Having served for 20 years in the Armed Forces, I have a good feel for how the repeal of DADT will likely play out. The order will get passed and service members will figure out ways to make it work and press on. They have no choice but to do otherwise. The actual affects of the repeal will never be the subject of close scrutiny. Commanders in the field will declare that they’ve successfully carried out the order, while those who cry “foul” will be told to either get on board with the new program or be reprimanded accordingly. The current Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs has stated as much. 

The repeal will be deemed an unqualified success, if only because behavior previously determined to be disruptive will will no longer be deemed so.  The fact that John and Bob are lovers (“committed same-sex partners”) and sharing a fox hole or living in close quarters aboard ship or in the field will no longer be characterized as anything but appropriate and acceptable. To claim otherwise will be to go against the new standard of military service.

The American citizen will never know the full impact of what we are about to do.  But our troops will.  Let’s keep them in our prayers.       

CDR Brian E. Souchet, Sr., USN (Ret.)

“Disordered love leads to disordered loyalties.”

What an excellent summation.  Thank you.

I sincerely doubt there will be any problems, despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the supporters of the ban on Gay Americans in the military. All of our allies have successfully and uneventfully integrated Lesbians and Gay men into their militaries without problems. And most American military personnel already say they serve or have served with Gay soldiers without any problems.

I think it’s also important to note that when young men age 18-25 register for Selective Service, they are not asked about their sexual orientation. And I suspect that if the United States ever finds itself in a major military conflict that requires reinstatement of the draft, the issue of Gays in the military is going to be the LEAST of our worries.

For what it’s worth, I really don’t care if any soldier, Gay OR Straight, is disciplined or booted out of the military because of inappropriate conduct when on-duty.

That’s not what’s at issue here. A qualified soldier should not be at risk for losing his career simply because of who he’s dating on his own time. Under DADT, if Sgt. Mike is dating another man off-base, and his commanding officer is informed of this and asks him about it, Sgt. Mike can either lie or tell the truth. Either way he is jeopardizing his military career.

Hold all soldiers to the same standards of professional behavior, regardless of their sexual orientation, and the military will be able to do its job just fine. We don’t need DADT to accomplish that goal.

As a former Marine, I actually expect that most of the negative side effects of dropping DADT will be “rear echelon” problems. In the field, in combat and combat-support roles, there isn’t much “alone time” to speak of, and basic training is very effective at weeding out those who can’t adapt to the military culture. A gay man who manages to survive the pruning process is on average not going to be so self-destructive as to seek to “get his freak on” during an op. However, opening the doors to openly gay recruits also means taking on the rest of the cultural battles going on in the civilian world: gay adoptions, dependent status for civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. Also, the DoD will have to look at sexual harassment again, as there are some homosexuals who think the same rules don’t apply to them as to heterosexuals.

//For what it’s worth, I really don’t care if any soldier, Gay OR Straight, is disciplined or booted out of the military because of inappropriate conduct when on-duty. That’s not what’s at issue here. A qualified soldier should not be at risk for losing his career simply because of who he’s dating on his own time.//

What is at issue here is not the soldier’s career at all, nor the proper functioning of the military, nor whether our nation even survives. What is at stake is the salvation of the immortal soul of the practicing homosexual. Do we love him enough to say “What you are doing is incredibly wrong and there are consequences to your actions, both here on earth while you are alive and in the hereafter where you will have to stand in judgement before God”?

When do we love our fellow man enough to stop worrying about whether he feels bad or even whether his career is in jeapordy and look him in the eye and call sin by name?

-Tim-

The military will do just fine. Open Gays in the British ranks reduced sexual assaults dramatically. It was the only statistically significant change after the repeal. The greatest military leader in history was gay so that brotherly love thing sounds contrived.  As far as your theory about pedophile priests, the episcopal church has gay and married heterosexual priests AND no pedphilia problem.  You might think that is because episcopaleans are more open about sex.  Our priests can marry but that isn’t it.  The episcopal church has a paragraph of instructions on this issue.  Call the cops and remove the accused from contacting children or teenagers.  Very simple very straight forward.  Call the cops. Protect the youth.  That is where Roman Catholic church fails.  Just call the cops. They can determine the truth, and throw the offender in jail.

“All of our allies have successfully and uneventfully integrated Lesbians and Gay men into their militaries without problems.”

I will disagree with this statement.  It is not our allies that have been called to the frontlines repeatedly.  It is not our allies that the UN turns to to bring order in a crisis.  It is us. 

We have been strong because we held faithful to Judeo-Christian values.  Whether we survive this folly remains to be seen but add this folly to the multitude that our leadership has embraced and our strength will not hold.

Chuck Anziulewicz (10:24am above) wrote, “Hold all soldiers to the same standards of professional behavior, regardless of their sexual orientation, and the military will be able to do its job just fine.”

I completely agree! This is my standard to which I will hold all military personnel regardless of their orientation—Sexual relations must be ordered to procreation and to the education of children; thus only a married man and woman may be involved in sexual relations, and (since dating is ordered toward marriage) only a single man and woman may date. This is the standard, let’s apply it evenly across the board, regardless of (dis)orientation.

We as a Church would be better equipped to live out this witness if fools like Archbishop Timothy Dolan would stop smiling and waving at openly gay Catholic groups, at an openly gay parish, in his openly screwed-up diocese.

‘“We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen,” said the Pope…’

I’ll tell you what when wrong. Sentimentality, plain and simple. Every problem the Church faces today, every perversion of doctrine, can be traced back to sentimentality. Homosexual priests, Catholic bishops on board with the health care reform fiasco, Catholic bishops on board with the DREAM act (thankfully it failed in congress), the CCHD in bed with ACORN and other abortion funding groups, the incestuous alliance between Catholics and the Democratic Party—this is all nothing but sentimentality, which is a satanic distortion of charity. Can anybody doubt it?

I remember military men of higher rank who would intimidate those of lower rank, both on and off duty, for any selfish goal they were after; money, booze, transportation, and any and all assistance they could get in their pursuit of sex. The new law will unleash the homosexual on those of lower rank or of weaker character.
Sexual favors will result in the elimination of fair dissemination of undesirable but necessary duty assignments.
We have a law to protect the homo; what recruit knows of the law that will protect those who are not? What if the strait person asks his superior officer to protect him from a homo in his unit, and the superior officer is gay?
Let’s look at three homos in a love triangle, two in a foxhole and the third in a foxhole behind them. When firing begins, which of the two will he eliminate?

