FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—An Army chaplain is asking military authorities to expunge from his record a negative report stemming from an alleged “microaggression” against people who identify as LGBTQ.
Lt. Col. Joseph Lawhorn argued that the report, which he says contains errors, may have cost him a promotion to colonel earlier this year.
“Chaplain Lawhorn follows the directive of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and serves diligently as the spiritual and moral backbone of the soldiers under his care but now he has been wrongfully blacklisted for following orders,” Chris Motz, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, which is representing Lawhorn, said in a statement, first obtained by the Daily Signal. “Chaplains, the ‘shepherds of the soul’ for service members, should be encouraged, not shamed or cancelled.”
He gave a suicide prevention training on Dec. 15, 2020, titled, “Coming Out of the Closet: Straight-Talk about Depression and Suicidality,” drawing on his own diagnosed depression and his practice of retreating into a closet during his worst periods. An attendee, however, later claimed Lawhorn had used the title as a punchline at the expense of the LGBTQ community and described the presentation as a “microaggression.”