BY STAR PARKER
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
COALITION ON URBAN RENEWAL & EDUCATION
For the first time since the "don't ask, don't tell" law was enacted in 1993 by President Clinton, the House Armed Services Committee has scheduled hearings to review it. The law disqualifies gays from serving in the military.
Individuals are deemed gay, according to this ruling, if they publicly state so. However, the military is prohibited from asking. Thus, "don't ask, don't tell."
Activists are now pushing for change to allow gays to serve openly.
We can anticipate a technical discussion. Does the presence of openly gay soldiers undermine cohesiveness of units, morale, and discipline? How would retention rates of troops or enlistments be affected?
We can be sure, though, that a discussion about the general moral implications of such a policy will not take place.
Early last year, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace called homosexuality "immoral." More fire and brimstone rained down on him than fell on the residents of Sodom and Gomorra for engaging in this behavior.
Rebukes came from Democrats and Republicans alike. GOP Sen. John Warner, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, writing his own scripture, challenged Pace's view that homosexuality is immoral.
Although a recent Zobgy poll of military personnel shows more opposed to allowing gays to serve openly than favoring (37 percent to 26 percent), the direction of polling of the general public favors the pro-gay forces.
When "don't ask, don't tell" was enacted in 1993, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed 52 percent opposed to homosexuals serving openly and 43 percent in favor. By 2004, Gallup polling indicated 63 percent in favor of allowing homosexuals to serve against 32 percent opposed.
The culture war is like the recipe for boiling a frog. If you drop it in hot water, it jumps out. But if you drop it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, you get frog soup.
Concession by concession, traditional values are being pushed, inexorably, to the margins of America.
It's a sign of this moral war of attrition that each battle is fought with less and less attention to what it means to the overall war.
Acceptance of openly gay people in the military means the next discussion will be qualification of gay couples for the same benefits received by traditional military families.
In all likelihood, we'll see claims of discrimination if a gay person gets passed over for promotion and intimidated review committees will become increasingly politically correct.
But, hey, in the morally relative world, a glass half empty for one is half full for the other.
Increasing acceptance of homosexuality is viewed by many as social progress. The Seattle Times, for example, calls for a "modernized" military that accepts the openly gay.
But for this traditionalist, it's no accident that building public acceptance of homosexuality is coincident with a general moral unraveling of our society, with all its destructive consequences.
According to Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank located in Washington, D.C., 32 percent of American households today are nontraditional compared to only 28 percent that are traditional, with a mother, father, and children. The remaining 40 percent are households without children. He points out that children in nontraditional households have considerably higher incidences of emotional and educational problems.
I would argue that most of the major costs dragging down our society today -- whether its poverty, entitlements, health care, or housing -- trace to our diminishing sense of personal responsibility and the erosion of traditional values.
Our first great general, George Washington, would be considered politically incorrect today cautioning against believing "that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle" and admonishing, "virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."
"Gays in the military" is more than a question of military morale. It's about the character of this country that we have a military to defend.
Who would question what George Washington would say about this important issue?
Star Parker is president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education and author of the new book White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.
Prior to her involvement in social activism, Star Parker was a single welfare mother in Los Angeles, California. After receiving Christ, Star returned to college, received a BS degree in marketing and launched an urban Christian magazine. The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business, yet served as a springboard for her focus on faith and market-based alternatives to empower the lives of the poor.
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Saturday, July 19, 2008
Gays in the military: What would George Washington think?
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6 comments:
Peter Pace basically teaches people how to kill, yet he thinks that a man kissing another man is immoral?
What's more harmful to morale: a gay soldier revealing his sexuality to the rest of his unit, or a gay soldier who happens to be a squad leader, loved and respected by his subordinates (who all know he's gay and have no problem with it), but who gets pulled from the front lines and discharged simply because someone higher up found out he has a boyfriend back home?
What's more honorable: awarding a soldier for killing another human being, or firing a soldier because he happens to be in love with a man?
What's more preferable: discharging a gay Arabic translator because you're worried he might flirt with everyone in the showers, or keeping him in the military because you know that you need all the Arabic translators you can get?
Let's stop worrying about what George Washington would say and start thinking about what we should do right now to stop allowing stupidity, ignorance, and prejudice to dominate common sense!
