Is Gays in the Military Really about Gay Marriage?

My opposition to gay marriage is a definitional one.  To Western Christendom, marriage has traditionally meant one man and one woman.  I support partnerships that deny gays none of the rights of married people save the name of the relationship.

The constitutional rights argument is specious
The military discriminates against women, old people, the handicapped, drug users and convicted criminals.  You surrender many rights when you put on a uniform, including the right to free speech, free assembly, and freedom from search and seizure.  You go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do.  You shut your pie hole when they tell you to, and you submit to random drug tests and room inspections on demand.

Repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell will not be the end, but the beginning.  I wonder if it isn't a Trojan horse for smuggling gay marriage inside the walls of Mainstream America.   

Is Repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell Really About Gay Marriage?

Allow gays to serve openly, and the disparity in treatment between a traditional family and a gay partnership will be glaring.

Military members receive additional monetary, food, housing, moving and medical benefits to support spouses and dependents.  Boyfriends and girlfriends don't count.

This is significant since military people move frequently with the government picking up the tab.  A single person with a significant other receives reduced benefits and must pay out of pocket the cost of moving and housing and caring for the partner. 

This can be a major factor when stationed at a remote location.If the significant other is even allowed there, she can't be housed, or seen at the clinic, or even go shopping in the military community. The military is a self-contained world, and military life is much harder when "family members" are shut out of the system.

Allowing gays to serve openly is only step one

The obvious disparity in benefits and treatment of significant others will spur a whole new debate on fairness and marriage and civil unions.  The US Military led the way on civil rights for people of color, and the homosexual lobby is hoping for a gay repeat.

Think this through all the way to the logical end, and Christianity, or any religion that teaches that homosexuality is wrong would now be in a very precarious position, with concepts like hate speech and discrimination hurled at it.

I support equal rights for all, to include the right of people to hold, teach and espouse traditional religious beliefs that do not conflict with our constitution.

Update:  I've posted quite a few articles on this subject.  I am a libertarian who believes in equality for all, and I am also a Christian who believes marriage is a life-long commitment between one man and one woman.  So it appears that I'm kinda stuck in that mushy middle I so often criticize.

Concerning gays in the military, I agree with combat veteran Uncle Jimbo:

“If I am lying by the road bleeding, I don’t care if the medic coming to save me is gay. I just hope he is one of those buff gay guys who are always in the gym so he can throw me over his shoulder and get me out of there.”

Here are links to my previous posts:

DADT should be decided by military necessity and effectiveness, not political correctness
Judge Walker's Rape of Reason
Gay Rights, States Rights
New Hampshire - An Ominous Harbinger

Judge Walker's Rape of Reason

Judge Walker's Prop 8 decision is illogical and an abuse of the law, according to critics

The libertarian in me says people are free to do what they want so long as it does no harm to others.  David Harsanyi sums up this point of view in his article, Time for a Divorce.

But isn't it about time we freed marriage from the state?

Imagine if government had no interest in the definition of marriage. Individuals could commit to each other, head to the local priest or rabbi or shaman -- or no one at all -- and enter into contractual agreements, call their blissful union whatever they felt it should be called and go about the business of their lives.

I certainly don't believe that gay marriage will trigger societal instability or undermine traditional marriage -- we already have that covered -- but mostly I believe your private relationships are none of my business.

For the tried and true culture warriors, this just won’t do. I too am opposed to cultural and definitional finagling. Marriage is a time-tested institution common to almost all cultures, and but for a few rare exceptions, it has always meant a union of opposite sexes.

An Illogical and Biased Ruling
Dan McLaughlin has written the definitive article on the subject, The Prop 8 Decision, Having it Both Ways. In it, he reveals the logical inconsistencies of Judge Walker’s central thesis:

Judge Walker’s decision is internally, logically inconsistent in its treatment of the worth of cultural values, arguing that morality and tradition are not a valid basis for supporting the legal status of marriage, but at the same time finding a Constitutional violation from the fact that the same-sex alternative (domestic partnerships) lacks the social and cultural status that marriage has…and which it derives from its grounding in longstanding moral, cultural and religious traditions.

McLaughlin also explains the different sections of a court ruling, and points out how the judge smuggled his biased assertions into the “Facts” section of this particular one. If you want to understand the legal aspects of the case, this is a must-read.

Moral Reasoning
Matthew J Franck’s “Assault on Moral Reasoning” shows how to argue this subject on its merits without resorting to biblical principles which have no standing in US Law. He also explains how despite this, the societal norms of a people, informed by their faith, do indeed figure into lawmaking.

Once it would have been thought to strengthen the case for a law, that it rested on the moral views of the lawmakers, if no countervailing right against being governed by such views could be adduced. And it would have been a matter of no legal suspicion whatsoever that the moral views informing a law found confirmation in widely held religious views as well.

For such moral principles are not articles of faith, in the sense of being specially revealed to the elect or the faithful. They are the conclusions of trains of reasoning about right and wrong, and about human ends and the fitness of the means to them.

In language we might borrow from Plato's Euthyphro, the moral norms that govern marriage are embraced by the pious not because they are mysterious commands of an inscrutable divine will, but because they are rationally knowable as good in themselves, and for this reason find support in the dictates of faith as well.

Just as important, Franck explains the logical fallacies in Judge Walker’s reasoning.

Perhaps the most surprising thing in the judge's opinion is his declaration that "gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage." This line, quoted everywhere within hours with evident astonishment, appears to be the sheerest ipse dixit-a judicial "because I said so"-and the phrase "no longer" conveys that palpable sense that one is being mugged by a progressive.

If you want to argue this issue and defend your point of view, I highly recommend these two articles. For extra credit, there’s more reading at the end of this post.

Further Reading:
Atheism.About.com
Patrick McIlheran - Right On
USA Today - It’s Not About You
WSJ - Prop 8

Gay Rights, States Rights

The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is in trouble. A federal judge ruled last week that Massachusetts law trump federal law in this case

“This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status,” Judge Tauro wrote in the case brought by Ms. Coakley. “The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state.” (NY Times)

I agree. The US Constitution is silent concerning marriage. It has always been a state issue. Besides being a victory for gay rights, it is also a victory for states rights.

Religious conservatives are not happy
Chris Gacek, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a leading conservative group, said he was disappointed by the decision.

“The idea that a court can say that this definition of marriage that’s been around forever is irrational is mind-boggling,” Mr. Gacek said. “It’s a bad decision.”

I agree with Gacek, but he is on very thin constitutional ice. 

In a related article, The Times goes a gathering opinions from Tea Party Americans. They come away disappointed. Everyone they talked to said hooray for states rights while expressing no support for gay marriage. Nuance from neanderthals... Who’d a thunk it?

Here are the issues going forward:
Now that the right of a state to set it’s own marriage laws has been reaffirmed, will a good conservative state like Utah be allowed to ban gay marriage? No way. A very good case can be made that this is a civil rights issue.

Even if a state were to fend off such lawsuits, Article 4 Section 1 of the US Constitution would force one state to accept another state’s marriage license.

Could the government eventually compel a church to perform gay marriages? Could a church be prosecuted via US Code or face a discrimination lawsuit for refusing?


A Semantic Criticism 
Many believe the term “marriage” should be reserved for traditional man-woman relationships, since that is the historical meaning of the word. I would like to see the states get out of “marriage” altogether and instead focus on administering civil partnerships and sorting out the rights therein.  Leave marriage to churches and synagogues.

Elton John agrees:

“What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage… I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership… You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.” -- Elton John  (Big Hollywood)