From here:
The US Senate has approved landmark legislation allowing openly gay people to serve in the military.
Senators voted 65-31 to overturn the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which bars gay people in the military from revealing their sexual orientation.
The House of Representatives had already approved the repeal bill. President Barack Obama says he is looking forward to signing it into law.
Opponents argue that the change will damage troop morale at a time of war.
John McCain isn’t convinced of the benefits of acquiescing to the demand that homosexuals be permitted to declare their less than conventional sexual proclivities while killing and dying in the service of their country:
“They will do what is asked of them, but don’t think there won’t be a great cost,” McCain said of combat troops.
McCain also said he blamed elite liberals for ramming through the legislation.
Nor is Marine Corps Chief, Gen. James Amos:
In a background briefing with a handful of Pentagon reporters, Gen. James Amos said a repeal of the law that bans gays from openly serving could prove to be a life-threatening distraction for combat Marines. Fox News was not invited to the briefing, but the military newspaper “Stars and Stripes” provided an audio recording.
“I don’t want to lose any Marines to the distraction,” Amos said. “I don’t want to have any Marines that I’m visiting at Bethesda [National Naval Medical Center, in Maryland] with no legs be the result of any type of distraction.”
No to worry though, the important thing is, Lady Gaga has given it her seal of approval:
“Can’t hold back the tears+pride,” tweeted Lady Gaga, who had been using her pop star status to campaign for the bill’s repeal. “We did it! Our voice was heard + today the Senate REPEALED DADT. A triumph for equality after 17 YEARS.”
Who is correct? Only time will tell: of course, if McCain and Amos are, it might be too late for them to tell Lady Gaga, “I told you so”.
All the gloom and doom predictions didn’t come true when the Canadian military did the same thing in 1991…
Haven’t heard any gloom and doom on this from Israel’s military, either.
Personally, I have not problem with anyone volunteering to serve in the military of their country. But just as we had to be careful with the Jews serving in our military from 1939 to 1945 (for obvious reasons) we shall need to be careful with homosexuals. I don’t even want to think about what would happen to any of them if they were captured by the taliban.
AMPisAnglican, what do you mean by “we”? In case you missed the memo, Canada crossed this bridge almost 20 years ago – and we’ve been fighting the taliban for more than eight years. Our soldiers are rightfully worried about IEDs; I doubt they give much thought to being captured by the taliban.
If Jews had served under a DADT order in World War II, Auschwitz would still be open for business.
Warren,
As you have noted, American culture is different than ours.
Without any proof, I suspect that Combat Arms will not lend itself to out of the closet gays.
Peace,
Jim
Jim, I am confident that the US military will adapt – just as ours did – and that there will be little or no impact on combat effectiveness or recruitment. Whether we like it or not, there are few students graduating from high school these days – either in the US or Canada – that have much concern about this issue. The people that are worked up are in our age bracket, or older (I’m making an assumption here). But I doubt we will agree, so I will accept your offer of “peace”.
Spiritual and moral law are higher and more consequential than fiscal, military or national law and whenever it is violated, it bodes ill for a country, organization or individual.
Alignment or congruency with these higher laws (given to us in God’s Commandments and Scripture) allows a country/organization/person to truly (not just financially) prosper and be blessed with righteousness, peace and joy.
Homo or hetero sexual sin has proven (in science, clinical practice and CDC statistics) to be a poor, harmful and deadly substitute for love and the result is disease, distress and death.
We have a choice. It is always the same choice. Follow God or our own fallen nature.
Sibyl, I have no idea what your comment has to do with the repeal of DADT. Do you want prohibition brought back as well? When you look at the entire sweep of history, over many millenia, I’m not convinced that your argument about there being a direct correlation between national prosperity and godliness stands up to the test. God may allow a godless nation (whatever that means) to prosper for a time for His sovereign purposes; and passing laws that are based on the 10 Commandments doesn’t mean that a nation is godly (again, whaterver that means) or will prosper. Don’t forget Ecclesiastes in your Bible reading.
Crumble, crumble, crash….
Hope Michelle Bachmann and the new people coming into the legislature will overturn the garbage the leftists have foisted, find a way to handcuff Obama and turn the nation around…or it will be too late.
Sibyl – it is not a sin to be gay. It is a sin to act on gay attraction.
How about this thought…
To suggest that someone is homosexual or not is to suggest that a persons sexual preference is somehow predetermined, perhaps by genetics. But there is no scientific support for this. No-one has ever discovered the so called “gay gene”. Indeed, sexual preference, and most certainly sexual behaviour, is a choice.
Although Matthew 27:5-30 speak to the issue of adultery, I wonder if we can think about any possible implications this passage may imply for other sins of a sexual nature?
