Back on December 7, the day that FDR said would live in infamy, I saw a story that should also live there, but it probably won’t, given the slouch toward Gommorah we are rapidly assuming. Blake Page, a West Point cadet, announced his resignation only five months before he would have graduated. There is so much about this story that is ironic, not least of which is the timing, but maybe he gave no thought to its relationship to Pearl Harbor and everything it stands for.
I marveled slightly at the fact that he couldn’t wait another few months after what he describes as an untenable situation he bore up under for years. He claims that he has suffered grievous discrimination due to his sexual preference – one guess as to what that is. He claims that he and his fellow homosexuals are regularly subjected to hazing, bullying, loss of privileges and denied advancement into the select few that make up the top tier of the Academy. Because Obama rescinded don’t-ask-don’t-tell, the cadet was able to openly lead a gay organization on campus. But apparently this wasn’t enough to keep him there for one more semester. He claims he has been suffering with depression over what to do about his cause.
The cadet claims that the discrimination came predominately from what he called “evangelical” Christians in the Academy. He felt that his First Amendment rights to freedom from religion (sic) were being violated. I wonder if some brand of religion shouldn’t be required of all West Point graduates as sine qua non of their preparedness. It is as W. T. Cummings has said, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” This being the case, an atheist leader would be unprepared for the experience of warfare; he would be unprepared to lead his men (and women) into battle.
This story parallels one from a couple weeks ago about female military personnel suing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta because they are not allowed to claim combat experience. They say it restricts their ability to qualify for the higher ranks because combat experience weighs heavily in the process of advancement. They claim that their current assignments, although different from their male peers, still involve them in combat situations, so the distinction is, in their estimation, unconstitutional.
In both of these stories, whether the protagonists are gay, atheist, or female, we have "jumped the shark" in the debate. The military is by nature a very specialized institution. While it is a necessary part of maintaining a civil society, it is nonetheless an atypical environment. While our society may wish for gays, atheists and females to have totally unrestricted access to all other aspects of modern life, there must be an exception carved out for military training and service.
The place of the military establishment in society is purposely on the fringe. As long as there are people in the world who want to kill us and break our things, we need a matching force willing to do likewise. However, I do not think this force must mirror the rest of society; in fact, I hope it does not. I want our military to be trained, practiced experts in doing things in the war zone that would be unthinkable in a school zone, hospital zone, a residential zone or any other zone not embroiled in battle. To do these atypical things requires atypical skills and relationships.
Our society wants to act like men and women are alike in every way except for some obvious biological differences. Society wants to ignore the fact that the biological differences are merely the physical evidence of fundamental ontological differences. Man was created a different being than woman with different responsibilities and different processing equipment (if you will.) Men are from Mars (the god of war) and women are from Venus (the goddess of love.)
Because of the inherent differences between men and women, they relate to one another and to the opposite sex differently. Plug these different styles into a battle scene and problems develop immediately. One obvious issue involves the risk of capture; men don't have to worry about being raped if they are captured; women certainly do. A battlefield commander would be reluctant (or should be) to send women into front line situations where capture is likely. Men in battle will by nature think differently about their comrades-in-arms if they are female. I believe this means that even if women were given the same assignments as men, there would be a de facto differentiation in their front line deployment.
The reason I have been discussing women in battle after starting with Cadet Page's homosexual complaint is because gays serving openly in the military present many of the same issues. The LGBT lobby's argument is that certain people are born in the wrong body; they claim some people are women in men's bodies and vice versa. It follows logically that these women-in-men's-bodies would present the same difficulties as women in women's bodies. The same awkwardness in relationships would surface making the prosecution of war more difficult than it already is.
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly have been warning about the feminization of our culture. It is interesting that no one seems to be calling for the masculinization of women. Perhaps it is worth asking why that is the case. If true egalitarianism were the driving force, it would be logical for those interested to be advocating for women to become more like men as men are asked to become more like women. This is clearly not the case.
I believe this is true in part because of a strong undercurrent in modern progressive thinking that the traditional patriarchal structure of society is inferior to a matriarchal one. Witness the rise of the goddess movement, Gaia and Wiccan religion, all oriented around feminine power. Even popular literature like Dan Brown's novels pervert religious history by suggesting that the true scion of Jesus was a woman. The Prince of Darkness hates the Father of Light and will do anything to diminish his image in humans.
Lest I be misunderstood, I believe the imageo dei (image of God) is both masculine and feminine; this is why (in my humble opinion) he had to create both male and female: neither would alone be sufficient to reflect the totality of who he is. Because of this I believe we should celebrate gender differences instead of trying to ignore them. I also believe this is why God is so repulsed by homosexuality: this perversion shatters the imagery of his perfect creation. And, with all due respect to the ladies, I think the battlefield is no place for women or for men who think they are women.
No comments:
Post a Comment