Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Implemented
The executions, yesterday, of Troy Davis and Lawrence Russell Brewer, cast a shadow over the whole goodness of America notion, but as the fact of the executions has been noted here, let me complement that post by noting a positive development in the United States.
As of 20 September 2011, full implementation of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was achieved.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you may remember, was the official United States policy relating to the service of homosexual persons in the military. Although prohibiting military personnel from discriminating against homosexual service members or applicants, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell nonetheless prohibited homosexual persons from disclosing that which might indicate his or her own sexual orientation.
I notice that Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services USA, after identifying what the Catechism states about homosexuality, notes that “those with a homosexual orientation can expect respect and treatment worthy of their human dignity.” As he says, the “prohibitions regarding sexual harassment and intimidation refer just as much to homosexuals as to anyone else.” However, for a variety of reasons which he goes on to identify, Archbishop Broglio states that the Archdiocese for Military Services “urges the Congress not to repeal the current policy for the Armed Forces.”
The Archbishop is on the wrong side of this issue.
Have the “moral beliefs of individuals [and] their living conditions” really been sacrificed as the Archbishop suggests? I wouldn’t think so. A Catholic service man or service woman is not being asked to cease to believe what the Church believes, and if such a person is really so inconvenienced in his or her “living conditions” merely because a known homosexual person lives and sleeps in close proximity, then perhaps it is time for that service person to either grow up, or find employment elsewhere.
Congressman Ron Paul, who voted for the repeal, states that “if there is homosexual behaviour in the military that is disruptive, it should be dealt with [and] if there’s heterosexual behaviour that is disruptive, it should be dealt with.” The issue, as he says, is not the issue of homosexuality, but so long as legislation like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell assumed it was, we had evidence of what the Catechism calls “unjust discrimination.”
K.
Kelly Wilson is a Seminarian for the Archdiocese of Winnipeg. Besides Vox Nova, he writes at his blog Musings.
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I’ve got no beef with the U.S. military making its own rules. But one has to wonder whether the government (feds and states) will be as tolerant with Catholics when it comes to the church’s ministries. Think of the shutdown of some Catholic Charities services regarding adoption. And now the Bishops are feeling the presence of the HHS in the sanctuary. See http://usccbmedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/hhs-needs-to-remove-itself-from.html.
I think the adoption issue is worthy of discussion, but let’s be clear on the situation. The government has not shut down Catholic adoption agencies. Some local governments have stopped contracting with them. In turn, these agencies have decided to stop helping in the placement of children.
Tausign,
I am not familiar enough with the situation surrounding the Catholic Charities servicing of adoption, but I have noticed in other circumstances where discrimination is being claimed, it’s really not occurring.
I live in Canada, and in 2005 the “Civil Marriage Act” defined a marriage as the “lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.” That encompasses two persons of the same sex.
Suppose (and I imagine some did) a marriage commissioner held to the heterosexually defined nature of marriage. Nobody can force a marriage commissioner to act against his or her own views on the subject of marriage, but let’s be honest, Canada is a pluralist society, and as a state it provides a secular alternative (to religious institutions) for solemnizing the union of persons. If an employee of the state cannot except the provision which allows same-sex persons this secular alternative, then that employee is no longer qualified for the position he or she holds. In certain circumstances he or she might experience termination, and that is not discrimination.
Kurt & Kelly,
You are correct that no one ‘closed the doors’ on Catholic Charities, they decided to withdraw rather than comply with the law. Had they continued to provide services without complying with the law, the doors would have been closed. Since you can’t bite the hand that feeds you I think it was a prudent decision.
But do keep in mind that providing adoption services in most jurisdictions requires more than gospel intent. It requires a license which the state controls. Mother Teresa was lauded for her work with adoption in India…she would be prohibited from such activities in Boston, Illinois and most likely Canada. BTW, operating hospitals requires licenses and schools require accreditation.
If you follow news concerning Caritas International you will notice that earlier this year the former head was not given another term, because of forming imprudent partnerships with government entities to provide relief services (I’m paraphrasing), In that move the Church made it clear that it was instituting reforms that will ‘accentuate the Catholic identity of the relief services’. Bear in mind that Catholic Charities falls under CRS which falls under Caritas.
While I don’t want to overblow this, I do want to point out that we are heading into a place where serious decisions are going to have to be made about Catholic evangelization vis-a-vis the church’s apostolates.
In sum, I apologize for spreading this all over the place. You posted the Catholic Bishop had erred in his critic of military policy. I replied by pointing to where the Church and State are unpleasantly yoked in a struggle for control of service/ministry. And the USCCB link decried the government (HHS) in the sanctuary. They are not wholly unrelated.
Not to be a dunce, but can you connect this more closely with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? I’m not seeing something that I can really engage with here (and be on topic at the same time)…
Tausign,
In Boston and elsewhere in this country, no one has prohibited Catholic agencies from faciliating adoptions. In fact there is a national Catholic adoption facilitator that operates in all 50 states. What is at issue is that a few jurisdiction are no longer giving government money to adoption agencies that ban up front gay couples, even when the child’s legal guardian deems this as an acceptable placement.
Gentlemen, my admittedly loose connection of the issues resides in the ability of the Church to evangelize the culture in practical term. In the first case the Bishop of the military presented his thoughts (actually a criticism) regarding a specific military ruling (DADT). Obviously, many at VN think he is on the wrong side of the issue, which is fine with me.
