Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Peter Pace is under fire for his personal beliefs.
He made a statement reflecting his values. Apparently, he doesn't have the right to speak freely or comment on morality.
The Left is demanding that he apologize. While he has expressed his regret for discussing his personal views, he has not apologized for his values.
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's top general expressed regret Tuesday that he called homosexuality immoral, a remark that drew a harsh condemnation from members of Congress and gay advocacy groups.
In a newspaper interview Monday, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces.
In a statement Tuesday, he said he should have focused more in the interview on the Defense Department policy about gays — and "less on my personal moral views."
He did not offer an apology, something that had been demanded by gay rights groups.
"General Pace's comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces," the advocacy group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said in a statement on its Web site.
The group, which has represented some of the thousands dismissed from the military for their sexual orientation, demanded an apology.
Pace's senior staff members said earlier that the general was expressing his personal opinion and did not intend to apologize. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak on the record.
...In an interview Monday with the Chicago Tribune, Pace was asked about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows gays and lesbians to serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and don't engage in homosexual acts.
Pace said he supports the policy, which became law in 1994 and prohibits commanders from asking about a person's sexual orientation.
"I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace said in the audio recording of the interview posted on the Tribune's Web site. "I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by a saying through our policies that it's OK to be immoral in any way."
Pace, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1967 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, said he based his views on his upbringing.
"As an individual, I would not want (acceptance of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," he said, according to the audio and a transcript released by his staff.
Right now, I'm not commenting on the merits of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. I'm not discussing the issue of gays in the military.
What I'm commenting on is this one-way street of tolerance.
This General Pace thing is an example.
Why is it that advocacy groups think they can demand that others accept their values?
Why should Pace have to apologize for his personal beliefs?
Has Pace demanded that gays apologize for offending his moral standards?
Live and let live isn't enough for these groups.
They are insisting that others not only tolerate, but fully accept and embrace their morals, in this case the morality of homosexuality.
I thought morality was not supposed to be pushed down others' throats.
What about being pro-choice?
Doesn't Pace have a right to choose his values?
The nation is supposed to accept the slaughter of 45 million babies through abortion. That's a "choice" that must be tolerated even though millions of Americans find it morally repugnant.
I think Pace's "choice" on homosexuality should be granted the same tolerance.
That seems fair, doesn't it?
Tolerance is a two-way street.
Correction: Tolerance should be a two-way street.
5 comments:
You are a pathetic piece of work ... "wall of shame" indeed ! no one is entitled to an opinion that diverges from your misguided neocon, amerikan taliban perspective.
Pace the individual is entitled to his personal opinions, however misguided and medieval; what is wrong is for the chief military officer of the U.S. to publicly state that opinion ... even a Catholic Bishop has stated that in rebuking Pace, as did the senior Republican Senator John Warner.
Don't for get to pick up your white sheet and pointy hood at the cleaners, stop by the hardware store to buy some hangin' rope for those uppity black folk, and remember some yellow Stars of David for those jews ... maybe you can arrange for dubya the dumb to send them all to Gitmo [of course after you build the crematoriums].
It looks like usna is a perfect example of liberal "tolerance". One can make fun of Christians, conservatives, soldiers, Pres. Bush, etc., and that's OK. But DON'T YOU DARE tell ANYBODY that you think that certain things are wrong, sinful, etc. Why, that's "intolerant"!! (Of course, usna seems to be quite "intolerant".)
Keep on keeping on, FreedomEden! Remember what Jesus said (oh no! I mentioned the name "Jesus!!") in John 15:18--"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you."
Thanks for providing a perfect illustration of the one-way street of liberal tolerance, usna.
And thanks for your support, Four Pointer.
You are absolutely right; i am intolerant of ignorance, forced religion, religious bigotry, etc. in regards to this particular area -General Pace's comments- I would suggest you read [you CAN read, can't you ?] the following:
"An Intolerant Minority
Posted by Walter Brasch
March 17th, 2007 @ 9:41 am
Capt. Joan Darrah (USN-ret.) was the Navy’s first female intelligence officer.
Lt. Col. William Winnewisser (USA-ret.) was a battalion commander, executive officer of the Army Operations Center at the Pentagon, and a White House social aide.
Lt. Col. Hank Thomas (USMC-ret.) was an infantry and intelligence officer who served two tours of duty in Vietnam; he later served as assistant secretary for international affairs in the Reagan administration.
Lt. Col. Steve Loomis, wounded in action in Vietnam, was awarded the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor.
Capt. Joe Lopez, a West Point graduate, and Blackhawk pilot, earned an Air Medal in Iraq.
Capt. Rebecca Kanis, a West Point graduate, was a company commander in Special Operations at the time she resigned her commission after nine years of service.
Capt. Phil Adams, a Naval Academy graduate, spent eight years as a Marine infantry officer.
1 Lt. Gina Foringer, during her four years of service, was a convoy commander in Somalia when she was wounded in action.
SSgt. Eric Alva, who lost a leg in Iraq, served 13 years in the Marines before receiving a medical discharge.
Each of them has a stack of medals and commendations; each of them is gay or lesbian. And every one of them is immoral, according the Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military “says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity,” Gen. Pace told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune. When Pace’s comments went public, he was forced to issue a written statement, but never apologized for his opinion about gays: “In expressing my support for the current policy, I also offered some personal opinions about moral conduct. I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views.”
