Here’s Exactly What We Don’t Need
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One issue where we differ with probably 90% of our readers is the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy for gays serving in military service. It was enunciated in 1993 by Bill Clinton, later endorsed by George W. Bush and John McCain, along with many conservatives. I suspect that for many conservatives, DADT is a compromise between kicking gays entirely out of the service, which they recognize as impossible (gays in the military don’t wear neon signs), and open service, which they reject.
If you’ll recall, number 12 in my list of conservative characteristics, “Belief in the legislating of virtue,” included this example: “laws against ’sodomy’ and other forms of unusual sex.” I’m quite certain that most conservatives support the ban on gays serving openly in the military; but at least they try to make a utilitarian argument for it, which I have argued against many times on this blog.
But I hope we can all agree that what we don’t need is exemplified by an e-mail I received from an advertiser on the Washington Times (not TWT itself), Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt; its subject line is about as deceptive as can be: Top Admiral Lies to Senate about Homosexuality.
Here is the beginning of Klingenschmitt’s argument; I faithfully reproduce his emphasis, except that I use our normal blue highlight color, while he uses red:
CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS DEMANDS HOMOSEXUALS LIE TO MILITARY
Tuesday the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeating President Obama’s demand to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) prohibition against open homosexual aggression within the ranks of the military. “We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Admiral Mullen fibbed, revealing his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”
Sadly, the pro-homosexual Mullen has believed the lies of homosexual propaganda, and deceived himself, and now deceived Congress, all the while claiming he wants a more honest policy that discourages lying, when in fact Mullen actually demands homosexuals tell more lies to their military commanders when enlisting as open homosexuals. Here’s a simple proof: Men who were created by God with male body parts are not women, and they lie to themselves, the world, and their commanders when they pretend to be, and act like, women. Women who were created by God with female parts are not men, and they lie to themselves, the world, and their commanders when they pretend to be, and act like, men.
Mullen’s confused argument would permit men to deceptively act like women, and women to deceptively act like men, openly deceiving themselves, the world, and their military commanders, and boldface lying against God’s very truth, that He created men to be men, and women to be women. But today’s confusing homosexual propaganda equates “honesty” with men openly flaunting their femininity, and “truthfulness” with women openly flaunting masculinity. Who’s really telling God’s truth?
The Bible describes homosexual liars: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie…women did change the natural use into that which is against nature, and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error.” (Romans 1). Thank God Senator John McCain (R-AZ) denounced the Admiral’s deceptive plan as destructive to the military, but Senator McCain needs your help to fight this open perversion, and protect our troops from open homosexual aggression…[elipses in original]
Klingenschmitt continues at great length (very great length) in a similar vein, but it all boils down to the argument that we must prevent gays from serving openly in the military because they’re evil sinners condemned by God (or at least by Paul, who seems to have a powerful lot of condemning in his epistles; were I his pen pal, I’d constantly be looking over my shoulder).
This is a dreadful approach, even for those who support DADT or wish for a stronger prohibition: It damages the conservative cause. I’ll explain why:
Politics is the art of the possible.
If a man makes a series of demands on society that cannot possibly be met, due to prevailing social belief, he is not engaging in politics; he is an idealogue engaging in revolutionary agitprop. For example, if some Moslem group demands that Americans all convert to Islam and that we immediately institute sharia law, you cannot call that a political act; since it’s not remotely possible we’ll do so, and the speaker knows it, he’s not serious about his demand. He expects it to be rejected or ignored.
He makes the demand for other reasons entirely, most likely to buttress his own standing among other radicals and revolutionaries, or even to encourage violent attack on civilians who didn’t heed his warning. But whatever his motive, unless he’s a complete dope, he’s not trying to get elected or persuade legislators or regulators to enact his policy.
Anyone who is engaging in politics should steer well clear of such people; they are poison to a political campaign.
Most Americans rightly despise religious doctrine injected into politics
Note that I do not mean they reject moral principles in politics; I specifically mean political arguments taken directly from the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and so forth.
We worry, based upon bitter history, that when political factions demand we should vote for them because God is on their side — then every political dispute has the potential to erupt into religious civil war.
The only political curse worse than factionalism is religion-based factionalism.
We are a nation of natural tolerators, not of haters.