The blog statement re: effect of “don’t ask don’t tell” is pure nonsense! The arguments against repealing this law sound directly similar to the same arguments I heard, while in the military, when President Trueman moved to integrate black and white units. These are some of the arguments when the services decided to admit women to combat units. And for my fellow Catholics who argue that not allowing homosexual people to enlist, not one word was mentioned about the last 10 years of war that both John Paul and Benedict XVI opposed.

Liberalism has gutted the once mighty Roman Catholic Church and if Congress doesn’t reverse the mania to worship sexual perversion as a civil right, liberalism will gut the military, too. Due to the repeal of DADT I will now advise my son against his considering enlisting in the military. Has anyone else noticed how all things sexual have become a new pagan god? This is pronounced throughout the world. It’s quite diabolical.

Wow, there is much disinformation in this article.  1) Bradley Manning isn’t a homosexual.  2) Homosexuals are statistically likely to molest children in the same percentage as heterosexuals - no more and no less.  3) While it is true that most personnel in combat arms are opposed to repealing DADT, the very Defense Department study that the author cited found that the majority of the military as a whole is in favor of the repeal.

I’m not going to comment on the rights or wrongs of sexual morality and how it should apply to the military.  As a former Marine, I can honestly say that there is already plenty of sexual immorality in the military, but that’s not the point.  If you want to oppose this repeal, fine, but do it honestly and with facts, not with lies that you make up because you think it might help your point.  If we as a Church allow liars like the author of this article to become our voice, then we have drifted very far from Christ and straight into the arms of Satan, whom the Bible says is the father of lies.  Seriously, people, let’s show some real morality here, and morality starts with honesty!

You people need to read the pink swastika.

http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfrc/books/pinkswastika/

The article is about the confusion of philia and eros.  A couple of things:

The Roman army made homosexual relations between soldiers a capital offense.  They did that, despite the fact that relations between men and boys was (in some areas) considered perfectly acceptable, if somewhat ridiculous.

The integration of women into combat has in fact been a failure.  Soldiers, however, cannot talk about it, lest they ruin their careers.  I suggest that people who are interested speak to men who once served in combat units, or on submarines, and so forth.

If homosexual men were only as likely to abuse children as are heterosexual men, then about fifty times as many girls would be abused as boys, because homosexual men constitute only about two percent of the male population.  That is not true, and it is not even close to being true.  It is wearisome to have to repeat this so many times, but here goes.  What the homosexual activists have done is like what the feminists have done, and that is to fold statistics together to reach the desired result.  So, for instance, feminists, who despise marriage, concoct something called “domestic abuse,” so that they can hide the fact that a never-divorced woman living with her husband is safer than any other sort of woman in the country—the least likely to suffer a felony crime.  But the “domestic abuse” category allows the feminist to put me in the same camp with the foul and violent live-ins in the apartment building across the street from us.  Same thing with the homosexual activist.  They fold together incest (which is usually father-daughter) and what most people think about when they wonder about the proclivities of the homosexual, namely, how likely is it that this given homosexual here will be attracted to boys and will act on that attraction?  So—I know damned well that I’m not incestuous, so the only statistic that is important to me is, given a homosexual or heterosexual man, which one is likelier to abuse my son, or my daughter?  The answer to that question is given by the priest scandal itself.  Homosexual men are MANY times more likely to abuse the boys… In fact, the psychological etiology of same-sex attraction among males makes the attraction to boys particular acute.

Finally, it is NOT true that pedophiliacs are not to be found among Episcopalian priests.  They are there too, and in the same numbers as among the Catholic priests.

But on this particular issue, there’s only one group of people whose opinions I want to hear, and they are men in combat units, period.

Although I am no longer in the service, I was a combat Marine in the 2nd Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment.  Although when I served the policy of DADT was in effect, there was one Marine in my squad who was widely thought to be a homosexual, mainly because every time we went on liberty he wore pink shorts and skin-tight baby blue shirt.  Although we often made jokes at his expense, it never became more than jokes because he never harassed anyone, and he was in every other respect a good Marine who did what was asked of him.  When we deployed to Afghanistan, I watched him die trying to rescue a small Afghan child who was caught in the crossfire.  Maybe he was a homosexual and maybe he wasn’t; that to me is immaterial.  I consider him to have been a fine Marine who died a heoric death, and I think the Corps and our nation are better for him having served.

I honestly don’t know how allowing gays to serve openly will effect our military.  Speaking only for myself, I honestly wouldn’t have cared if my entire unit was gay, as long as we kept it professional and did what was required of us.  I can’t say that the entire military feels this way, as it is only my own opinion, but in any case we shall soon see what happens as a result of this repeal.

You asked for an opinion from a combat unit, and there you have it.

I served in the military for several years in the early ‘80s as a Hospital Corpsman, U.S. Navy.  The Navy provides all the medical care for the Marine Corps as well as the Navy, as the Marine Corps is a branch of the Navy.  Much of my time was spent in Okinawa Japan on the largest Marine Corps base on the island.  What I witnessed was extremely disturbing.  A solid (10-20%) percentage of the Navy Corpsman were gay when I served.  The abuses to the young, trusting Marines was disgusting and shameful; I’ll leave it at that and spare you the very ugly details.  This was not limited to this particular base either.  The Hospital Corpsman, aka—‘Doc’, has more freedom and power over the young Marines than civilians image, and this freedom and power was used for the gratification of many unscrupulous, lusting and perverse homosexual men, with long-lasting suffering to their defenseless victims.
It has been my experience that the majority of the promoters/supporters of this new policy are those who have never served in the military or are gay/lesbian. 
At the very Least, homosexual/bisexual men should not be allowed to administer medical care to young men in the military, (or at least give the solder the option of not being treated by one).  Anyone who thinks they should is promoting open molestation tantamount to rape of our own brave young solders.  Unless you’ve experienced what I have you shouldn’t even think about shooting your mouth off in their (homos) defense. It is what it is, and it is rotten and evil to the core and for the Corps.
If the military doesn’t make this distinction they are opening the government up to multimillion dollar abuse cases.  Sound familiar?

Michael, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Bradley Manning IS a homosexual. He’s quite open about it. Why are you accusing the author of this article of lying when you clearly do not know the facts yourself?

Ok, after doing a little more research, it appears I was wrong; PFC Manning is homosexual (I have no idea how I missed this in my previous research!).  However, I stand by my previous statement.  The author’s assertion that Manning’s actions were solely the result of his sexual orientation is laughable, as is his unspoken implication that other gay soldiers will do the same thing.  Furthermore, I think the real problem with the Church’s abuse scandals wasn’t just the abusive priests (although they no doubt were the source of the problem), but the bishops who, instead of dismissing these priests, covered up their abuses while allowing them to abuse even more children.  I find the author’s casual dismissal of the bishops’ crimes to be highly disturbing.

