From Barack Obama, via AmericaBlog:
Statement from Senator Obama on General Pace
"As the New York Times reported today, I do not agree with General Pace that homosexuality is immoral. Attempts to divide people like this have consumed too much of our politics over the past six years."
It's unfortunate that he had to have his nose pushed into it.
From Hillary Clinton's Senate Web page:
Excerpt of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Bloomberg News Regarding the Comments Made By General Peter Pace
"Well I've heard from a number of my friends and I've certainly clarified with them any misunderstanding that anyone had, because I disagree with General Pace completely. I do not think homosexuality is immoral. But the point I was trying to make is that this policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not working. I have been against it for many years because I think it does a grave injustice to patriotic Americans who want to serve their country. And so I have called for its repeal and I'd like to follow the lead of our allies like, Great Britain and Israel and let people who wish to serve their country be able to join and do so. And then let the uniform code of military justice determine if conduct is inappropriate or unbecoming. That's fine. That's what we do with everybody. But let's not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love."
Some interesting fallout from this. It occurs to me that the right side of the aisle is so eager to bash Democrats that they find themselves taking fairly untenable positions.
Chris Crain, for example, finds himself defending Pace and Sam Brownback, who came out in favor of Pace's position (big surprise, that), based on a medieval-style Christian theologian's parsing of everyone's remarks, context be damned. Love the letter, hate the spirit, I guess.
And maybe it's just the lawyer in me, but are the Democrats parsing words here? General Pace never said "homosexuality is immoral," and it's a bit of a straw-man to suggest otherwise. He said "homosexual acts" are immoral, and in so doing he tracked the language of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which still prohibits consensual homosexual sodomy.
This is more than a little disingenuous: Pace's words were, indeed, that homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral, and likened that to adultery among heterosexuals. This whole liine of argument is specious, and fairly obviously so. Adultery is not part of anyone's fundamental identity; same-sex relations for gay people are. So we're left with the stunning realization that a gay man who has sex with a man and a straight man who does the same thing will get the same penalty.
Wow. Just what are the chances of a straight guy in the army (or the Marines) having sex with another guy? Minimal to zip? (Unless, of course, he's getting paid for it, because the Bush administration is supporting our troops sooo well.)
What Pace is really saying is that gay people, by their very make-up, are immoral. How hard it that to figure out?
Nor does Crain tackle the bigotry inherent in the UCMJ -- in fact, he uses it to justify Pace's remarks.
Crain goes on, after accusing the Democratic candidates of creating a straw man, to create his own, much larger straw man.
Were the Democrats still dodging by saying they disagree that "homosexuality is immoral" while taking no position on whether "homosexual acts" are? Maybe that's why Hillary told Bloomsburg News, all while "clarifying" her disagreement with Pace, that morality will still have a role to play in the military, even after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell":
Let the Uniform Code of Military Justice determine if conduct is inappropriate or unbecoming. That's fine. That's what we do with everybody. But let's not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love., and then tries to make it all OK by saying, in essence, that Pace was wrong to begin with. Maybe if he'd leave off trying to dish Clinton and Obama for a minute, he might have time to think up an intelligent argument.
Whoa! Let's take a look at this: Crain has so far bought into the right-wing divorce between person and act vis-a-vis gays that he can't seem to make the jump (or doesn't want to) from "homosexuality is not immoral" to "homosexual acts are not immoral." Contrast this with the idea that only some heterosexual acts -- those that take place outside of legally recognized relationships -- are immoral. Add in that gays are not allowed any legally recognized relationships on the federal level. Sure, Brownback takes that position, but we expect that of junk morality from someone who has this kind of right-wing compartmentalized mentality. Love the sinner, hate the sin, right? No one's buying that one any more. Even the Christianists are steering clear of it. To credit Clinton and Obama with that viewpoint is pretty much false, I think. There's no reason to suspect that they share that worldview. The basis of Crain's post seems to be, indeed, parallel to the idea that homosexuality is a choice, that it's a temptation that sinners fall into (see Ted "I'm Completely Heterosexual" Haggard), and that is has nothing to do with anyone's fundamental psychological make-up.
This is coming from a gay man, who should know better.
As far as Clinton's reference to the UCMJ, it does make moral judgments, and that's where it needs to be revised. When it deals with relations among military personnel on the basis of relative power, I have no objections to it. When it starts into the idea that certain behaviors are, in and of themselves, grounds for punishment, then it's simply wrong. Clinton should have made some comment on that, and I seriously object to the implication that the UCMJ as it stands is just fine -- that's going to come back to bite her. (Crain does have the right take on that statement, although he sort of buries it. Of course, if he'd based his post on that, he would have had to trash Pace and Brownback, too.)
Still searching for evidence of higher brain activity on the right.
2 comments:
Speaking of searching for brain activity… If you weren't so busy defending Hillary, you'd have noticed that you are agreeing with everything I wrote.
Of course Pace was wrong to insert his personal views into the debate; I wrote an entire post saying that ("The bible-thumping general"). Of course Brownback is wrong for doing the same. I credited him with consistency on whether moral views are relevant in writing public policy, not with being right!
Of course I don't accept the "hate the sin, love the sinner" crap, whether from Brownback or the UCMJ; I wrote an entire post saying that ("The real 11 inches on Matt Sanchez"). My point (and you agreed!) was that the UCMJ is unfair to supposedly claim neutrality on orientation while only letting heterosexuals act on theirs.
I credited both Hillary and Obama with their "clarifications" and gave Edwards and Richardson even more for getting it right the first time. (Did you miss that part?) I even gave Hillary more credit that Obama becuase her faux pas was in passing and he thrice-refused to defend our morality.
This is my issue with gay Democratic apologists: I'm not to "the right" of you on this issue by one centimeter; we agree entirely. But you are so sensitive to criticism of Hillary that you defend her even though you agree with me. It's time for gay Democrats to double-check that their cajones are still there and in working order; especially since the campaign is in very early days.
I stand corrected on my comments about your attitude, even though they are more apparent in the post I didn't comment on than in the one I did. It's been obvious to me that we do agree on a number of issues, which is one reason your post so enraged me.
It's not that I disagree with your conclusions, but with the stupefying route you took to them. My argument was with the parsing of Pace's comments, which I consider a dodge, particularly since gay service members can be discharged not only for committing homosexual acts, but also for being gay. You, at least, should know better. To sit there and opine that he's entitled to express his opinions (which itself is questionable) because the actual words he used conform to an immoral policy strikes me as more than a little disingenuous.
And, if you had read to the end of my post, you might have figured out that I'm not terribly sensitive to criticisms of Hillary Clinton or Democrats in general (having come out with enough of them myself); to label me a "Democratic apologist" just proves that you've flown off the handle without looking at what's in front of you. As long as we're free to bring up posts that our interlocutor has not read, you'd not have to read far in this blog to realize I have no confidence in any of the Democratic candidates for 2008, that I refused to vote for the Democrat or Republican in Illinois' last statewide election (Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dum-Dum, as far as I'm concerned), and I consider HRC even more irrelevant now that it's attached itself to the Democratic Party. To take a post with the somewhat sarcastic title of "Profiles in Courage" as a defense of either Obama or Clinton is really quite bizarre.
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
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