One News Now: AFA joins effort to defend Air Force colonel

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A pro-family organization has joined the effort to defend a decorated U.S. Air Force officer punished for his religious views.
The punishment of Colonel Leland Bohannon earned a Nov. 21 "Action Alert" from the American Family Association, which encouraged its supporters to urge the Secretary of the Air Force to drop its punishment against Bohannon.
Bohannon was working at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico when a retiring master sergeant, who is homosexual, asked the officer to sign a "certificate of spouse appreciation" for his same-sex spouse. Because he opposes same-sex marriage, Bohannon sought advice about the moral dilemma and eventually found a two-star general to sign it. But the sergeant filed a complaint and the colonel, a decorated combat pilot in line for promotion to general, was suspended.
AFA Action spokesman Rob Chambers says the Air Force has basically told Bohannon that there is no room in the U.S. armed forces for a religious accommodation.
"And therefore we're going to suspend you and basically we're going to end your military career," warns Chambers, "by putting remarks in your personnel record that would pretty much guarantee that you're never going to be promoted."
Yet there is protection for religious views in the Trump administration after the President signed an executive order in May instructing the Department of Justice to provide such guidance to executive agencies, which includes the Department of Defense.
"This really should also fall on Jim Mattis, who's over the Department of Defense," Chambers says. "He should be issuing his own guidance on religious liberty within the Department of Defense, which would give direction to [Air Force] Secretary Heather Wilson."
OneNewsNow reported in a Nov. 17 story that U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and other Senate colleagues have written to Wilson urging her to restore Bohannon to his post at Kirtland.
It appears, however, that Barack Obama's hostility toward Christians still exists in the U.S. military, warns Chambers.
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