I’m taken by the defense of some in these postings that our allies have “successfully” integrated homosexuals into their military. And, when was the last time that soldiers from France, Netherlands, Denmark etc etc etc actually fought a war? Making this comparison is like comparing the
work of college students with kindergarteners. This policy will create a whole new set of case law in the military and we’ll begin to hear about it slowly but surely. BIG DISTRACTION for oue Armed Forces. Watch it unfold.

As a retired Navy fighter pilot I ask, what would ruin a fighter squadron? Put a woman(or a homosexual) in the middle of it.

Jack at 12:30PM said: “The greatest military leader in history was gay so that brotherly love thing sounds contrived.”

If you are referring to Alexander the Great, there is little evidence that he was homosexual.  Indeed, it is quite true that Alexander married – quite likely his descendents are in modern day Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Those who argue that Alexander was gay have a limited imagination – the same folks who argue that Jonathan and David were gay – as they cannot believe two men can love each other without mutual masturbation.

As Tim Drake points out, being a warrior is an avocation just as being a priest is an avocation.  Eros can displace Mars just as Eros can move a heart away from Christ.

The defense of the DADT repeal with practical points of many of the above comments are missing the point.  They are often coming from a subjective, malformed, and selective moralism. It is not as much about how it may make me “feel” next to a practicing homosexual in a foxhole as much as it is about demoralizing our nation’s military and subsequently our nation’s Judeo-Christian principles (let alone the salvation of the souls which the law would help jeopardize by normalizing bad behavior).  But it’s not yet set in stone, there is still HOPE - interesting ARTICLE: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=242265   ..And please pray for our troops and chaplains! PRO DEO ET PATRIA.

He was saying the Manning had disordered loyalities, to the army and the nation.
I think that homosexuality is in essence subversive and for those that participate in the lifestyle subversion becomes a way of life. You are always wondering about other guys, ‘are they gay?’ Gays frequent secret hang-outs and bars, have secret meetings etc.
Yes this happens in the straight world, but it is the common modus operandi of the gay world, thus I agree with the author, homesexuality is of its nature subversive and leads to disordered loyalties.

With regards to corrupting the morality of our military, take it from this former Marine, there’s already a LOT of sexual immorality that goes on in the military, and I just don’t see how excluding homosexuals is going to make our military any “holier”.  Should we criminalize all forms of sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage, including masturbation?

The outrageous,offensive,harmful attitude toward homosexuality that is at the core of being “openly gay” has no place in a properly functioning military,People can serve their country despite being afflicted by same-sex sexual attraction,but if they see that attraction as worthy of gratification they are no different than alcoholics who deny any obligation to be sober.Being single-sex should suffice to guarantee that a military unit has no sexual tension within its ranks,and without firm suppression of any assertion of being entitled to act on same-sex attraction,that necessity is not being met.

I find it rather strange that Mr. Drake repeats the oft-told falsehood that the Second Vatican Council was the catalyst for the admission of homosexual priests to the priesthood. The notion that the priesthood was predominantly heterosexual until the 1960’s is implausible.  The priesthood has always had a noticeable proportion of homosexual members.  Marquis de Sade, anyone?  The notion that the nebulous concept of “sexual revolution” destroyed an esprit de corps of the priesthood does not hold up against pre-conciliar popular depictions of the priesthood. By corollary, the notion that a ban on homosexuals in the military or DADT has maintained a strongly heterosexual military “fraternity” crumbles against the demonstrated participation of LGBT people in all of America’s wars.  Friedrich von Steuben?  The transgendered women who fought in the Civil War?  These instances may disgust many here, but the notion of a bold and manly heterosexual American fighting force is a fantasy and historical fallacy.

That said, the repeal of DADT has one salutary benefit that will benefit every American.  Many of the soldiers dismissed under DADT were of a very high MOS.  For example, <a >a Near Eastern language translator was dismissed under DADT</a> because he merely mentioned he was gay in a instant message.  Okay.  Would you rather have a gay Arabic, Farsi, or Pashto translator help our nation intercept valuable enemy information, or boot him out simply because he disturbs a fantasy that the armed forces should be purged of all homos?  The military should embrace highly intelligent and skilled soldiers of any orientation rather than reject their most critical skills.

Scilicet said: “Many of the soldiers dismissed under DADT were of a very high MOS.”  There is no such thing as a “high MOS” and commanders, generally, do not dismiss men from critical positions out of a personal “ick” factor.  Rather men are dismissed for non-performance and the stated cause may have been under DADT such that the discharge was without prejudice.
How many soldiers who are discharged prior to the end of their enlistment term or commission do not fault the military for unfairness?

Martin Luther King Jr. most likely just rolled over in his grave. His statements striving for tolerance and equality were just butchered to support hatred and inequality. As a Catholic I am thoroughly embarassed. There has always been, and must continue to be a clear separation of church and state. We must hold firm in our personal beliefs, but it is ludicrous to think we, as Catholics, must impose our beliefs on an entire nation.

I’m going to agree with Catholic001.  Speaking again as a former combat Marine, I can guarantee you that the fantasy that our military represents some kind of moral high ground for society is a complete farce.  In fact, the military in many ways is already a haven for some of the very worst immorality in our society.  I’m all for combating sinfulness in all its forms, but we’ve got to do it the right way.  Legislation and discrimination (and DADT is discrimination) isn’t the right way.  How is condemning someone going to save his soul?  It’s not; it’s only going to make him hate us and he’ll be even less likely to listen to what we have to say.  Instead, we should be engaging our sinful brethren in dialogue as we try to explain the reasoning behind our position and show them the error of their ways.  Simply excluding gays from the military isn’t going the make the military any better (It’s already made it weaker.) any more than jailing gays (or perhaps even stoning them?) is going to bring them to salvation.  We seriously need to think about how we as Christians go about fulfilling the Great Commission and bringing the Gospel into the world.

The author of this article clearly does not understand the military, he does not understand the Church, and he has no right to comment on either.

