Anyone Remember Alice's Restaurant?
There's a portion of the lyrics in Arlo Guthrie's classic epic song, Alice's Restaurant (if you haven't listened to it lately, you should - it's good for the soul), and it goes something like this:I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."And then there's the Chairman of the U.S. Military Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace. Here's what he said:
I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.... I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way.... 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.We'll just sidestep the issue of the hypocrisy here, where we could point out things like this:
estimates are that somewhere between 22% and 60% of men and 14% and 40% of women have been unfaithful. Apply those figures to the 1.4 million people who are in active military service -- about 60% of whom are married -- and you have to wonder why only 60 or so service members have been prosecuted for adultery in the last two years.... Clearly, the military doesn't make much of an attempt to enforce the rule, probably because to do so would lead inevitably to its repeal.... In the 1950s, the military established health inspections of prostitutes in Okinawa to protect American servicemen from venereal disease. Brothels that were given an "A" designation, as in "approved," offered clean women.... U.S. military in South Korea was providing patrols at brothels to ensure the safety of the GIs inside. The women of these establishments were often Russians and Filipinos who had been promised good jobs in South Korea, then forced into prostitution. But rather than assist the women, our military chose to protect the R & R of its guys.Yes... let's just skip past that and ask a simpler question. Are you really going to question the morality of homosexuality in an era of Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, civilian casualties, and the general expiration of life that comes as a direct result of war? Really?!?
Posted by FleshPresser at 12:52 PM /
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