Top general seeks to calm homosexuality row
WASHINGTON – The top U.S. military officer, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, tried on Tuesday to calm anger that erupted after he described homosexual acts as immoral, saying he was expressing only his personal views.
Gay rights activists and Democrats criticized the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff for his comments and a veteran Republican senator voiced his disagreement.
“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Pace said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune published on Tuesday.
“I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way.”
Pace was explaining why he supported the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays serving in the military, signed into law in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton.
Under the policy, commanders may not ask the sexual orientation of service members, but gays and lesbians can serve only if they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts.
Later, Pace issued a statement saying he had made a mistake in devoting so much time to his personal views.
“In expressing my support for the current policy, I also offered some personal opinions about moral conduct,” he said. “I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, asked about his own view of the policy, said personal opinion was not relevant.
the link is here.
Kathy at misterpolitics.com notes that
Rep. Martin Meehan, who has introduced legislation to repeal the current policy, criticized Pace’s comments.
“General Pace’s statements aren’t in line with either the majority of the public or the military,” said the Massachusetts Democrat. “He needs to recognize that support for overturning [the policy] is strong and growing” and that the military is “turning away good troops to enforce a costly policy of discrimination.”
However, it is interesting to note that none of the blogs I have read yet consider this a threat to free speech. As I see it, political correctness and hate crime legislation is a direct threat to Free Speech and Freedom of Religion. Forcing anyone who disagrees with a particular lifestyle or philosophy to apologize publicly accomplishes the same thing as legalized censorship, and then legalized censorship will be much easier to pass. (Where’s the commie ACLU on this? ) And for those that think I exaggerate…..here is a some quick reminders of past articles:
The the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words “natural family,” “marriage” and “family values” because that is hate speech and could scare workers.
and
Gay-bias ban in schools OK’d
The state Assembly approved legislation Monday designed to bar discrimination in public schools against gay, bisexual and transgender people, retreating from an earlier proposal that would have required schools to teach students about the contributions of prominent gay people.
and
The Bible as Hate Speech
Canada’s governor general, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, signed into law yesterday a controversial measure opposed by religious believers and free-speech advocates who say it will criminalize public expression against homosexual behavior.
just to name a few.
I won’t spend too much time pointing out that this will get much more coverage then incidents when Christians or Republicans are bashed, because, unless you are an idiot, you have realized the media are mostly biased liars. I will point out again that this is just another slippery step down the road to self-censorship.
You, dear reader, have the right to hate Republicans, (As Dean publicly did) you have the right to hate Muslims and Jews, you have the right to hate Christians, you have the right to disagree, protest, and complain against any person, place, thing, or thought, because that is Freedom of Speech. And once you make exceptions the 1st Amendment will mean little more then a scrap of paper. You can defend political correctness, or you can defend the Constitution. You can’t defend both.
Blogs at Orbys.net
This is ridiculous. The first rule, as a military member, when speaking with journalists is to be sure to differentiate between your personal views and the views of the military. This man (Gen Pace) started these statements with “I believe” and “I do not believe,” clearly stating that these were not the views of the government. Furthermore, the questions were specifically asking what his personal reason was for supporting the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
You can argue that he made a rookie mistake by not anticipating people to latch onto this, but Gen Pace did absolutely nothing wrong, at all, period. All the hoopla is just complete BS. I call shenanigans.