My poor and hastily crafted remark was offering an old fashioned ‘tit for tat’. The Church is likewise being opposed and contradicted by the bureaucratic culture (i.e. the state) for its stance on gay marriage and its prolife view( vis a vis healthcare choices it offers.)
Perhaps I took us ‘off topic’, but that sometimes happen in VN comments sections. Perhaps, I am guilty or overreaching in my mention of withdrawal of adoption funding. Yes, I can see that these are public funds; however the church and state have a history of working together on social concerns which is now beginning to come unglued. The right of religious institutions to exercise conscientious exemption is at stake and I’m afraid that the power of individuals to resist consensus thinking has already been sacrificed. Truly, public servants such as teachers and health care workers face the greatest difficulties. This is a true loss.
Further evidence of this is in my final example, where here in the U.S. the HHS is redefining the terms in which religious institutions can claim exemption to public rules that contradict their core (gospel) values. If the USCCB claim is warranted, then we can only claim exemption to secular rules if we restrict ourselves to employing only ourselves and serving only ourselves. In other words the channel of evangelization is being blocked and we are being sent to the ghetto.
Yesterday the United States put two people to death, including one person who met his fate claiming complete innocence of the charges against him. And you see it as a sign of PROGRESS that people who are openly gay are now permitted to sign up to kill others in the name of the United States? I don’t think so.
@Ron — Yes. There is that side to it. One seldom hears it brought up.
Ron:
When we think of “military action” we naturally think of killing people and breaking things. The first thing that should come to mind in connection with “military service” however, is discipline: Discipline by training and self-control as well as discipline of organization. People who “sign up to kill others in the name of the United States” don’t belong in the US military. The progress we see today is that a majority of us no longer mis-characterize LGBT’s as incapable of self-discipline.
While I am sympathetic to the peace-first attitude you convey and I judge our government insanely too willing to undertake military action, I am offended by mis-characterizing the nature of military service — It is not helpful to furthering meaningful discussion.
As a former Army infantry officer, I can attest to the fact that soldiers are indeed trained to “kill and break things.” Every soldier, with the exception of medics and chaplains, knows that his job ultimately comes down to picking up a rifle and firing it at another human being. That applies as much to cooks and clerks as it does to grunts, tankers, and cannon-cockers. Discipline, both personal and unit, is essential, but it is a means to an end; and the end is killing the enemy.
It was not to spare gay people from killing that they were excluded from the military, and not everyone signs up “to kill others in the name of the United States.” Whether you are a pacifist, a war monger, or something in between, the end of DADT was an end to discrimination, and that is progress. There is at least one gay group, though, who would agree with you.
And a foolish discrimination at that. When I served 25 years ago, I knew several soldiers and officers who were gay. Not only were they tactically and technically proficient, but their command judgment and military bearing were outstanding. What’s more, everyone already knew the score with these guys, including their men, who couldn’t have cared less.
Ron, that is not my perception of what an American service person has as his or her intention. Signing up to kill in the name of the United States?
I am a Canadian person, and even if I don’t always agree with the decisions the government makes about where soldiers are sent, or what they do once there, I don’t view Canadian soldier as mercenaries or hired assassins. Rather, and you may think me naive, but I think the Canadian soldiers work very hard in the interests of peace building.
Certainly a soldier may be responsible for the death of another, but pardon my thinking your evaluation of the present day North American soldier is remarkably simplistic.
I want to know what is going to happen in this practical scenario. A serviceman or woman identifies as gay AND Catholic. They support groups which call for a change of the Church’s positions on the issue, and are “out” about that support. Maybe they even where a rainbow- flag to self-identify in that way. Will those working for Archbishop Broglio, the chaplains who are under his supposed aegis, actually deny communion to this serviceman. And further, will that be legal under military rules. Inquiring minds want to know.
Thank God.
What was the original rationale for excluding homosexuals from the military, anyways? And why did the Church ever stand for it?
Austin, there were a number of ridiculous reasons, but they HAVE seemed less ridiculous to many because they all had, as a contributing factor, the refusal of the “gays” to “come out of the closet” and reveal, to their “straight” brothers and sisters, that these “reasons” were the result of ignorance about “gay” folks: “straight” dudes believed that “gay” dudes would be checking them out in the shower–a kind of harassment (as if “straight” dudes aren’t all the time “checking out each other’s ‘packages’”); “straights” thought that “gays” would be unable to fight whenever their “love objects” would become fatalities alongside them (a conflation of the argument against women serving, this one rests on ignorance of the history of male lovers in combat, wherein they have actually encouraged each other’s courageous and self-sacrificial zeal–if anything, “queer” dudes have been extraordinarily prominent as military specialists); and, finally, the belief that “queer sissies” would, inevitably, become cowards in the heat of combat (again, ignorance of such phenomena as evidenced by the story of Nisus and Euryalus in the Aeneid and the “Band of Thebes” who almost ended Alexander’s career. More recently, there were some of Louis XIV’s marshals and the “King of the Bulgars” (“buggers”) a.k.a. Friedrich der Grosse, whom Voltaire lampooned for his bloodthirsty ways in Candide).
Andrew Sullivan may be a dork half the time, but he’s assuredly right that the “gays” do themselves no favours by hiding their orientation, and that their most effective act of political resistance to persecution by “straights” would be to simply tell their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and fathers and mothers, that they prefer their own gender for any kind of sexual behaviour they might engage in.