As Congress holds hearings on overturning the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, the Family Research Council used a live webcast to roll out its host of objections to allowing gays and lesbians the freedom to serve openly in the military. For an hour, FRC Action President Tony Perkins, interviewed soldiers and other guests including Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, airing their familiar objections including a repeals effect on unit cohesion, recruitment and retention, religious freedom and an increased fear of sexual assaults by gay troops.
“The president and the current congressional leadership have made overturning the military’s prohibition of open homosexuality their top priority in this lame duck session of Congress, a move that could undermine the effectiveness of our military and as a result our nation’s security,” Perkins said ominously.
One guest in particular, retired Chaplain Brig. Gen. Douglas Lee, said he was stunned that Congress would consider redefining the word “immoral” since it has “always included homosexuality.” He was also upset that the military is bending to the will of a minority and putting the religious freedom of chaplains at risk.
“The First Amendment, although it’s a wonderful and powerful amendment and helps us now, the homosexual rules that will go into place will come under discrimination areas, equal opportunity areas, and hate speech areas. I’m not a prophet, but it seems to me there’s no other place for this to go once there is legitimization of homosexuality in the military,” Lee said.
What Lee fails to realize is that many things once fell under the definition of “immoral” even by traditionally religious standards—like being left-handed, marrying outside one’s own race, and sometimes even marrying outside one’s own denomination or religion. Ideas about what’s “moral” vs “immoral” are not always immutable—especially when that definition has been based on past prejudices and misunderstandings.
Homosexuality has been tagged as “immoral” over the years because gays and lesbians have been portrayed as sex-crazed and irresponsible people who have a certain “lifestyle” outside of the mainstream. Once gays and lesbians were able to come out of the closet and speak for themselves, society at large has come to understand that gays and lesbians don’t live up to the hedonistic, immoral stereotypes. Instead, gay and lesbian people have lives—normal, boring, lives that include working, playing, and raising children in the same manner as every other human being. Far from being totally “immoral,” gays and lesbians are just like everyone else with good points and bad points. In short, they are human beings doing the best they can.
Lee is also wrong in berating Congress for giving in to “three percent of the population over the other 97 percent.” If America believes in fairness, then repealing DADT is simply a matter of equity and protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Gay and lesbian soldiers who are qualified should be allowed to serve without being disqualified by sexual orientation. Judge a soldier by the content of his or her character, not whom they lie next to at night when they’re off duty. Any heterosexual soldier would want to be judged by the same criteria.
As for his assertion that “homosexual rules” will be implemented when DADT is repealed, the Pentagon’s report itself puts that to rest, asserting that “existing policies on chaplains’ protections and obligations are adequate and strike an appropriate balance between protecting a chaplain’s First Amendment freedoms and a chaplain’s duty to care for all.”
The report is also clear that chaplains “are not required to take actions inconsistent with their religious beliefs, but must still care for all Service members.”
What hasn’t been addressed here, however, is the religious freedom of gay and lesbian service members. I wonder how many gays and lesbians of faith are serving in the military who may feel that they can’t speak freely to a military chaplain about their faith for fear of getting a lecture on their “immorality.” What about their right to speak freely about religion and what it means to them?
The military is a microcosm of the larger society in many ways, and how they deal with any repeal of DADT will be instructive to watch. In the general public, however, we’re used to being polled about our feelings on such issues as gays in the workplace. Perkins and his guests spent a good deal of time complaining about what they considered the report’s biggest flaw: it didn’t ask Service members how they felt about lifting the ban, only how they felt ending the ban would affect them.
“General [George] Casey of the Army said repealing the law before completion of the review will be seen by men and women of the army that their opinion doesn’t count. That is a huge thing right now,” said Sen. Inhofe.
Even Sen. John McCain, at the Senate hearings Thursday morning complained that troop opinions were not being heard:
“We send these young people into combat; we think they’re mature enough to fight and die; I think they’re mature enough to make a judgment on who they want to serve with and the impact on their battle effectiveness,” he said.
But, as Gen. Carl Mundy, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, pointed out early in the webcast, military personnel are used to having their opinions not taken into consideration.
“After you take that oath and come in you are an individual that operates with one arm tied behind his or her back in terms of your political ability to speak out or to represent your own views and the other one in a respectful salute in obedience to the nation,” Mundy said.
If the Pentagon’s study reveals anything it’s that the troops seem to understand that far better than some of their leaders and members of Congress do.
