Madison Reporter

Brian Burch, president of the Catholic Vote organization, said “our policy makers and elected officials need to put an end to” systematic structures put in place to punish Americans for standing up for their traditional beliefs. 

"William Thibeau, director of the Claremont Institute’s American Military Project, summed it up well: 'The military policy and legal infrastructure clearly exist to wage war on Americans with deeply-held traditional beliefs about man and woman,' and our policy makers and elected officials need to put an end to this,” Burch told the Madison Reporter. 

The United States military "could seek to formally punish service members for refusing to use another service member’s preferred pronouns under existing policy,” reported the Daily Caller News Foundation. Under a 2020 Equal Opportunity law, military authorities can punish service members for violations related to harassment if they refuse to identify a transgender service member by their preferred pronouns.

Critics say such a move would "likely infringe on a service member's constitutional rights to uphold their conscience, but it might not prevent leaders from employing more subtle ways of disciplining service members," and called on Congress to act "before it's too late."

While current military rules do not prohibit so-called "misgendering," Capt. Thomas Wheatley, an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the Daily Caller that "existing guidance implies that using pronouns rejected by another person violates Military Equal Opportunity (MEO) regulations against sex-based harassment and discrimination." Thus, service members could be court-martialed for “refusing to use another person’s self-identified pronouns, even when their refusal stems from principled religious conviction,” according to Wheatley. “Is it now ‘unbecoming’ and incompatible with service as a commissioned officer to openly hold sincere religious convictions surrounding the act of creation and the nature of human sex?” he asked.

Madison, Wisconsin-based Catholic Vote is an advocacy organization that wants to “inspire every Catholic in America to live out the truths of our faith in public life,” according to the group’s website. Founded in 2008, its president is Brian Burch.