“No matter how stupid the choices of the leadership, so long as they are not illegal, soldiers are expected to follow orders.”
Define legal???? IF an order is immoral, is it legal????
Now that being said...if I’m sharing a fighting position with a homosexual in hot war zone....at that particular occassion, IF she or he pull their weight (as I would expect from any soldier) I see no reason to not give them the same level of protection I would anyone else (I watch their back and expect the same in return). It when we get back to the barracks that the problems will most likely occur.
Sadly, I trully expect a “Frag a Fag” movement to start occuring in SOME units. Should a homosexual get in an officer position, I don’t think the soldiers will have the same respect (benefit of doubt) given to other junior officers. This will impact moral and readiness. This just isn’t a good idea. The REAl world isn’t as tolerant as hollywood portrays it, or as homophobic either.
Senior Officers and NCOs don’t needed the added combat stress of having to give special protection to openly professed homosexuals to protect them from other soldiers.
Yes, an immoral order is legal. Morality is not an absolute, from the standard of government. Yes, religiously we believe in moral absolutes. Unfortunately, different religions believe in different moral absolutes, and government does not specifically choose between the moral teachings of religion.
Most laws are moral laws, and that is because many religious morals are so well-ingrained that they are accepted outside of their religious origins. Unfortunately, as we drift from God, humanity is losing it’s inate sense of right and wrong.
But a soldier can’t decide which orders to obey based on the religious beliefs they hold. Realizing that there are many false religions claiming a christian faith but teaching that homosexuality is moral, and realising that there are religious faiths that teach “morality” that Christians would find antithetical, we can’t leave it to individual soldiers to make their own decisions on morality.
Of course, an individual soldier must be true to their morals. That is why I support allowing honorable discharge to those who, for their own religious moral reasons, cannot accept the situation if DADT is repealed. But unit cohesion dictates that if gays are assigned to a unit, that unit must treat gays just like straights.
Of course, that is what happens today — the point of DADT was that there are gays in the military, they are sleeping with, showering with, and serving with straights, and so long as nobody KNOWS about it, everybody is “fine” with it.
We can’t defend DADT and then say that the mere presense of gays is itself disruptive, because the point of DADT is that it is the KNOWLEDGE of gays being present that is the disruption, not the gays. I think this was a slippery slope, but it’s what we have to deal with today.
Given that most American corporations have strict non-discrimination policies, and expect their straight employees to work with gay employees, I would be worried if I was in the military and got an honorable discharge because or a moral aversion to working with gays — it could severely limit the ability to get a job later. I would note that every major military contractor has strict anti-discrimination polcies as a matter of course, mostly dictated by their government contracts both here and abroad.