US
Military: Setting The Moral Bar
Too Low
By Stan Moody
01 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
On
Wednesday, September 26, 2007, General Pace, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and thereby the most powerful military authority in
the world, clarified at a Senate hearing a previous statement in the
Chicago Tribune on gays in the military.
The clarification was as
follows: "…we should respect those who want to serve the
nation but not, through the law of the land, condone activity that,
in my upbringing, is counter to God's law." He stated that he would
be supportive of efforts to revisit the Pentagon's policy so long as
it did not violate his belief that sex should be restricted to a married
heterosexual couple.
The standard, then, is Gen.
Page's upbringing. It must be noted that Gen. Pace will be retiring
this week, thus removing the highest standard of military conduct and
lowering the moral bar.
At the root of Gen. Pace's
problem seems to be a conflict between current government policy ("Don't
ask/Don't tell") and what he was taught as a child concerning homosexual
sex. To put it in perspective, he sees the Law of God as preempting
the laws of the nation he has so effectively served.
You have to wonder why the
General did not heed Jesus' command, "If your eye offend you, pluck
it out," and bow out graciously years ago. Instead, he rose to
the top of the military establishment, a Herculean task indeed, and
stands to collect a small fortune in retirement benefits at the hand
of the very nation that offends his upbringing.
There seems to be something
missing here.
If Gen. Pace was taught that
homosexuality is counter to God's law, he was also taught that masturbation,
or "self-gratifying sex," is counter to God's law. He must
have learned that lustful thoughts and their logical extension –
"fornication" – are counter to God's law. How, then,
did Gen. Pace make it to the top with all that energy being expelled
around him with few or no consequences?
He undoubtedly was taught
that it was counter to God's law to go to the movies, or to work on
Sunday, or to covet somebody else's possessions. What about his teaching
to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy? Undoubtedly, every childhood
teaching that was counter to God's law was screened through some kind
of compromise in order for Gen. Pace to rise to the top of the military
pyramid.
I have no answer for these
questions. I must confess, however, that I am flummoxed over the ability
of this obviously brilliant man to keep his sanity while skating around
those things that he faced every day that were counter to God's law.
Gen. Pace is addressing specific
provisions in the Military Code of Justice against adultery and homosexual
sex. Once those prohibitions are eliminated from within the Code, however,
are they by implication then "condoned?" If they are, the
Code opens the way to freely and openly practice any act that it does
not specifically prohibit. That makes no sense, unless somehow the military
has a selective view of morality, depending on whose ox is being gored.
Gen. Pace is correct, I think,
in stating that "…the United States is not well served by
a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way." Failing
to ban the behavior is, in Gen. Pace's worldview, a making the behavior
OK. Clearly, from our track record in Iraq under the leadership of Gen.
Pace, we have not been well served, suggesting by his standards a direct
correlation to immorality.
I would agree with Gen. Pace
that all types of sexual misconduct are destructive not only to United
States defense but to our nation's vitality. Would that our military
were all strong, upstanding people who did not drink much, were faithful
to their wives (or husbands) and treated prisoners of war with dignity.
We heterosexuals have demonstrated
no superior morality. The Code of Military Justice would do better to
focus more on emotional, physical and sexual misconduct than on what
specific of types of sexual acts were employed in that misconduct.
Outlawing adultery? In the
world in which Gen. Pace was raised, not only the act but the thought
would be sufficient grounds for dismissal, thoroughly gutting our military.
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