BCT Editorial – 3/15/07

This page was last updated on March 19, 2007.

Do tell; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 15, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should have adopted a policy of ‘when asked, don’t tell’ when it comes to his opinion of homosexuals.”

[RWC] Ah, the liberal approach to all opinions liberals don’t like. Shut up.

“In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Marine Gen. Peter Pace was questioned about the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that allows gays to serve in the U.S. military if they keep their sexual orientation private and don’t engage in homosexual acts.

“Pace said he supports the policy. However, he couldn’t leave it at that. He said that ‘homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.’”

[RWC] The entire quote is, “I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by a saying through our policies that it’s OK to be immoral in any way.”

I’ll leave it to you to figure out why the editorial chose to omit the “I believe” portion of the comment. For those people who didn’t understand what “I believe” meant, Gen. Pace stated the obvious the next day. He was referring to his own “personal moral views.”

“Pace should have had to good sense to keep his mouth shut.

“Whether he likes it or not, morality is not the exclusive province of heterosexuals.”

[RWC] Gen. Pace neither implied nor said it was.

“By equating homosexuality with immorality, which is a universal human condition, Pace reinforces a prejudice that cannot and must not be tolerated.”

[RWC] Fortunately, English is my first language so I understood Gen. Pace when he specifically said, “homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral.” I don’t necessarily agree with his assessment, but I won’t misrepresent Gen. Pace’s statement.

It’s clear Gen. Pace didn’t assert homosexuals are immoral. His position was “homosexual acts” are immoral. So are lying, stealing, et cetera. If an otherwise good person tells a lie, does that make him an immoral person?