In Romans it says
” 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. ”
In light of the current proliferation of homosexuality, I surmise that the abandonment of our society of God’s ways- has led to this very ‘giving over’ and that at this point in time, I wouldn’t swear that there isn’t inherent homosexuality upon people. I know of people who have become Christians and left the lifestyle behind, and Christians who have adopted the lifestyle and have had great difficulty getting free if they decided they wanted to.
Pagans cannot be held to Christian standards as they have not Holy Spirit who enables a life of holiness. Bigotry and prejudice based on the sinfulness of the actions of pagans (ie non-believers in Yeshua) is completely unhelpful in light of Jesus’ desire that we share the gospel which is the message of love and forgiveness for those very sins.
(this is not a rebuttal to anyone’s comments- just my thoughts)
Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone.
What is being overlooked is that just because you are openly gay you might not end up where you expect. If I as an officer did not want a gay in my front line unit it would be a simple matter of finding a non-gay related issue to allow me to reassign he-she-it to another task.
I doubt there will be a stampede of gays to update their personal records.
It isn’t that simple, Stever – and you’d probably end up being the one turfed out of the military.
Sorry for adding the “r” to your name. I write a short comment and for some reason think I can ignore the “preview” button.
Have to prove it first. QR&O is chock full of reasons to do about anything if you set your mind to it. I’ve seen people tossed for less and kept in for having done more.
Kate. They can’t be discharged for being gay but an overly macho combat system will make some ‘exceptions’. The USMC call it a “code red”: a euphemism for a violent extra-judicial punishment.
Steve, I would suggest your knowledge of military law is very dated. I’m far more concerned about serving with someone who would abuse the authority entrusted to him to further a personal agenda than about serving with someone who is gay. I think you also overlooked the possibility that your superior officer could be gay.
The “exceptions” that you refer to, if tolerated, clearly point to a serious break down in good order and discipline; and a failure of leadership. Such a break down never occurred in the CF when the restriction on homosexuals serving was lifted; although there were naysayers prior to the change in 1992 that were convinced it would. I don’t believe such a break down will occur in the US military either.
Surely you are not suggesting that a reason for not changing a policy is that it could lead to a backlash of criminal behaviour? There is, however, a possible positive outcome to what you’re saying. Identifying and eliminating from the military those who would take justice into their own hands would be a good thing. These are the sort of “cowboys” who would turn a blind eye to rules of engagement in a combat situation and make unethical decisions that could jeapordize an entire mission.
“Surely you are not suggesting that a reason for not changing a policy is that it could lead to a backlash of criminal behaviour?”
Surely you can acknowledge that Pfc. Manning’s behaviour was indeed criminal. Allegedly the impetus for the behaviour was the aforesaid policy. It is not too much of a stretch to envision criminal behaviour because the policy is removed.
Your faith in obedience is sweetly naïve.
But that’s not really the point, Steve. People won’t be able to be discharged because they are gay.
I will make one more comment regarding the DADT repeal, and then leave the field. I believe that the question of whether or not homosexual behaviour is a sin in God’s eye – and I believe it is – is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I further believe that those Christians who viewed the restriction on gays serving in the US military as a bastion of morality that needed to be vigorously defended are confused – and are not being a light to the world by arguing for the retention of DADT on the basis of Christian morality.
It has already been decided that, in general, employers in the US may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. An exception was made for the US military (some 17 years ago) based on an argument that allowing personnel who were openly gay to serve would have a significant detrimental effect on military effectiveness. It was not an argument based on what the Bible says (although many people may have had the Bible at the back of their mind).
I believe the miliary effectiveness argument is no longer supportable and, on that basis fully agree with the decision to repeal DADT. As I said at the start of my comment, my personal, Bible-based view of homosexuality is irrelevant.
Were I to argue for the retention of DADT, even though I believe the military effectiveness argument is not valid, then, to be consistent and true to myself, I should also argue for the imposition of laws reflecting all of God’s moral law. Maybe some here would like to see that, but, I would suggest that we would all soon be incarcerated as none of us are remotely capable of coming anywhere near to God’s standard.
Even if there is some backlash within the US miliary to the repeal (and if there is I believe it will be minor and isolated), I believe it is still better to proceed and to root out of the military those who would, likely in the name of Christianity, perpetrate violence against others or act in a discriminatory manner. Some seem to have a bizarre idea that, once the repeal is enacted, many people will be subject to all kinds of unwanted sexual overtures. This is hogwash and reflects a complete lack of understanding of military culture. The reality is that gays serving in the military will be indistinguishable from their heterosexual colleagues while on duty. This has been the case with the Canadian military and, as someone who is currently serving in a large US military headquarters that employs military personnel from all services (including the Coast Guard), I am convinced it will also be the case with the US military.
DADT has been repealed. It is time to move on.
For SteveP (I did not have the option of replying directly to your comment above) – you obviously failed to understand what I wrote; and I have no intention of repeating myself.