Let Them Serve

"Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Wednesday (Oct. 13) of 'enormous consequences' for men and women in uniform if a judge's order abruptly allowing gays to serve openly in the military is allowed to stand..The Obama administration may well ask for a stay of the ruling while it appeals...."
Associated Press, Oct. 14, 2010

After a federal judge in California found that the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy infringes on the fundamental rights of homosexuals, Gates said that complying with the ruling "requires careful preparation and lot of training." Gates, who has been Secretary of Defense since his appointment by then President George W Bush in 2007, has had three years to prepare and train the military to halt all discrimination against homosexuals, but apparently waited until now to even begin.

Unlike Secretary Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder, I favor immediate compliance with the order and oppose appealing it. I contend that a person's sexuality has no bearing on military service, so the policy of excluding homosexuals from the service was wrong-headed from the start. In fact, during the years of the draft (1941-1973, with a brief postwar gap), the policy discriminated against straight men by forcing them to serve while excusing homosexuals.

As Commander-in-Chief of all American armed forces, President Barack H Obama could issue a general order halting all actions based on homosexuality in accordance with the court order. I do not believe that any other party would have the standing to appeal the decision. Then we would see if the "enormous consequences" envisioned by Secretary Gates really occurred.

One might contend that unless the decision is upheld by the US Supreme Court, a future president could reinstate the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, in which case the question could be re-litigated in a different federal district court, perhaps with a different outcome.

I would respond that once the practice of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces is established for several years, their service will be accepted without dispute, and the whole issue will disappear. Future presidents will have no incentive to re-ignite the controversy. If this prediction turns out wrong, there will be plenty of time then to pursue the issue through the courts, this time based upon actual evidence of consequences, not mere opinion.

If President Obama is really as radical and leftist as some say, why doesn't he just let this ruling stand and implement it now?

Tale of Two Senators

Which of these two incidents involving US senators is the more serious?

Senator A, while driving a young woman to a boat-landing in the middle of the night, drove off the road and into a large pond. The senator managed to save himself, but was unable to extricate his passenger from the the partially-submerged car. Without bothering to call police or other rescue service, he went back to his hotel room, called his lawyer, and went to bed. In the morning the car and drowned passenger were found. The senator plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and had his license suspended for 30 days. In a TV broadcast, he described his conduct as "inexcusable."

Senator B was arrested for "playing footsie" and making homosexual gestures to an undercover policeman in an airport men's room. He plead guilty to a charge of "disorderly conduct," paid a fine, and later publicly denied he was guilty of anything.

By now most readers would have recognized that A was Edward M Kennedy (D, MA) and B was Larry Craig (R, ID).

The most reprehensible aspect of the Kennedy case was his failure to summon police immediately. Even though he could not save the young lady himself, professional divers and paramedics might have saved her life. Then, why did he not call police? Possibly he was afraid they would administer a field sobriety-test, and he would would fail it. Then, if the victim died anyway, Kennedy could have been convicted of vehicular manslaughter, a felony. He would have lost his Senate seat, his law license, and even faced prison time. The risk was simply too great.

Despite all this, Democratic Senate leaders did not pressure Kennedy to resign his seat, and he was re-elected the next year (1970) and ever since.

In comparison, the Craig case pales into insignificance. Nobody got hurt, or even lost money. The "disorderly conduct" did not even create a public disturbance. At worst, his conduct was annoying and offensive, even obnoxious. Even if he did exactly what the arresting officer alleged, he could have challenged the law under which he was charged as
overly- broad (1) and enforced in a discriminatory way. Craig could have enlisted the ACLU and the entire "gay community" behind his defense if he had appealed his case on constitutional grounds.

The fact that he plead guilty, then denied any guilt, reduced his credibilty to zero. But why did the Republican leadership of the Senate pressure him into resigning his seat?

You might think that the Republicans, unlike Democrats, consider the violation of any law grounds for removal from Congress, but they did not hound Senator Robert Kasten (R, WI) out of the Senate when he was caught driving drunk in Washington. Unlike Craig, Kasten threatened the safety of other DC residents who happened to be on the streets that night. (2)

No, the reason that Larry Craig was driven out of the Senate by his colleagues is that the Republican Party considers homosexuality so loathsome that it cannot be tolerated. That is also the reason that Craig did not fight this case in court or challenge the validity of the law under which he was charged. In the cosmic struggle over the legal status of homosexual activity in this country, a Republican senator could not be on the "wrong side."

Some have condemned Craig as a hypocrite, since he voted to ban same-sex marriage in this country. But this is a bad rap------whatever the Idaho senator did in that toilet stall in the Minneapolis airport men's room, he most certainly did not propose marriage!

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(1) Courts have ruled that if a law does not clearly delineate what conduct is prohibited, or if it prohibits constitutionally-protected conduct (such as symbolic speech), the law is unconstitutional. Unequal enforcement of a valid law can also be challenged under the "equal-protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(2)Kasten was arrested after driving the wrong way on a one-way street and going through a stop-light. He failed a field-sobriety test, but plead guilty to a reduced charge of "reckless driving."