In the waning hours of the most recent lame duck session of Congress, the US Senate approved and President Obama signed into law the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). As soon as the military commanders can establish an implementation plan, for the first time in US history, gays and those engaging in homosexual behavior will be legally protected to openly serve in the armed forces of the United States.
While DADT (originally enacted in 1993) retained the longstanding prohibition against gays and homosexuals serving in the military, it prohibited the military from actively seeking out whether individuals engaged in homosexual behavior. Under DADT, an individual service member’s behavior was the individual’s business, so long as they kept it their business. This arrangement seemed to be effective, and military readiness did not apparently suffer.
Why Repeal is Wrong for Gays
Much will change, and that change will be for the worse, with the repeal of DADT. Repeal is wrong for many reasons, but primarily because our brothers and sister who are enslaved by this self-destructive behavior ought not be led by our government to believe that homosexual behavior is as legitimate as any other behavior. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is quite clear about homosexual behavior:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC 2357)
It is wrong for our government to imply otherwise and in effect to lie to gays about the sinfulness of the gay lifestyle. The effort by the majority of our elected officials to attempt to legitimize this destructive behavior by exploiting gays and those who suffer from same-sex attraction is reprehensible. Gays deserve better. They deserve to be told the truth. They deserve to be encouraged to live lives of virtue:
Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (CCC 2359)
Why Repeal is Wrong for America
The armed forces of the United States were established to support and defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” While it still exists for that purpose, it seems now to have also become a means for promoting an extreme social agenda. Throughout the “debate” of the repeal of DADT, there was little to no discussion as to whether or not the repeal decision would enhance the military’s role as a fighting force. The discussion was instead largely centered on supposed rights of the individual and whether or not repeal would have an adverse impact on good order and discipline in the military.
Despite what people may choose to believe, legally sanctioned and protected immoral behavior will have serious negative impact not just on our military readiness, but more largely to our nation and culture as a whole.
Many will point out that gays have been integrated into the services of other countries with minimal impact and that gays are integrated into American businesses and the world has not ended. This is both true and irrelevant. The US Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force are unlike any foreign military or most business entities in that there has always been a significant aspect of religious faith in the US military services and the country as a whole.
The citizenry and government of the US have long recognized that sexually immoral behavior of military members is contrary to and prejudices good order and discipline. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and Manual For Court Martials (MCM) have long maintained provisions (see Article 134) that allow for service members to be disciplined for inappropriate immoral behavior. Such immoral behavior included adultery, cohabitation, as well as homosexual behavior.
It was recognized and widely accepted (at least back in the ’70s when I was taking my Naval Law courses at the Naval Academy) that the military was dissimilar to other part of American society, that due to it’s purpose and mission, as well as to the unique conditions that service members may find themselves in and have imposed upon them, that it was well and appropriate that the standards of conduct and behavior for members of the military should be different and of a higher standard than an average citizen. Unlike average citizens, members of a military unit will regularly find themselves living, operating and sleeping in close conditions for day or weeks on end. In such circumstances (not unlike a family in many ways—hence the expression “Band of Brothers”) the improper behavior of an individual can and does affect others in the same unit.
For millennia it has been accepted that the mission of the warrior, to be a manager of violence in defense of the nation, demands higher standards of discipline, conduct, and morality. Have our elected officials of the 21st century discovered something that eluded leaders of civilized societies for millennia?
Some attempt to argue that prohibiting gays in the military is discrimination, essentially equating gay rights with other civil rights. This has always been a baseless argument. We Catholics recognize that it is wrong to discriminate against people because of a physical trait that they are born into (e.g. people of color, women, some of the disabled) because people by and large cannot choose their physical traits. How people behave is quite a different matter. Acting out on a same-sex attraction is an act of a person’s free will and a chosen behavior. Government has no more business endorsing and protecting the gay lifestyle anymore than it has endorsing any other destructive behavior.
It is the role of God, and through His instrument the Church, to define morality. Government has no business attempting to define morality. Government is not God.
By the action of repealing DADT, the Congress of the United States and the President will be presuming the rightful role of the Church by defining what is and is not moral behavior. Like another immoral behavior that our government (in this example the judicial branch) has presumed moral, will our elected officials try to promote that homosexual behavior should also be “safe, legal and rare?”
Looming Problems – Why this Matters to Catholics
More pragmatically and rather problematically, the repeal concerns the role of military chaplains. What is to become of Catholic chaplains, who minister to servicemen and -women everyday, as well as preach each Sunday on the evils of immoral behavior, including the intrinsic evil that is homosexual behavior? Military chaplains have been imbedded with US forces since the American Revolution. Task forces of Navy ships have chaplains embarked. Each of the service academies have several chaplains assigned to them. Every military facility of appropriate size has a base or post chapel. With the repeal of DADT, will the government now assert control of the content of homilies and sermons to prevent references to homosexuality?
What about service members who heed the Gospel call to bring the message of Christ to the world? Will military service be incompatible for Christians and Jews who believe and witness that homosexual behavior is evil and sinful? Will such Christians and Jews be disciplined and separated from the service? Or, more likely, will DADT transform into “We won’t ask you if you are a faithful Christian and you better not tell us you are a faithful Christian?”
Will military service become incompatible with being a faithful Catholic?
Love of God and love of country, expressed by tens of millions of Americans who have chosen to serve our country in the US military, has been a defining element of the United States.
To believe as we have been led to believe that repeal of DADT will not affect good order and discipline is sheer lunacy. Ideas matter. Beliefs matter. Our nation was founded upon—and millions of people have sacrificed their lives for—ideas and beliefs.
If government is willing to endorse one type of immoral behavior, where will they stop? It seems clear that legally binding same-sex marriages cannot be far away. If government has established itself as the arbiter of such behavior, then we Catholic Christians should be rightly scared.
CMDR Scott Whitfield, USN (ret.)
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