It's About Time!!

Congress repealed 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.' Good! I had hoped that we had put those discriminatory days behind us. I would like to take a moment to clarify my reasons that anyone should be allowed to serve.

1. Jennifer does not care the religion, gender, sexual preference, or even the species of the person who has to pull me out of the way of incoming ordnance. Neither do I. We will both readily say though that no matter those details, the one who does so is guaranteed dinner at our home whenever he/she so desires.

2. Peter Stuyvesant wrote back to Holland to seek advice on whether the Jews in his community could stand guard duty. The answer came back in the affirmative. Perhaps Mr. Stuyvesant should have realized that many of the stockholders of the Dutch West India Company were Jewish. Jews could not serve as chaplains until the US Civil War. We did not have our own corps insignia until World War I. We know as a people what it means to be on the receiving end of discrimination.

3. Good order and discipline has been a constant issue. Well people...if a commanding officer cannot maintain good order and discipline in the ranks, then the powers that be have the obligation to relieve that commanding officer of his duties.

4. So many people have raised the issues of not wanting to share close quarters with people who might consider them as targets of sexual desire. I wonder if those people realize the irony of that worry. It is in my conscious lifetime that women in the US Armed Forces went from being auxiliary forces to full integration. It is my sincere hope that those who have raised this concern realize that the worries of being looked at in such a manner are still a factor, even without 'don't ask don't tell.'

5. The religious implications. It is true that the Torah forbids homosexuality, calling it a to'evah - an abomination (Lev 18). It says the same thing about pork chops (Deut 14). In fact, the Torah uses the word over 30 times in reference to any number of transgressions. My point? Do not cherry-pick. Leviticus 18 exists in a much greater context than our abilities to cite chapter and verse.

6. My oath of office is to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States..." I take that oath seriously. Nowhere does it say to support and defend the Bible. It is an unreasonable beatification of the Constitution to make it withstand the scrutiny of Biblical Correctness.