Faith in America, a North Carolina-based organization formed to end legal and spiritual discrimination against LGBT people in America by providing information about religion-based bigotry and its historic expressions, takes exception with General Pace's remarks about the immorality of gays, since he used his beliefs to justify public policy that discriminates against gays and lesbians who wish to serve their country.
A message from Jimmy Creech, executive director of Faith In America, is after the jump.
"While General Pace just tried to clarify his remarks by aligning his comments with standing military policy, a major issue remains unexplained. General Pace needs to clarify what in his upbringing defined homosexuality to be immoral to him. Was it his civil life, his schooling, his religion that taught him that? This is the question parents, teachers, clergy and the media should ask. If it was his religious upbringing, we already know that religion has a history in the teaching of discrimination and hate.
"It is ridiculous to think that General Pace could curb his personal views when dealing with military policy. His comments exposed more than simply `don't ask, don't tell' policy for the military, but exposed a very real practice in our society: bigotry against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. We wonder what General Pace would be saying if the question of the day were about African Americans or women serving in the military?
"When a person in such a position of power as General Pace uses a word like `immoral,' the person owes the country an explanation about how he comes to those positions. General Pace owes this country, especially those people who serve in the military, an explanation for attributing his outrageous statements to his upbringing."
It's true. Since the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chose to share how his upbringing informs his judgment about how best to run the military -- and who has the moral standing to serve -- it's a legitimate question to ask how and why he feels those beliefs should play out in enforcing public policy as a military leader; he's not a minister.
Out gay Tar Heel entrepreneur and founder of Faith in America, Mitchell Gold, has a few words about religious bigotry and how it is used to harm LGBT citizens in the name of God (YouTube video).
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On the other side of the fence...
Anti-gay military hack Elaine Donnelly surfaces to comment on Pace
I was wondering when the shrill doyenne of discrimination in the military would surface to opine on Gen. Peter Pace's comments that gays are immoral. Elaine Donnelly of the anti-gay Center for Military Readiness surfaced in a piece at Daddy D's CitizenLink today and it's no surprise that she backs General Pace.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said calls for an apology from Pace are "absurd," noting that the 1993 Homosexual Conduct law, which bans homosexuals in the military, is still in effect.
"He doesn't need to apologize for supporting that law," she said.
Donnelly said the ban on homosexuals serving in the military, she added, exists to protect good order, discipline and unit cohesion in "conditions of forced intimacy" in which military personnel may have little or no privacy from others who might be sexually attracted to them.
"The activists who are demanding an apology from General Pace have an agenda," Donnelly said, "an agenda that should not be imposed on the armed services, the Marine Corps or any branch of the military."
Focus on the Family's Stephen Adams, who wrote the article, hilariously labels Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's director of communications Steve Ralls as a "homosexual activist" for calling for an apology from Pace.
What is this horrible agenda SLDN is pushing? To allow trained, ready and sorely-needed service members who happen to be gay and lesbian to openly serve in the military. National security is at risk; the remarks were disrespectful to these people who are laying their lives on the line so that Ms. Donnelly has the right to bleat about how gays need to be purged from the ranks of the military. Has she served...what is her sacrifice to the cause?
Why does Elaine Donnelly hate America -- is keeping qualified, skilled Arabic linguists out of the military, for instance, more important than fighting Bush's war on terror? She's so unhinged about gays and lesbians serving that she claimed that members of The Homosexual Agenda somehow coerced former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John M. Shalikashvili into writing a NYT op-ed that called for a re-examination and repeal of DADT. My post on that is here.
This is what she said:
Donnelly notes that Shalikashvili has in the last year or so suffered a debilitating stroke and is, in her words, "struggling to retain his health." She says it is "really sad" to see someone like the general being used by the homosexual propaganda machine as "the latest tool of a public relations campaign."
Now THAT's shameful.
Why hasn't Donnelly been up in arms about:
- veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to third world conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center;
- the fact that the Army placed a gag on vets at Walter Reed, telling them that if they wanted to speak to reporters about conditions there, they'd have to limp out to the nearest Starbucks to do it;
- the number of convicted felons enlisted in the U.S. military has almost doubled in the past three years, and 43,977 individuals convicted of serious misdemeanors such as assault have enlisted under the moral waivers program, along with 58,561 illegal drug abusers;
- that there are military recruiters that have been caught running cocaine -- in uniform;
- that branches of the military are lowering standards and recruiting people with antisocial personality disorder, autism, and trolling for recruits on MySpace, or the folks who are making the cut even though they have been convicted of aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats.
That's a long list of items that I doubt Ms. Donnelly will attend to because of her fixation on gays and lesbians.
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