Excerpt from interview with Chairman of Joint Chiefs Peter Pace.
“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” he said. “I do not believe the United States is well-served by a policy that says it is O.K. to be immoral in any way.”
The general told The Tribune that he would not want acceptance of gay behavior “to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/washington/13cnd-pace.html?hp
Are our military's operational rules determined by a general's personal views on morality and religion, then?
If there is convincing evidence that allowing gays in the military harms combat effectiveness, then I could understand the ban. If it is simply the religious and moral beliefs of the commanders, then I don't see the justification.
The military excluded blacks and women, now we admit them. That doesn't seem to have torpedoed the forces.