Peter Pace is a homophobe, and Sam Brownback approves
Peter Pace, a Marines General and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed his personal opinions on homosexuality to the Chicago Tribune: he believes homosexual acts are wrong and that the US Military shouldn’t be condoning immoral acts. The media had a field day with this, and decided to string up Pace.
Now Republican backrunner Sam Brownback has come forward supporting Pace - not his opinion, but his right to voice it. Now the media has attacked Brownback.
Some of America’s finest soldiers are gay, and if anything is immoral, it is Pace’s beliefs. And unlike every other American, Pace is not given the liberty of freedom of speech. Coming from this blogger, that means a lot. The fact is that Pace is not an elected official, he’s an appointed soldier. His job is to input his military experience to the President and the Pentagon, not opine and philosophize about morality in an interview. All he did was lower troop morale.
Brownback has the right idea - people should be free to say what they want, something unique coming from the GOP - but not in this case.
Some are demanding an apology, but what will you DO with an insincere apology? What good will it do anyone? In any case, he should not apologize for what he said - his opinion is always valid - but apologize for when and to whom. It was simply inappropriate for him to begin attacking a certain group of soldiers in an interview.
Gay Rights, Homophobia, Peter Pace, Sam Brownbeck, 2008 Presidential Election, Civil Rights, Republican Party, Pentagon
March 16th, 2007 at 6:05 am
You apparently don’t understand the issue at all. Perhaps you might educate yourself by reading Anatomy of a Smear and Picking Up the Pace over at Blogs 4 Brownback.
I double dog dare you!
Bijhan’s Response: I’d really rather not be accused of not understanding the issue by a fundamentalist christian
March 19th, 2007 at 9:03 am
General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, created a stir last week by announcing that homosexuals were immoral, just as are adulterers, and should be just as unwelcome in the Armed Services. Obviously, rape and sexual harassment are not as important or heinous. One might surmise this by Pace’s failure to mention them in his statements, but even more so by his actions, or lack thereof.
The New York Times Sunday Magazine of 18 March highlighted the problems the tens of thousands of woman soldiers, sailors, and marines deployed to war zones who suffer from varying degrees of sexual insult up to and including rape. Maybe Pace feels that he can do without his thousands of gay troops. Let’s see him get along without his women.
Pace is absolutely entitled to his personal opinions, but one must surmise that these opinions are as pedestrian as those of his most common soldiers. Gays are bad, women are for amusement. Forget that they serve functions that were never expected of them. Forget that they die on the roads of Iraq just as men do. Get a snootful and get a little horny, and you can grab the nearest woman and amuse yourself. Apparently, it wasn’t worth Pace’s energy to mention that.
It is possible that the statistics in the Times article were overinflated. Such statistics often are. But they are so horrifying that even a fraction of the transgressions mentioned would be unacceptable. Perhaps General Pace should address such behavior before he fixates on sex that is at least between consenting adults.