To Michael (formerly of 2/6): “How is condemning someone going to save his soul?” Is this the principle guiding you when you call the author of this piece a liar or when you say “he has no right to comment” on all this? I myself was with Marines in combat for nearly three years; I agree with you that there is a great deal of immorality. Is your solution, then, to open the way for even more, and worse, immorality? This is how we’re to save souls, I take it, by allowing wounded souls to be drawn more easily into even worse sins. And when you say that you agree with Catholic001, does that include his statement that there must be an “absolute separation” of Church and state, so that you condemn all that the Popes have said on this matter, sometimes in a most solemn way? Does your plan, then, for saving souls include condemning the Sovereign Pontiffs’ teaching on this matter? And finally, it would be nice if, having admitted that you were wrong in point of fact, you would apologize for calling the author a liar; or does your novel notion of how to save souls excuse you from condemning the wrong in your own statements? By the way, “discrimination” as it’s commonly used in these discussions implies injustice; that is the point up for discussion, of course; assuming that any discernment is discrimination just begs the question.

Jack said, “the episcopal church has gay and married heterosexual priests AND no pedphilia problem.”  Besides the fact you cannot spell Jack, are you living in a fantasy world?  Per capita, the Episcopal/Anglican Church has more issues with pedophilia and sexual misconduct than the Catholic Church.  Other religious groups and institutions simply do not receive the same press for these issues. The reality is that every institution is suffering from sexual abuse and molestation.  Government institutions have the highest rate of sexual misconduct. This is a world-wide issue that cannot be blamed on one group, especially Catholics who regularly encourage sexual responsibility through abstinence and healthy marriages.  Homosexual behavior is just another example of unhealthy, destructive sexual behavior.  And yes, many homosexual men prey on young, adolescent men.

WRT translators, I can offer only an anecdote.  At the Defense Language Institute, within the past five years, there was a gay instructor who brought homosexual pornography into a classroom setting, and who harassed a young student in that class.  I am sure he was a competent linguist.  He was also interested in developing a sexual relationship with one of his students, and in desensitizing all of his students through pornography.  The mission of the class was secondary for him.  This situation took a very long time to resolve, partly because superior officers were sensitive to accusations of homophobia, but eventually the instructor was replaced.  The class, which had been thoroughly demoralized, took time to recover, but eventually accomplished its goals.  Tell me how this situation would have turned out had the instructor been an officer instead of a civilian.  Tell me how things would have been better without DADT.  Tell me we “need” men like that instructor in our armed forces.

If you recognize people as a culture or a race because of their un-natural sexual habits you have forgotten the reason for the basic two types of human beings. Sexual orientation is male and female which is the basis for reproduction. A so-called gay person in a gay relation cannot reproduce, they can only seduce. If a person has a serious mental problem we institutionalize them for medical help. We do not accept them into the military for obvious reasons. By saying a person has a freedom to do as they wish is not the meaning of freedom. This law allowing them into the military is just another destruction of every day morals that 90% of the population observe. It sends an awful message to our children much like the immoral things taught to children by the Nazis in the 30’s. May God help us…...

“The author’s assertion that Manning’s actions were solely the result of his sexual orientation is laughable, as is his unspoken implication that other gay soldiers will do the same thing.” Posted by Michael on Thursday, Dec 23, 2010 7:31 PM (EST)
Suggest you stop engaging in selective research and learn how the ending of his “relationship” with transvestite Tyler Watkins served as the catalyst for Mannings’ betrayal of the United States. The fact is that Bradley Manning is a mental case who has allowed his intrinsically disordered libido to control the manner in which he has lived his life.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/warning-signs-went-unheeded-ahead-of-the-damaging-leaks/story-fn775xjq-1225969191218
How many more of his ilk are lying just below the surface waiting for the opportunity to do the same kind of damage in the name of the forced acceptance of their perversion?
Gates and Mullen, in their spineless capitulation to social engineer Soetoro, have kicked over a hornet’s nest and unfortunately, they aren’t the ones who will end up being stung. Pray that this idiocy rightfully ends up blowing up in the faces of the people who perpetrated it.
“Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” Isaias 5:20

Despite his good intentions, what is wrong with Tim Drake’s confused, misguided, and largely irrelevant essay is encapsulated in the following sentence: “This radical disruption of the Armed Forces of the world’s most reliable Christian nation represents a desacralization of the male military bond.”

The United States is “the world’s most reliable Christian nation”?  Really?  Even if we disregard the rejection by both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI of the alleged legitimacy of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we must ask whether Mr. Drake is living in the same country as the rest of us.  This is a nation that was the first to use atomic weapons—and to commit the mass murder of noncombatants in acts of state terrorism—contrary to the Catholic Church’s explicit and thunderous condemnation (*CCC* 2314).  This is a nation whose government and judicial system have allowed the killing of over fifty million unborn children by means of surgical abortion (to say nothing of chemical abortion) since 1973.

Moreover, between the lines in Mr. Drake’s essay, a reader can easily sense the unformulated premise that same-sex attraction in a non-negligible number (*CCC* 2358) of males obliterates their masculinity.  This may be Mr. Drake’s personal opinion, but it is not the view of the Church, which says, on the contrary, that “[e]veryone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual *identity*” (*CCC* 2333), which means one’s God-given identity as a male or a female.  Notice that the foregoing official teaching applies to *every* man and *every* woman without exception.

In addition, as followers of Jesus and his Golden Rule, are we to encourage bullying and even suicides among younger people by telling males experiencing same-gender attraction that they cannot be real men?

True, the Church rightly insists that every male and every female practice the virtue of chastity in accord with his or her life situation (*CCC* 2348 and 2359).  It is also the case that, from a Catholic perspective, it would have been much better for the U.S. military to retain the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.  Nevertheless, approaches along the lines of Tim Drake’s column do *not* advance either of those goals.

I happen to support abortion on demand,and birth control,but am totally opposed to treating same-sex sexual activity as unobjectionable.The proclivity for that error can not be acknowledged as anyone’s “identity”.

I fully expect the latest C_P_N_R rant to be deleted soon,but the “child-raping” objected to was mostly a case of Catholic priests not being serious enough in their opposition to same-sex sex.For marriage to be treated as if merely “equal” to the unspeakable vice of same-sex sexual relationships,when its sole useful purpose (speaking as a non-religious person) is to further the unique benefit to humanity the specific practice of opposite-sex relationships offers by being opposite-sex,can not be rationally defended.“ABORT CHRIST” is full-throated nonsense,you can’t now abort a man born thousands of years ago.

C_P_N_R,“abortion on demand” involves a woman who WANTS an abortion being able to get one.Abortion as a possibility did exist 2000 years ago,or Hippocrates would not have forbidden a particular method thereof (the pessary) in his oath.The mother of the man remembered as “Christ” probably did not want an abortion,nor do I expect her to have based a decision on the possibility of his being deified in the centuries after his death and insitutions springing up that would do harmful things in his name,as have many other institutions.

