SAN ANTONIO, Texas — An Air Force chaplain is seeking to be reinstated to active duty after he says he was dismissed from working in basic training as a lesbian falsely accused him of stating that “homosexuals will burn in Hell” when he preached a message against adultery.
Curt Cizek delivered the sermon in 2013 before nearly 2,500 service members at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas after learning of a sex scandal where approximately 20 instructors were found to have sexually abused female trainees.
“I preached a sermon, according to my constitutionally-protected religious beliefs, on ‘do not commit adultery,'” Cizek told Fox News in an article published on Monday. He explained that the thrust of his message was, “If you are having sex with someone with whom you are not married, then you need to stop.”
“Clearly, my sermon was extraordinarily fair and balanced,” he said. “We were in the midst of the sexual scandal where female trainees were being propositioned by their instructors to have inappropriate relationships involving sex. My goal was to help correct that by teaching on the biblical teaching about sexuality.”
Cizek thought that he was doing good by addressing the matter, but a lesbian in attendance lodged a complaint against him, claiming that he said “all homosexuals are going to burn in Hell.”
However, Cizek says the only time he mentioned homosexuality in his sermon was to say that “the Church has gotten a reputation for being prejudiced because we often look at one sexual sin (homosexuality) and say that it is wrong but then turn a blind eye to heterosexual sin,” which he found to be hypocritical.
Nonetheless, he says that following the complaint, his fitness scores dropped, he was passed over for promotion and was ultimately removed from working in basic training in 2016 by 37th Training Wing Commander Colonel Mark Camerer.
Cizek consequently sought to fight the matter, filing a complaint with the Inspector General complaint, the Board for the Correction of Military Records (BCMR) and others. As he was unsuccessful in his efforts, he turned to members of Congress to help.
In August, he received a phone call from Air Force Legislative Liaison Colonel William Vaughn.
“Colonel Vaughn reviewed my information and declared that my case ‘is the most egregious case of injustice’ that he has witnessed in his years of working as a legislative liaison,” Cizek told the Christian News Journal.
His case was reopened on Oct. 1, but that also met a dead end as the secretary of the Air Force Office of Legislative Liaison advised in an email earlier this month that the inquiry is now closed with no further action.
Cizek is asking supporters to implore the White House to intervene and restore him to active duty — especially before Joe Biden takes office, if that is indeed the case.
“Even if I did say what she said that I said, it’s covered by my First Amendment right to preach and teach according to my religious beliefs,” Cizek told CBN News. “Either we believe that everybody has First Amendment rights or we don’t.”
The outlet reached out to the Air Force for comment, which simply said that Cizek has “failed to establish” that he has been “the victim of reprisal.”
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