstain from their way of doing sex and walk towards Jesus, which is not an easy thing to do, and not stay with the new religion, any sex if it feels good do it.

Though that someone is a homosexual as such is not a sin the Bible mentions, but it's homosexual behavior and their gay agenda that stand against God's order. How can we ask God bless USA? We should pray to God just to spare us from destroying ourselves into the bottomless pit?

@Ounbbl: Though that someone is a homosexual as such is not a sin the Bible mentions, but it's homosexual behavior and their gay agenda that stand against God's order. How can we ask God bless USA? We should pray to God just to spare us from destroying ourselves into the bottomless pit?

You're confusing civil rights with religious / theological belief.

People haves perfect right to oppose homosexuality and homosexual behavior as a matter of personal religious / theological and moral principle. People also have a co-equal right to work for equal civil rights, including marriage, for gay people as a matter of political conviction / principle.

That pesky, cantankerous document we call the US Constitution, of which most conservative, evangelical Christians are so notoriously ignorant -- and to which, in their ignorance, they are so implacably opposed -- protects both types of activity.

JRC