No matter how little the facts resembled the legends,the man had to have been born.

I don’t think it will matter for most of the armed forces. I was in the Air Force during most of the 1990s when the DADT debates raged. We already had gay troops. It wasn’t a secret and, honestly, I couldn’t care less. I was worried about terror attacks and scud missiles, not a gay airman looking at me in the shower tent. Frankly, if that actually frightens somebody, then I don’t think they belong in that career.

Our rules in faith apply to us. Not to everybody. What we may find immoral are not necessarily illegal. Rather than worry about the redemption of others, we should concern ourselves with our own redemption. If I spend all my time passing judgment on homosexuals or getting upset because homosexuals would like the right to serve without pretending to be what they are not, then what really would that say about me? Their salvation is between them and Christ. I am sufficiently worried about my own situation to not feel bothered by something like the repeal of DADT.

I am on active duty now and completely agree with Tim Drake’s outstanding column.  The real problem wasn’t the repeal of DADT, but the enactment of it.  Passage of this ill-advised policy occurred in 1993 under a democrat Congress with a democrat president.  The repeal was planned all along once the infiltration was facilitated by this policy which all the senior leaders then protested.  This is going to be extremely disruptive and divisive.

As far as Vatican II, the inroads made by Modernist theologians contributed to a blurring of the definitions we use to talk about homosexuality.  The 1992 Catechism invents a new category for Catholic catechetics with the term ‘homosexual person’ who is ‘called to chastity’  (CCC 2357-59).  What is this but to invite men belabored with a perverse temptation into an all-male fraternity?  Moreover, a so-called ‘homosexual priest’ would be in favor of the complete menu of Modernist religious tenets which includes the Modernist superdogma, evolutionism.  In this way ‘homosexual priests’ foment the need for evolutionary change in the Church, its liturgy and its dogmas. 

A homosexual cannot be a valid Catholic Priest because he cannot be a Christian:

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”  1st Corinthians 6:9

C_P_N_R,you’re going to be deleted again,but…you don’t have to be Catholic to be against accepting same-sex sex,and you don’t have to condone same-sex sex to support abortion rights.And God,by nature,is more eternal than anything else!

You write as if your church has a history that extends back no further than 30 years.  And, in doing so, you ignore the fact that centuries of priests (even popes) practiced homosexuality openly.  It may not have been in keeping with established dogma but no one did anything about it.  The conservatism in the church—which you parade like a trophy—is a relatively recent development.  I’ll be happy to read your argument again once you figure out how to reconcile the long history of your church with current-day conservatism.  It appears to me that you want to have the authority of the past 2000 years without dealing with the history itself.

Rukidding, name the Popes that have “practiced homosexuality openly” as you claim, or for that matter name one Pope that has been even a closet homo.  You are twisting history to fit your own twisted views.

Karin—I completely agree with your assessment from two perspectives. 

First, any employee of the military, civilian or soldier, must be discharged or fired for any form of sexual harassment.  This is fundamental to the integrity of the armed forces. 

Also, I also don’t doubt your story.  It’s a crime whenever someone harasses another person, child or adult, with the intent of non-consensual sex.  This is true in the civilian workplace as well as the military.  Regardless of DADT or its repeal, anti-harassment laws must continue to preserve the integrity of the military.

However, your story is but one example.  How many gay linguists (or soldiers in any other sought-after specialisation) have served without fault?  How many gay soliders period have served without incident?  Everytime a lapsed Catholic or non-Catholic slurs every Catholic priest as a child molester, remember that one or even a few corrupt gay soldiers do not cast all gay soldiers as sexual opportunists.  When you smart after someone slurs priests, think of how an aboveboard gay soldier smarts when you use one story to characterize all gay soldiers. 

I realize that the conservative viewpoint is that most homosexuals are child molesters or sexual opportunists (or both).  I can’t change that perception. I can say confidently that gay and lesbian soldiers have served served honorably and with valor in all our modern wars.  If one wishes to highlight sexually maladjusted homosexuals in the military, one also has to cite those soldiers that have harassed and raped women while in the service.

Sure seems to be sexually maladjusted for males or females to identify themselves as sexually attracted to the same sex (“homosexual”)or both sexes (“bisexual”), instead of sexually attracted to the opposite sex as God intended when He created us. Is a Catholic who is pro-choice still a faithful Catholic? Is a Catholic who tolerates and supports the pro-queer agenda still a faithful Catholic? I don’t think so. I use the term “queer” to include the entire spectrum of sexual perversions - homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender, transexual, pedophilia, necrophilia, sadomasochistic, etc. Don’t be misled by pro-queer propaganda. God created us male and female. He did not create any of the above referenced descriptions of sexual sins heterosexuals choose to engage in.

The attitude represented by openly claiming entitlement to engage in same-sex sex is not that of someone anyone should ffel comfortable associating with.In a tightly controlled environment like the military,it is not a good thing to allow.

@Tony Esolen on Thursday, Dec 23, 2010,

You wrote “… it is NOT true that pedophiliacs are not to be found among Episcopalian priests.  They are there too, and in the same numbers as among the Catholic priests.”

In actuality, the number of pædophiles and ephebophiles in the Episcopal Church do not occur “in the same numbers” (by which I presume you to mean in the same proportion) as in the Catholic priesthood. The proportion of offenders among Episcopal clergy has been notably greater than the proportion in the Catholic Church. Much of this difference may well have been due, at least in part, to the much less rigorous approach of the Episcopalians to adequate discernment and to the very substantially shorter and less rigorous Episcopal requirements for ordination, as compated with what is required of a Catholic seminarian.
Other than that small nit, you have written nothing with which I have any basis to disagree.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer, LCDR, USN [ret]

I read Tim Drake’s “What the Military Must Learn from the Church” from a position of experience and knowledge.  I have witnessed the “homosexualization” of the priesthood in my life time and the isolation and fear that good priests experience because of it.  Gay activists in the priesthood have used their power to promote an acceptance of homosexual relations as normative human behavior.  Much of the sex abuse scandal occurred because Church leaders either sympathized with the gay movement or saw homosexuals as victims who needed protection.  Yet Church leaders who sympathize with gay activism are certainly not preaching what the Church teaches and homosexual clergy are normally aggressive and assertive proponents of their sexual proclivity and not victims.  As Michael Rose described, in the last forty years heterosexual men became the victims of formation gatekeepers, corrupt chanceries, and politically correct administrators of apostolic works.  The military will have a special interest group within its ranks that will engage in favoritism and intrigue despite the repeal of DADT.  This will weaken the morale of soldiers just as it has weakened the morale of Catholic clergy.  Any honest priest will privately acknowledge the tension and division caused by homosexual activism in the priesthood.  The pro-gay priests believe the State’s acceptance of the gay agenda will force the Church to accept it. The Church, however, teaches the truth: homosexuality is an objective disorder and homosexual activity is intrinsically disordered.  Political lobbying and activism cannot change the truth as time will prove.  If you believe that abortion on demand and no-fault divorce are mistakes that reject the true good, then you should also be upset by our government’s endorsement of the gay culture.

