[normajean777]

Originally Posted by tlj009

"For example a Catholic college may lawfully require such positions as president, chaplain, and teaching faculty to be Catholics but membership in the Catholic Church would generally not be considered a BFOQ for occupations such as secretarial and janitorial positions."

Couldn't the church just rename the job description? "Janitorial Minister: Main job duties - clean the church, shovel snow, preach to patrons coming in on weekdays"

Originally Posted by slap_j

Should the guy delivering food to the vending machine be required to be a Christian as well? What about the guy who repaves the parking lot asphalt. We don't require the congregants to be believers so why these people who are only incidentally part of the church? Of course if I am entirely wrong here then there is a solution. Just ask the church members volunteer to perform these duties without pay.

We have something around here called the "Sheperd's Guide". It's a phonebook that Christian businessmen sponsor. Every business listed in there is supposed to be owned by Christians. Is there anything to look for a Christian business to do the work before you just accept anyone?

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by normajean777

Couldn't the church just rename the job description? "Janitorial Minister: Main job duties - clean the church, shovel snow, preach to patrons coming in on weekdays"

Firstly I've never heard of a church requiring the janitorial staff to be able to take on a shepherding role or have any kind of academic knowledge about church dogma. But yeah, you could make it a requirement. Would it fly if you were sued? I dunno. But I see it as a non-issue. If you hire someone who starts proselytizing for another faith or otherwise raising hell then you can fire them.

Is there anything to look for a Christian business to do the work before you just accept anyone?

Anything wrong? I'm not going to say it would be a perfect solution but if that's what the church leadership would prefer then why not?

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by normajean777

We have something around here called the "Sheperd's Guide". It's a phonebook that Christian businessmen sponsor. Every business listed in there is supposed to be owned by Christians. Is there anything to look for a Christian business to do the work before you just accept anyone?

This stuff bugs me.

One, it seems easy to manipulate this system - just pay for an ad with a "Jesus fish" on it. What's the criteria for these? The owner professes Christ? That would put him in the majority of Americans.

Two, I don't see a precedent for this in Scripture. If a business is owned by a member of my church but doesn't do as good, or as cost-effective, a job as one owned by someone not in my church, am I obligated to bring my business to the church member?

Anyway, that's for another thread. I resurrected this to bring something up, regarding something near and dear to many Republican-oriented Christians: Israel.

Israel allows openly homosexual soldiers, do they not?

[supersoldier71]

Yes, Israel does. But my experience with the IDF (which is very limited, BTW) is that openly gay service members are marginalized, and while not openly denied advancement, they are denied postings that would better position them to advance. Israel's an oddball in that it's a democracy with compulsory military service. I suspect that that effects the dynamic as much as some of the other variables discussed.

As for the US Army, I can say that the process of integrating minorities is still incomplete in at least one way: while African-Americans represent approx. 12% of the general population, they represent 30-40% of soldiers in combat jobs, however, within the Special Operations communities, the number plummets to around 5%, ad that's only if you include support personnel.

I am a Non-Commissioned Officer; my first task, before I can lead and train soldiers to fight and win, is to establish and maintain "good order and discipline", Some questions I have: Will we need to provide shower and living accomodations for in essence four "genders"? If so, will that be more divisive?

For the most part, civilians see Big Army; largely homogenous, and frankly somewhat ignorant and intolerant. Within the Army, there are significant cultural differences that stem almost entirely from the job a soldier does. I'm pretty sure that the guy who works in the Judge Advocate General's office as a legal clerk won't care about the sexual orientation of the other soldiers in the the JAG office. The X-ray tech at the clinic probably won't care one way or the other either. They wear the same uniform, they qualify with their weapons, they have to meet Army standards for physical fitness as well as height and weight requirements, so they are soldiers. But as for the angry 19 year old Airborne Infantryman down the road in the 82nd Airborne...I don't know. Or for the equally angry but even more rigourously trained stone faced soldier in a Ranger Battalion; that'll be a hard road to hoe. And within the Special Ops community; here it's an accepted truism that if the guys who are already in, look at you and don't like the trim of our mustache, you don't get in.

Many soldiers on the ground said that they felt betrayed by ADM Mullen's statements in support of a repeal of DADT. That may not be a big deal at UPS, but it's a very big deal to us. It's a simple thing, really, to train someone how to fight. To make them want to fight is another matter entirely, and can be a rather fickle.

Whatever decision is made, it's my hope that adequate thought is put into it, because from my point of view, failure is unforgiving.