A solider killing an enemy combatant or terrorist is not immoral; it protects the lives of others, and is recognized as a moral act by Christianity and practically every value system that exists or has ever existed in human history.
Homosexual behavior, on the other hand, is immoral, unnatural and unhealthy. It has been recognized as aberrant and usually immoral by almost every culture in human history and every major religion, including the dominant one of the United States: Christianity.
I spent 10 years in the military, an environment that requires working in close quarters for long periods of time. I can tell you that many people would have a problem with this, and rightly so.
This is not a distraction our armed forces need as they try to concentrate on the job of fighting the bad guys and defending America.
Serving in the military is a privilege, not a right. If one is unwilling to meet the high moral and other standards, one doesn't belong in the U.S. military.
Personally, I don't understand how a gay person could voluntarily get involved with an establishment that will pay for your education, give you food and a place to live, a full-time job, chances to see the world, and of course the opportunity to blow stuff up, only to turn its back on you when it finds out whom you love. Yeah, that's a privilege alright. Just another moral blunder on the military's ever-increasing list of moral blunders.
Bob, two stories about how Don't Ask Don't Tell hurts our military:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14052513/
A gay Arabic linguist was discharged after he was outed anonymously; he never told anyone he was gay and never engaged in inappropriate behavior around his fellow soldiers. One would think that these days Arabic linguists would be in strong demand and shouldn't be let go lightly.
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2008/07/13/2354
The U.S. military considers gays and lesbians more of a risk to morale and effectiveness than ex-convicts. I'd like to hear the logic behind that.
That's too bad that this Arabic linguist put an aberrant sexual behavior ahead of his military career--and the military orders he swore an oath to obey. Though there are a number of reasons why homosexual behavior is incompatible with military service, this is one of them: someone who will break the rules and refuse to follow military codes of conduct is putting their own desires ahead of their military duty, and ultimately national security. Military service is a privilege, not a right, and someone not willing to live up to the requirements of that privilege shouldn't be serving in the military. Military members must adjust their lives to conform with the requirements of military service; military needs should not be compromised to conform to individual desires.
Ex convicts may certainly present a problem for good military order and discipline, if they haven't reformed their ways. However, an ex convict has committed their wrong in the past; the person committing homosexual behavior while on active duty is committing their wrong in the present. If ex convicts commit another criminal offense, they will be prosecuted for it; until then, they are not currently committing an offense rendering them incompatible for military service.
Also, someone who committed, say vandalism or tax evasion, in the past does not present concerns for other military members who may be forced to live in close, intimate quarters with the ex-convict in a forward operating area. The person who is currently engaging in or inclined to engage in homosexual behavior undermines the morale of a soldier who may have to live in close quarters with him while worrying about unwanted sexual advances--not a worry the soldier needs in addition to the worry of detecting and fighting bad guys and keeping himself and his fellow soldiers alive. This is why we don't quarter male and female military members together. We should not subject our male soldiers to something we are wise enough not to subject our female soldiers to.
Again, military service is a privilege, not a right. National security and mission effectiveness come far ahead of all other considerations.
"Though there are a number of reasons why homosexual behavior is incompatible with military service, this is one of them: someone who will break the rules and refuse to follow military codes of conduct is putting their own desires ahead of their military duty, and ultimately national security."
Actually, that's a reason why disobedience, not homosexuality, is incompatible with military service. Your statement merely explains that a policy is in place, not WHY it's in place. So tell me -- why?
"The person who is currently engaging in or inclined to engage in homosexual behavior undermines the morale of a soldier who may have to live in close quarters with him while worrying about unwanted sexual advances--not a worry the soldier needs in addition to the worry of detecting and fighting bad guys and keeping himself and his fellow soldiers alive."
First of all, if a soldier can shoot people, drop bombs from an airplane, etc. with no problems, yet gets freaked out when a man makes a pass at him, the problem isn't with the gay soldier; the guy clearly needs to work out some self-confidence issues. Second, what makes you think a gay soldier will necessarily make sexual advances toward his colleagues? Surely you stole a few glances at your military buddies in the showers, and they reciprocated, so why is it suddenly "weird" when you find out one of them is gay?
And did you even read the first story? The linguist wasn't fired because of any behavior he had committed; he was fired because someone revealed his orientation. The policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell discharges gay soldiers on the basis of who they are, not just what they do.
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