Father Bonum Honestum, I agree with you 100% and just ordered Michael Rose’s book.  I know you are using the language of the 1992 CCC, but “disordered” is a softer psychological term, and the Apostles call it “sin” and “sin against nature.” 
1 Cor. 6:9-11. The Apostle writes that “...homosexuals…cannot inherit the Kingdom of God…and such were some of you…but you are (now) washed…”  There is no such thing as a homosexual Catholic anymore than there is such a thing as an adulterer Catholic or an idolater Catholic.
2. It is heresy to ascribe homosexual desire to God (“they are born that way,” or have a ‘victim soul’ from God). This is a grievous error in contradiction James 1:12-16:
“Let no man when he is tempted say he is tempted by God…every man is tempted by his own concupiscience (lust)... do not err, therefore, my dearest brethren.”

Homosexual temptations do not come from God anymore than other temptations to sin come from God. If one self identifies as a homosexual he cannot be a Catholic because he is not a Christian according to the Scriptures and Tradition.

As a Catholic convert and former Episcopalian, the practical reality is that having homosexuals in an organization is a lot like having mice in your kitchen:  if you can see one, it means you’ve got dozens.  Within the Episcopal church, the homosexual priests and lesbian priestesses form networks where they look out for each other, trade lovers, engage in intrigues and spats, etc.  They don’t obey their bishops and the pastoral care of parishes becomes secondary and divided.  Parishioners who approve of homosexual liaisons get pastoral care; those who don’t are shut out.  There’s also a lot of nest-feathering, where non-pastoral church bureaucracies proliferate to provide cozy perches for gay lovers.  Secondly, living contrary to the Gospels leads directly to an intense desire to explain the Gospels away.  In the military, we will see a weakening of the chain of command and the hidden gay loyalties, intrigues, and spats proliferate.  We will also see a tendency to explain away any military doctrines that are contrary to the nest-feathering proclivities of gay service members.

Tony Esolen wrote: “On this particular issue, there’s only one group of people whose opinions I want to hear, and they are men in combat units, period.”

Amen.

From Stars & Stripes, which is generally favorable to the repeal of DADT: “Although most servicemembers believe that a repeal of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law would have little real impact on their work, fully half of frontline troops surveyed expressed serious concerns that allowing openly gay troops in the ranks could hurt their mission readiness, morale and ability to work effectively. ... Among troops from Army combat units, 48% predicted a repeal would negatively affect their team’s ability to ‘work together to get the job done.’ That number rose to 58% among Marine combat units.”

Meanwhile, less than a third of non-combat military personnel express concerns about the repeal of DADT.

This data speaks volumes. The military exists for national defense. Any nonessential element that handicaps it on the battlefield should be jettisoned. This is not a preachment. It is common damn sense.

I am really worried about the crimes against straight people in the bathrooms!!  I would hate to see some poor soldiers molested, even raped, then drawn up on charges…..and convicted in a liberal atmosphere so they do prison time.  This has got to be repealed!!  They will need cameras in the bathrooms just to protect the straights!! A molested straight guy is going to fight back, and end up the target of criminal charges!!!  They had better have bathrooms set up just for gays until this thing is repealed!! Any entrance into “straight bathrooms for the different sexes” should result in criminal charges for the gays!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the underlying mistakes of this analysis is confabulating homosexuality with pedophilia. Statistically most homosexuals are not pedophiles and most pedophiles are heterosexual.Let’s move on. Gays have always been in the military…so really what’s new.

Same-sex sexual activity is something always to be avoided by everyone,so nothing new there.“Gays” are relatively new,as a claimed identity by those asserting same-sex sex as a legitimate activity.And persons refusing to back down from that appalling position are ideally to be shunned all over,not just in the military.I agree that in an all-adult organization there can be no “pedophilia” between its members,but in any single-sex unit there should also therefore be no sexual activity between its members.

@Peter N. Nevraumont,

The “mistake” you allege is no worse than the mistake of attempting to conflate (not confabulate) ephebophilia with pædophilia. This is a constant error of many who mischaracterize the unquestionable majority of cases of same-sex sex abuse by Catholic priests by labeling it pædophilia. The problem of ephebophilia within the military services is one that I have not noticed being addressed above. Post-pubescent males will likely be particular targets for older, and consequently senior, homosexual members in the same unit. Not a pleasant circumstance and, if and when it becomes wide spread, we will no longer have to worry about retention of active duty service members. We will have to worry about recruiting young heterosexual men who have no wish to be placed in the position of having to reject a senior’s amorous advances. The other problem will likely be an increase in the number of “accidental” deaths which can be attributed to a justifiable resistance to unwanted advances—not something which was particularly common when being an openly practicing homosexual was an automatic ticket to a discharge.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
LCDR, USN [ret]

Keith: Are you suggesting that certain forms of manslaughter or homicide are absolutely beyond the reach of the law simply because the circumstances of life-taking is alleged non-consensual homosexual contact (harassment and/or assault)?  No death is “accidental”.  Even falling off of a ladder to one’s death is not a legal accident.  The taking of another life in self-defense is only justifiable in limited circumstances (e.g. “castle laws”).  Certainly, a person who is threatened with sexual violence could justifiably exercise lethal force.  Nevertheless, the victim will have to answer to a civilian or military court for the taking of a life.  Remember: a just military court will try ALL sexual crimes under an identical legal code.  Military and civil criminal law cannot admit as evidence the Catholic position that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered or the position of some persons that homosexuals are inherently predisposed to sexual crime.  Per the law, harassment is harassment, assault is assault, rape is rape, homicide is homicide. This holds despite the sex of the perpetrator and the sex of the victim.  Any other position advocates for the miscarriage of justice.

