You are evaluating the situation with a moral standard, and I’m evaluating from the point of view of military chain of command.
I don’t see how you could possibly operate a military if individual soldiers can decide whether or not to fight for or with other soldiers based on their personal moral viewpoints. No matter how correct those moral viewpoints are, you simply can’t have unit cohesion if soldiers can’t count on each other to follow orders and work together.
From that perspective, IF they decide to let gays serve openly, I see no choice other than to let people who don’t like that take honorable discharges. You can’t have troops who won’t fight together in the same unit, and you aren’t going to form gay units (which would be another somewhat rational choice), since units would still count on other units.
But lets talk morals. Homosexuality is a sin. So is adultery. Should soldiers be allowed to not defend their fellow soldiers if they know those soldiers found a prostitute the night before, or are living with their girlfriends but not married? Those are sins. What if we know a man cheated on his wife? Do we get to let him be exposed to enemy fire, because we don’t want to fight for a sinner who is deliberately and willfully living in sin (I say that to avoid the obvious problem that all of us are sinners).
In my opinion, and I believe I am correct, the argument against gays in the military is not founded on the immorality of a gay lifestyle, but rather on the problems that having an openly gay person causes in a unit (a problem that would exist with any declared gay man, whether that person was engaged in homosexual acts, or had decided to live a celibate life because they believed homosexual acts were immoral).
The younger generation have been sufficiently brainwashed that they no longer have an aversion to homosexuals, even though many of them are still disgusted and averse to the homosexual acts. I see this with my own children, and their friends.
I believe that within the next 20 years, nobody is going to consider serving in the military with an openly homosexual person to be distracting or damaging to the troop morale. Heterosexuals and homosexuals are already working next to each other throughout our society, in some cases forced by anti-discrimination statutes, but also by simply tolerance and respect for privacy.
I’ve never had a problem being with homosexuals. They are immoral, sinners, living outside the will of God. THey are often selfish, immature, and self-centered. But so are many of my non-homosexual non-christian aquaintances (and more then a few christian aquaintances).
I oppose gays in the military, including the DADT policy. I think it’s absurd to consider the gay rights movement, gay marriage, civil unions, or gay adoption. Those are all part of the selfishness of people who want not only to live an abberant lifestyle simply because it’s how the “feel”, but they want to force the world to accept them, embrace them, and give them special treatment.
But I’ve long since stopped caring whether the person I’m talking to is gay, or an adulterer, or a thief, or an idolater.
“But lets talk morals. Homosexuality is a sin. So is adultery. Should soldiers be allowed to not defend their fellow soldiers if they know those soldiers found a prostitute the night before, or are living with their girlfriends but not married? Those are sins. What if we know a man cheated on his wife? Do we get to let him be exposed to enemy fire, because we don’t want to fight for a sinner who is deliberately and willfully living in sin (I say that to avoid the obvious problem that all of us are sinners).”
Your point is consistent with concerns I have as well. There are more persons (hetereosexual) currently living together in a sexual relationship outside of marriage than within.
I work for the military as a civilian and I am still a serving reservist. Sexual misconduct is an absolute plague on the military right now. You would not believe the number of court martials that occur regularly because officers and senior NCOs cannot keep their paws off junior enlisted. It is seriously disruptive to unit cohesion and morale.
With this already being a MAJOR problem with the military, we cannot afford to have openly homosexual service members. We don’t need further disruption. In the private sector, a person takes there sexual behavior home with them at night. In the military, while deployed, this is not the case.
Let those of us that ACTUALLY have to deal with maintaining good order and discipline make the calls on homosexuals openly serving. We cannot afford to lose those soldiers that actually behave themselves to make room for those with abherant lifestyles. It won’t be the persons with “religious” objections to homosexuality that will “refuse to fight with/for” homosexual members. However, they will be more likely to tell the homosexual that their conduct is wrong....and be dismissed for religious beliefs. Sorry, that is just wrong and violates the 1st Ammendment. You don’t discharge the well behaved to accomodate those that aren’t.
Like I said before, let us in uniform deal with the order and discipline problems. Discharge of objectors is NOT a good idea...it is just plain wrong.