Americans have a tremendous capacity to tolerate alternative and deviant views, far more so than the citizens of any other country, despite the fact that we’re the most religious people in Western civilization. Is this a contradiction? Not at all — because one of our most sacred community beliefs is the sanctity of the individual.
Americans have an underlying default in favor of minding our own business. The contradictory impulses towards controlling one’s neighbors sit as an uneasy overlay atop this default, and they require constant rationalization to justify them to ourselves.
Thus any political screed that even appears to arise from the realm of hatred will be scorned, and anyone even seemingly associated with it will be shunned.
(I highlighted the most important words in the paragraph directly above.)
The Klingenschmitt argument against DADT fails all three tests.
Klingenschmittism embodies three fatal errors:
- It demands the impossible.
The same Bible that condemns homosexuality also condemns many other behaviors that Americans will never make illegal — such as any sex outside of marriage, or even masturbation. Not even the military bans that; the UCMJ bans adultery but not sex between, say, a sailor and his girlfriend. (In theory, the ban on “sodomy” includes a ban on oral sex, even between husband and wife; when is the last time that was enforced, even in the Marines?)
If one accepts the Klingenschmitt argument, then its natural extension requires wholesale changes in the military that will never, ever happen. Thus the argument that the military should ban whatever “God” condemns — or whatever one of His representatives on Earth claims He condemns — is not political, it’s revolutionary; America is not a theocracy. Even worse is the real argument, which is that the military should hide whatever God condemns.
- It injects religious doctrine directly into politics.
There are many sects of Christianity that do not believe that homosexuals should be excluded from life and society, or even the military, even if the sect agrees that homosexual activity is sin. There’s that strain of “hate the sin, love the sinner” that permeates much of the Christian religion.
Other sects don’t even buy the “sin” part. And of course, there are other religions and non-religious people.
But even those who agree with Klingenschmitt that gays shouldn’t be in the military might still object even more strongly to making law on the basis of a particular religious doctrine. They rightly understand that “The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north”: The sect in power today might not be in power tomorrow, and schismaticism is a pernicious precedent that may come back to bite them.
- His argument appears to arise directly from hatred of gays.
Klingenschmittism strikes me as full of hate, not only of homosexuality but of homosexuals as people; note, for one point, that he continually refers to the opposite of DADT — that would be gays serving openly — as “open homosexual aggression within the ranks of the military,” as if a gay man mentioning his boyfriend is an act of aggression tantamount to sexual assault. (Frankly, Chaplain Klingenschmitt sounds as squirrely to me as Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.)
But he won’t be the only one to suffer the backlash; to the extent he can convince Americans that his is the conservative position — not just the policy but the way he argues for it — he will damage conservativsm far beyond this one policy. Even though I oppose the conservative position in this case, I still agree with conservatives far more often than with liberals; and I would hate to see voters turn against the party of somewhat more limited government, somewhat more robust national defense, a somewhat higher respect for the free market, and a great deal more respect for small business, property rights, lower taxes, gun rights, and individualism.
There are better arguments against repealing DADT, even if I don’t buy them.
I fully support the repeal of DADT; I believe gays should serve openly in the military. But I do so primarily because I believe it would make our military stronger, not weaker. (My arguments are detailed elsewhere, recently in Martial Arts and Marital Darts.)
Conservatives should extend the same courtesy, restricting their arguments to the secular and utilitarian, rather than the religious and insulting; on the former plane, debate is at least possible. But the argument that gays should remain in the closet because ‘God said so’ is designed to shut down debate, not promote it. It’s practically an invitation to a bar brawl, equivalent to “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us!”
Hard-core conservatives would lose that brawl; moderates of both parties would join with liberals, libertarians, and even some conservatives to swamp the religion-based conservatives… to the detriment of the rest of the conservative agenda, which is far better for America than Obamunism.
As long as this is going to turn into a big magilla in November’s election, which I’m sure it will, let’s please keep the argument on grounds that will not discredit vital conservativism. To quote some recent interlocutor — can’t quite remember the feller’s name — “we can disagree without being disagreeable.”
And Republicans desperately need to remain agreeable, optimistic, and inclusive heading into the most important congressional election since 1994. The infectious optimism of Ronald Reagan, “the great communicator,” is as important for winning votes today as it was in 1966, when he won election as Governor of California, and in 1980, when he won the presidency.