Scilicet,on the contrary,that a sexual advance is homosexual is a particularly wrong thing about it,and the public welfare requires that the civil law treat this as an aggravating factor…I am not a religious person but the “Catholic position” happens to correspond to incontrovertible fact.Any judge issuing a ruling treating sexual orientation as a mitigating factor toward the intrinsic indefensibility of same-sex sex should be removed from office.We do not discard laws against stealing as discriminatory against kleptomaniacs or treat drunk driving as an alcoholic’s expression of the “equal right” to be in his preferred state of intoxication.Justice and “equality” are opposites in this case.

Louis: The last part of your post about kleptomania and alcoholism makes absolutely no sense.  If you can cite a court case where a person was acquitted of DUI on the defense that alcoholism is a preference, I would be very interested to read about the case.  Usually DUI and petty theft falls under mandatory sentencing statutes and necessarily exclude your strange idea of “rights”(?) Perhaps your question about homosexuality as a mitigating circumstance might relate to the sodomy laws.  Sodomy laws were only selectively enforced even when legal.  Remember also that sodomy laws also prohibited very common forms of heterosexual sex!  I strongly suspect (but could be wrong: lawyers, help!) that sodomy laws were less-frequently used in the prosecution of homosexual rape or other non-consensual action and more often used to prosecute homosexuals in consensual but illegal actions.  If anything, sodomy laws would strengthen a prosecutor’s case rather than benefit the defense in cases of rape.  So I cannot see how homosexuality by itself could mitigate the culpability of defendants and the judge’s verdict. 
Mr. Drake’s article and many of the comments posted here commit the following logical fallacy.  Catholicism’s position on homosexuality, the “natural law” (which is just one of many philosophical positions that influence common law), and general disgust with homosexuality DO NOT influence due process.  Would you want to live in a legal system where a man could assault a man within inches of his life for “looking at him funny” and go free without trial, but try a heterosexual rapist because heterosexual assault reflects “the divine-ordered-design” of heterosexuality? (Twisted Thomism!) It would be extremely unjust to live in a civil or military society where a certain subset of the population is under the perpetual threat of violence simply because their putative “unnaturalness” voids their personal autonomy and safety.  A reserved right to protect masculinity through unbridled hatred towards homosexuals also violates the dignity of humanity enshrined in this natural law exalted to defend the wickedness of homosexuals.

Scilicet…the point is that treating homosexual orientation as a defense against laws singling out homosexual behavior as the social blight that it is opens the door to senseless defenses against other violations of standards of conduct claiming predilection toward that conduct enrolls the violator in a protected class.The irrationality of same-sex sex must take precedence over all desires to engage in it.
A sodomy law that does not specifically single out same-sex sex is not serving a useful purpose,and I would not defend it.I believe that due process SHOULD,whether or not it does,defer to the natural law issue here on which Catholic teaching,in the manner of a stopped clock twice a day,happens to be correct.I don’t think that assault is proportionate to “looking at funny” but I do believe that those afflicted by same-sex sexual attraction are benefitted by constant dissuasion from ever gratifying it just as alcoholics are benefited by constant pressure away from drinking.There is no “hatred” involved in caring enough about someone to insist that he behave properly and treating him as having the intellectual capacity to realize that his desires are unhealthy.

@scilicet on Thursday, Dec 30, 2010 1:14 PM (EST),

No, I am not advocating any such thing. Quite the contrary, I am concerned that we are opening the door to events which will end up being very highly disruptive of unit cohesion and to the effectiveness of our military units. I placed the word “accident” in quotes to indicate that it will not be an accident. Of course such an action will be subject to prosecution before a court martial. I was simply trying to raise the issue of the sorts of sources of friction that the repeal of DADT will encourage, in however limited a manner that encouragement might take. And I was attempting to do so without becoming “indelicate.” Apparently, I failed in my attempt so consider the Uniform Code of Military Justice, specifically [emphasis added]:

Art. 125. Sodomy.
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.
(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Has Congress passed, and the President signed, the necessary changes to the UCMJ? If so, nothing has been said in the press reports I have read.

Repealing DADT is tokenism without changing the affected legal strictures. And doing so will likely have untoward consequences. I very strongly believe that the repeal presages a set of consequences which will be very destructive of unit cohesion, even if in a relatively small number of instances in any given time period. Nevertheless, they are consequences which we, as a nation, can ill afford.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Thanks for the clarification Keith.  I was afraid that you were promoting a anarcho-vigilante military where soldiers could kill other soldiers with impunity. 

One of the problems with sodomy laws such as the one you cite from UCMJ Art. 125 is the vague nature of “unnatural carnal copulation”.  Until the Supreme Court struck down all sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, it was not well known that many of the state sodomy laws prohibited common spousal (heterosexual) activities such as oral sex.  I know that the SCOTUS decision does not affect the military code.  Still, Art. 125 suffers from the same ambiguity as many of the state codes.  What is “unnatural”?  What is “consensual”?  Does heterosexual or homosexual activity matter according to the military justice?  Are soldiers and their spouses entitled to complete freedom of sexual expression? All we know is that even the most brief sexual activity outside spousal coitus (presumably) is a possible infraction of Art. 125.

I completely agree with you Keith that the UCMJ statutes on sexual relations must be revised alongside any other legal changes that arise out of an re-evaluation of DADT.  This is for the protection of every officer, soldier, and civilian that interacts with the military.  Ideally, _any_ sexual proposition or activity, heterosexual or homosexual, that is not consensual should be proscribed.  Non-consensuality also admits the possibility of pseudo-consensuality: no soldier can have sex with a superior even if both agree to the contact.  I trust that the proportion of homosexual infractions need not be as high as heterosexual infractions to destabilize troop cohesion.  I suspect that this is what you’re getting at with the issue of a gay officer propositioning a college-aged soldier—rarer, but more damaging overall.  Nevertheless, I strongly doubt that the abuse of power and sexuality is a predominantly homosexual problem.  It is one matter to realistically appraise the effects of diverse sexual crimes on the perception of soldiers.  It is another entirely to predict what will happen on prejudices that homosexuals are highly prone to child/adolescent abuse or pseudo-religious arguments based on catchalls such as “natural law”.  The former is a legitimate concern; the latter is simply inadmissible in the public sphere.

Scilicet…I think we need a constitutional fix to narrow and to some extent nullify Lawrence vs. Texas,an example of the misguided kind of ruling I alluded to in my first post of today.It’s not necessary to have sodomy laws,but it is necessary to the common good to exclude same-sex attraction from constitutional protection.The problem is constituted by the actors being of the same sex,regardless of the particular act.Non-consensual acts are wrong because they’re non-consensual and homosexual acts are wrong because they’re homosexual.And it’s an illusion to exclude natural law from the public sphere…morality is the only possible justification for any law of any kind.

