WRIGHTSTOWN, N.J. (AP) — Col. Timothy Wagoner has been an Air Force chaplain for 20 years, serving a denomination — the Southern Baptists — that rejects same-sex relationships.

Yet here he was at the chapel he oversees, watching supportively as an airman and his male partner celebrated a civil union ceremony.

"I wouldn't miss it," Wagoner said at the McGuire Air Force Base chapel, days later. "I don't feel I'm compromising my beliefs ... I'm supporting the community."

Wagoner didn't officiate at the ceremony — he couldn't go quite that far. But his very presence at the gathering was a marker of how things have changed for active-duty clergy in the nine months since the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was repealed and gays could serve openly.