March 15, 2007

A Clinton-Obama immorality tale

Posted by: Chris

Congratulations, homosexuals. You're not immoral, after all. Or so said the two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination today, backtracking from their evasive answers about whether they agreed with Joint Chiefs chairman Peter Pace that gays are "immoral."

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had said only yesterday that she would leave the matter for others to conclude, issued a short statement reacting to angry gay supporters:

I have heard from many of my friends in the gay community that my response yesterday to a question about homosexuality being immoral sounded evasive. I should have echoed my colleague Senator John Warner’s statement forcefully stating that homosexuality is not immoral because that is what I believe.

The clarification is welcome, even though it is carefully couched (imagine!) to piggyback on a conservative Republican, inoculation from criticism down the road. Query whether treading a path already blazed by a right-wing Republican is what gays really need in the way of White House leadership.

Barack Obama also issued a short statement, as well he should have since he tied St. Peter's record of thrice-refusing to embrace the morality of his gay supporters. Said the Illinois senator:

I do not agree with General Pace that homosexuality is immoral. Attempts to divide people like this have consumed too much of our politics over the past six years.

Credit John Edwards with coming out full-fledged in disagreement with Pace from the get-go.

This from CNN's "Situation Room," even before Hillary and Obama dodged:

BLITZER: Let's talk about General Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs. He suggested today, his own personal opinion, homosexuality, he said, was immoral. As a result, don't change the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

First of all, in your opinion, is homosexuality immoral?

EDWARDS: I don't — don't share that view. And I would go — go further than that, Wolf. I think the don't ask, don't tell is not working. And as president of the United States I would change that policy.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson gets a bit of a pass, since AP apparently asked him about the controversy only after he saw the trap that ensnared the two leading Democrats:

Richardson called Pace's remarks "unfortunate" and said the Bush administration should reject them, adding that he would push Congress to repeal military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. …

"People should not be judged based on their sexual orientation," the New Mexico Governor said in Santa Fe. "Throughout my entire career I have fought for equal rights and against discrimination of any kind."

All these statements and clarifications leave me feeling a bit uneasy, and only partly because they were even necessary. For one thing, if we really believe that General Pace's personal moral views about our lives ought to be irrelevant to public policy, then why are the personal moral views of these politicians of any interest? Perhaps that's why almost half of you who've voted in my blog poll said they didn't want the candidates defending our morality.

And maybe it's just the lawyer in me, but are the Democrats parsing words here? General Pace never said "homosexuality is immoral," and it's a bit of a straw-man to suggest otherwise. He said "homosexual acts" are immoral, and in so doing he tracked the language of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which still prohibits consensual homosexual sodomy.

Leave it to an anti-gay conservative to understand the difference. Sam Brownback, the Kansas senator trying to steal the Republican right from Mitt Romney, understands the difference. Asked if he agreed with Pace, Brownback followed the classic "hate the sin, love the sinner" approach:

I do not believe being a homosexual is immoral, but I do believe homosexual acts are. I'm a Catholic and the church has clear teachings on this.

Brownback also gets credit for consistency, if not respect for pluralism, since he argues that his own personal view and that of General Pace are perfectly suitable grounds for public policy, even if that means discharging gays from the military. Said Brownback:

We should not expect someone as qualified, accomplished and articulate as General Pace to lack personal views on important moral issues. In fact, we should expect that anyone entrusted with such great responsibility will have strong moral views.

Were the Democrats still dodging by saying they disagree that "homosexuality is immoral" while taking no position on whether "homosexual acts" are? Maybe that's why Hillary told Bloomsburg News (watch the video here), all while "clarifying" her disagreement with Pace, that morality will still have a role to play in the military, even after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell":

Let the Uniform Code of Military Justice determine if conduct is inappropriate or unbecoming. That's fine. That's what we do with everybody. But let's not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love.

"Who they are" and "who they love" are about sexual orientation, of course, while "what they do about it" is about those dirty "homosexual acts" about which the general spoke so fondly. Technically speaking, the UCMJ is silent as to sexual orientation, while saying loudly that only heterosexuals are allowed to act on theirs.

Here's to holding out for someone to say in response to General Pace that not just "who they love" but "what they do about it" ought to have no bearing on whether Americans can serve their country in uniform, whether or not their "acts" are thought to be "immoral" by some.