Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts

Thursday, June 07, 2007

On military conduct

This question was brought up during the GOP debate regarding homosexuals openly serving in the military. Here is a good explaination.

When does the military prosecute "immoral behavior"?
You name it. Bigamy, sodomy (with either gender), wrongful cohabitation, gambling, dueling, indecent exposure, indecent language, indecent acts, pandering, prostitution—all of these are considered crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
If you're an officer, you're also subject to a general prohibition on "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." This rule, as interpreted in the military's 900-page courts-martial manual, can be used to prosecute things like cheating on tests, stealing, public drunkenness, failing to support your family, and reading someone else's mail. To top it off, the military can also prosecute anyone for anything that damages the "good order and discipline in the armed forces" or makes them look bad.
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Bonus Explainer: If actions like adultery and sodomy are legal for regular civilians, why are they illegal in the military? Because the military is special. The 1974 decision Parker v. Levy established the military as a "specialized society" with different laws from civilian society—a notion even the founding fathers recognized when, in the Fifth Amendment, they exempted "the land or naval forces" from having to call a grand jury to indict people for capital or "otherwise infamous" crimes.*

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The comparison nobody notices

In the "firestorm" over General Pace calling homosexual acts immoral, nobody seems to notice that he isn't discriminating, he is comparing apples to apples.

Pace expresses regret over gay remark - Yahoo! News
Pace's senior staff members said earlier that the general was expressing his personal opinion and did not intend to apologize."
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As an individual, I 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," he said, according to the audio and a transcript released by his staff.
Discrimination would be to say that adultery is okay while homosexual activity is not. He didn't condemn the homosexuals, he specifically referred to acts between individuals. And as the military has a policy against adultery and prosecutes for it, would it not be discriminatory to allow homosexual acts to be ignored?