Moral Madness

Another reason, on an ever-growing list of reasons, for a new Commander in Chief. From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has decided that military chaplains may perform same-sex unions, whether on or off a military installation.

The ruling announced Friday by the Pentagon's personnel chief follows the Sept. 20 repeal of a law that had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

Some members of Congress have objected to military chaplains performing same-sex unions, saying it would violate the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

One can only sympathize with the military, as our president has decided to disarm it from the relentless siege of the gay 'rights' movement. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the rank and file in the armed forces knows that those on the front lines, and not at desk jobs, are overwhelmingly opposed to this nonsense. And yet, those legitimate concerns are cast aside by a president and a well-funded political apparatchik that misconstrue any objection as a sign of manifest bigotry and hatred.

Here's an excerpt from an intelligent article I've cited before on this subject. It is becoming harder to locate online, which is why I'm glad I have it saved from a previous post.

But let's address the broadest question: Why prohibit open homosexual service at all? Congress provided the answer in 1993, when it passed the current law: "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service and presents a risk to the morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that underpin military effectiveness."

An important element of war is "friction," which Clausewitz described as "the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper." Clausewitz's friction describes the cumulative effect of the small, often unnoticeable events that are amplified in war, producing unanticipated macro-effects. Military effectiveness aims at reducing the impact of friction and other obstacles to success on the battlefield.

Most research has shown unit cohesion is critical to military effectiveness and battlefield success. The key to cohesion is what the Greeks called philia--friendship, comradeship, or brotherly love. Philia is the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together. Its importance has been described by J. Glenn Gray in The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle:

Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not for country or honor or religious faith or for any other abstract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves, they would expose their companions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the essence of fighting morale. The commander who can preserve and strengthen it knows that all other physical and psychological factors are little in comparison. The feeling of loyalty, it is clear, is the result, not the cause, of comradeship. Comrades are loyal to each other spontaneously and without any need for reasons.

The presence of open homosexuals (and women) in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros will be unleashed into an environment based on philia, creating friction and corroding the very source of military excellence itself. It does so by undermining the non-sexual bonding essential to unit cohesion as described by Gray. Unlike philia, eros is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness, and favoritism, all of which undermine order, discipline, and morale. These are issues of life and death, and help to explain why open homosexuality and homosexual behavior traditionally have been considered incompatible with military service. ~Ask, tell, whatever? Gays-in-the-military by MacKubin Thomas Owens