Marine General and JCOS Chairman Peter Pace is not apologizing for calling homosexuality immoral, however, he did say that he should not have injected his personal views into the debate, and instead focused on the policy-as-policy.
That’s better, I guess, though I really don’t think there is anything substantive to this policy aside from the lingering belief that homosexuality is immoral. The whole showering together thing never persuaded me. As Patrick Steffan, one of the first gay midshipmen to sue to overturn the military’s anti-gay policies put it, “Heterosexual men have an annoying habit of overestimating their own attractiveness.”
In any event, I was impressed to see pretty bipartisan condemnation of Pace’s remarks.
Sen. John Warner of Virginia — the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee — expressed his opposition to Pace’s opinion.
According to Warner aide John Ullyot, the senator said, “I strongly disagree with the chairman’s views that homosexuality is immoral.”
Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, author of a Military Readiness Enhancement Act that would repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, said Tuesday that Pace should recognize the harmful effect the ban is having on the military.
“Gen. Pace’s statements aren’t in line with either the majority of the public or the military,” Meehan said in a statement. “He needs to recognize that support for overturning ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is strong and growing.”
Always such slow steps in the right direction….