Scilicet: Your assertion of what is not admissible in the public sphere is tenuous.  You seem to forget that military service is voluntary and is governed by law in addition to the sovereign laws of the locality of duty; the military is not the public sphere.  It is easy to predict the impact to military effectiveness simply by understanding why same-sex sexual activity has been prohibited, in military service, for most of history.

@Scilicet,
I can assure you that “the abuse of power and sexuality” is not “a predominantly homosexual problem,” although what I think you mean is not so “predominantly” but rather that it is not primarily limited to homosexuals. But that is not the issue we are discussing. We are discussing whether it is appropriate to place limits on the (presumably) private behavior of people who wish to volunteer to serve their country as members of an armed uniformed service, and whether openly practicing homosexuals should be subject to exclusions from so volunteering. As a military veteran, I would argue that the answer to both questions is that it can be appropriate. First, as has already been pointed out above, no one has any inherent right to serve in the U.S. military. Second, anyone who engages in conduct that is deemed prejudicial to good order and discipline should be excluded from volunteering. Based on my twenty years in the Navy, as both an enlisted man and subsequently as a commissioned officer, I would argue that it is beyond question that such service will tend to be disruptive of good order and discipline. You may choose to accept or reject my evaluation, but I am quite thoroughly convinced by my experience that overturning DADT will prove at least as damaging as was the introduction of females into the Navy, an evolution that occurred during my active service. The assurances were given that the standards would be the same, and that assurance was immediately abrogated by the service. To cite but one example, your ability to carry an unconscious shipmate out of a smoke-filled shipboard compartment does not depend upon my size, but that is how the standards for female sailors was reckoned. Could I say anything about it? Not and retain prospects for serving until I was eligible to retire. And during my first 69 months, I was serving on submarines, which was male only duty until this past year or so (for reference, I retired in 1991). So you can talk all you like about everyone being treated equally, but any argument you might offer involving enforcing a truly objective standard is nugatory, because such a result is not practicable. The decision is not mine. But mark well what I wrote—whether I am right or wrong on this question will become apparent within the next 5-15 years.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer, LCDR, USN [ret]

First it’s the military.  Next it will be all federal offices, THEN all public and private corporations.  God help us.
Tim is right.  No matter how good a military personnel, if you are committing a grave sin, you better not die in battle—-or off it either for that matter.  Your very soul is at stake.
As for myself, even though I am not in the military and not a lesbian, for the most part I “prefer” the company of females.  They’re simply just easier to relate to. But then again felines are sometimes the best company than human partners, both gay and straight.

Mr Drake

Thankfully we do live in a country where there is separation of Church and State. People who are homosexual are taxpayers like all US working citizens.  They deserve the right to defend our country just as much as a self-righteous Catholic. 

Whether you like it or not, I am sure that in your parish, and in parishes across our country there are homosexuals who suffer in silence because of the accepted hatred you promote in writing articles like this. 

I suggest you educate yourself on the difference between being homosexual and being a sexual predator…they are entirely separate things; your commentary only promotes hatred, fear, and intolerance.

So please, quit bashing a group of people whose ranks include Christians and Catholics, and leave the judging up to God.

Terri,being accepted for military service is not a “right”.Calling wrongdoing wrongdoing is not “hatred”.And the issue here is permitting people openly alleging they do no wrong by engaging in homosexual activity into the military…an attitude a secular society harms itself by failing to punish.

@Louis E.,

I fear I must take issue with the last word in your comment, namely, “punish” and do so on two grounds. First, if both persons involved are legally competent adults and fully consenting, and if the actions they take are not done in a public place, then I would suggest that punishment is not necessarily the appropriate response by society, depending upon precisely what you would consider the appropriate form it might take. The only appropriate response might be the denial of a privilege. I state again that admission to military service is not a right! Second, because it is not a right, rejection of the offer to volunteer for such service is not a punishment. Punishment is something imposed as a consequence of what the state recognizes as the wrongful conduct of one party imposed upon someone else’s person or property. The presence of a competent and willing second party strongly argues that the conduct offered was not imposed against an unwilling or unwitting “victim.” Rejection of the offer to voluntarily serve in the military is, ergo, not punishment, but is clearly within the realm of appropriate responses.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Louis and Martial Artist:
I would ask that you look at our Constituition and the Bill of Rights, especially the second amendment…it is what I am referring to as a ‘right’ of all U.S. citizens.

@Terri,

If you are referring to the militia, that was, and absent some specific act of Congress signed by the President, remains, the “unorganized militia.” The National Guard and the various Reserve components of the Armed Forces are not a part of that militia. The Second Amendment is essentially irrelevant to the discussion of DADT, which only applies to the Armed Forces, regular and reserve. Organized militias in the U.S. postdate the Bill of Rights by a fair number of decades.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Keith,I am defining “punish” broadly,I essentially think that social ostracism is important to maintain.I specifically stated that acceptance into the military is not a right,and military service is one of the opportunities the open claim of entitlement to engage in homosexual activity without censure should deny people.Terri,the Second Amendment refers to a “well regulated militia”,and preventing sexual entanglements within the ranks is one of the necessities to qualify a militia as “well regulated” with its status as such being necessary to the security of a free state.

Hey, I know, let’s not follow the EURO governments and militaries on this issue ... seems to have been a good startegy in the past.

Tim, with all due respect, the U.S. military has absolutely nothing to learn from the Catholic Church concerning homosexuality. Contrary to popular opinion, the clerical sex-abuse crisis is not a current phenomenon; just ask St. Peter Damian. Frankly, I don’t think homosexuals in the military are as likely to molest children as homosexuals in the priesthood. This has nothing to do with “don’t ask, don’t tell.” This has to do with the audacity of Catholics who are blind to their own church’s history telling other agencies how to deal with problems that the church has yet to confront honestly and forthrightly.

So the military will be “lavender” because of a queer. That may date me.
If I may opine:
Okinawa was a staging area back 45 years ago.
Saturday we, Marines, all came in from the field. There, as always a “beer bust” on the common area.
So with our gear all cleaned released, there was a sight I will not ever forget. There appeared two MP’s flanking a guy in full uniform, absent his cover. The top medal was the Navy Cross.
He may have been a queer, and got caught. The lavender is in all branches, we choose to ignore it, something we did in the Priesthood.
I am not condoning the queer among us but the charade, that some queers don’t “man-up” just doesn’t fit the skinny.
The reality in life is people in combat have other issues that “the freak on” never saw it, but in the back of my mind knew some to be,s sounds eerily familiar…suspected.
“Sic transit Gloria”