That policy is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” established in 1993 during Bill Clinton’s first term as president, and later enhanced to include “don’t pursue, don’t harass.” It was a “compromise.” The military would accept gays, and not ask them their sexual preferences as long as they don’t speak out in favor of homosexuality, acknowledge their lives, or enter into any relationships with members of the same sex.
Harry Truman, by executive order, had dictated the end of segregation in the military. Clinton planned to do the same for those who are involved in same sex relationships. Opposing him were all of the military’s “big guns,” including Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. When Powell, a Black, was asked by gay-rights groups, and thousands of others, how he could support discrimination against gays while acknowledging that desegregation of the military allowed his own career to flourish, Powell merely said that the two were not the same. It was Powell, however, who crafted the revised policy.
Among the reasons the military claimed why gays couldn’t serve was because their presence would hurt troop morale and undermine combat effectiveness; gays could be security risks—they were likely to be blackmailed or compromised, said military commanders. The Navy’s Crittenden Report in 1957 discounted that reasoning. During the early 1980s, the Department of Defense issued an official declaration opposing gays in the military; the 124-word inflammatory new policy was designed to justify reasons why gays must not be allowed to serve. However, an independent RAND Corp. report in July 1993 found no logic to exclude gays from service, and concluded that military readiness would not be affected by having gays in service.
Congressional support to eliminate the ban came from several prominent Democrats, and one highly-respected Republican—Sen. Barry Goldwater (1909-1998). Goldwater, a pilot who retired as an Air Force major general, had numerous times had spoken out against the emerging dominance of the Religious Right in Republican politics. Although there is no clear-cut evidence that President Bush is homophobic, there is significant evidence that the continuation of the ban against gays in the military has been strengthened by the resurgence of the influence of the religious right wing during the Bush–Cheney Administration.
Because the military is a hierarchy, with constant jockeying for duty stations and promotion, there is no question that the Chairman’s views about what he believes is the immorality of homosexual behavior will influence every person in his command.
About 65,000 gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgenders now serve in the military, all of them officially hiding their non-military lives, according to the Urban Institute and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). Almost 9,500 members of the military, including hundreds in critical combat specialties, including 50 Arabic language specialists, have been forced out of the military between 1993 and 2005, according to SLDN.
In 2003, on the 10th anniversary of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr (USA-ret.), RADM Alan Steinman (USCG-ret.), and Brig. Gen. Virgil Richard (USA-ret.), in a signed op-ed column in the New York Times, all stated they were gay. In an op-ed column for the New York Times, Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believed “if gay men and lesbians served openly . . . they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces.”
State and federal laws prohibit discrimination against a person’s sexual orientation; the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Agency, and National Security Agency all have openly gay agents; The armed forces, says Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO commander and Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, “are the last institution in America that discriminates against people; it should be the first that doesn’t.”
Israel, which unarguably has one of the world’s most elite and effective military operations, officially bans discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders. Israel “has more gay rights than all of the U.S.,” says Denny Meyer, a former Vietnam era Army sergeant first class who is also editor of the Gay Military Times. Almost 30 nations—including most countries of the European Union—have no problems with anyone’s sexual orientation. The United Kingdom, whose soldiers serve with Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, is even “actively recruiting” gays and lesbians, says Meyer. Of the 26 NATO nations, only the United States, Portugal, and Turkey don’t allow gays to openly serve in the military. And Turkey, says Meyer, “is close to allowing gays to serve.”
Almost three-fourths of all military personnel say they are “comfortable” with having gays and lesbians in their units, according to a Zogby poll in December. About one-fourth of all military persons say they know that a member of their unit is gay—and it has no effect upon them.
Former Sen. Chuck Robb, who served 34 years in active and reserve duty as a Marine officer, in 2002 said that “the threat to morale,” which some believe will occur if there is a policy to permit gays in the military, “comes not from the orientation of a few, but from the closed minds of many.”
About 79 percent of all Americans believe the military should allow gays to serve openly, according to a Boston Globe poll conducted in May 2005; a FOX News poll two years earlier revealed that 64 percent of all Americans had no problem with allowing gays to serve openly. About two-thirds of all Catholics and slightly more than half of all Protestants believe in the rights of gays to serve, according to a Pew Research Center study of March 2006.
Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.), with 114 cosponsors, including conservative Republicans, on Feb. 28 introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1246) that would end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and replace it with absolute nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. With most of the world’s best military units not worried about the presence of gays in their ranks, with large majorities of both military and civilian personnel believing gays should be allowed to serve openly, and with a Democratic Congress that claims it plans to make necessary social changes, now is the time strike down the hostility of an intolerant minority and to eliminate one more form of officially-sanctioned discrimination.
[Assisting on this column were the American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) and Servicemens Legal Defense Network (SLDN). For further information, contact the AVER (www.averny.tripod.com), SLDN (www.sldn.org), Human Rights Campaign Foundation (www.hrc.org), and The Gay Military Times
[www.thegaymilitarytimes.com. You may contact Dr. Brasch at Brasch@bloomu.edu. His latest books are America’s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government’s Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and ‘Unacceptable’: The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are available through most online stores, including amazon.com]."
this was from "The Democratic Times" which I'm sure none of you would have ever seen !
usna,
That was quite a speech. No one ever said homosexuals were stupid. I think most people can't get past the fact that homosexual acts can be rather unsanitary and not the way the body was naturally designed to function.
Have you ever listened to Gregorian chant? It is medieval but soothing and lovely. So not everything old is bad and not everything modern and "intellectual" is good.
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