General Pace and
Gay Soldiers
EDITORIAL,
NYTimes on the Web, March 15, 2007
There’s a good reason that military
officers avoid commenting on politics, society and public policy. The
results are usually bad.
Consider the offensive comments that Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, made this week about gay people. They carried a special
measure of hurt coming from the nation’s highest military officer when thousands
of gay men and lesbians are serving their country in Iraq.
By refusing to apologize, General Pace compounded the injury and reminded the
entire country of what happened the last time the top brass took on this
subject. It was Gen. Colin Powell’s public rebuke of a new president, Bill
Clinton, for even entertaining the idea of allowing homosexuals to serve openly
that led to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
It is a bad system, which has ruined people’s lives and hurt the military, but
it still is the policy, established by General Pace’s civilian bosses, and it
allows gay people to serve as long as they don’t say anything about their
orientation.
Which made it all the more offensive to read that General Pace told the
editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he believes homosexuality is an
intolerable immoral act equivalent to adultery.
Instead of apologizing, General Pace later said his mistake was focusing his
comments on his view of morality instead of on military policy.
General Pace is wrong in every way, and out of step. An increasing number
of Americans in and out of the military now recognize that the current policy is
indefensible. Those Americans include Gen. John Shalikashvili, who was
chairman of the Joint Chiefs when the benighted policy was adopted. In an
Op-Ed article in this newspaper in January, General Shalikashvili wrote that
conversations with gay soldiers and marines had showed him “that gays and
lesbians can be accepted by their peers.”
General Pace should still apologize for his remarks, forthrightly. Then
perhaps some good could come out of his bigoted remarks if they added to the
growing movement on Capitol Hill to finally allow gay men and lesbians to serve
openly in the military.
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