On the tube this evening, I saw a couple of neocons surrendering on the question of homosexuals in the military. The top brass are starting to capitulate on it, Obama is going a whole lot slower than the homosexual activists want him to, but he is moving on it, and what passes for a right wing in Washington is signaling its willingness to play ball. The gears for repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” have started to move, and everybody is starting to play the inevitability game.
One of the more exasperating aspects of this kind of political kabuki theater is the unwillingness of the agitators to admit what they are doing (until it is too late), an unwillingness matched only by the unwillingness of believers to see what is being done to them (until it is too late).
The issue before the house is not whether or not to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” This whole thing is one of those pesky inescapable concepts, and this means that the debate before us is this — to which group will we apply “don’t ask, don’t tell”? It is not whether, but which. The homosexuals or the evangelicals? Right now, a homosexual in the military has to keep his orientation to himself. If this policy is repealed, then the evangelicals and the homosexuals will switch places. Somebody will be disciplined inevitably, and we are talking about which group it will be.
What will be the effect on soldier-to-soldier relations? What will be the effect on two sailors submerged in the same submarine for a couple of months? Now, when this question is usually asked, it is asked with the assumption that I am raising the question of one soldier or sailor hitting on the other one. Right now, he is not supposed to do that, or be open about his orientation. But that is not where my question lies. I am asking if the serviceman who is evangelical will be permitted to witness to his fellow serviceman, who is now out of the closet. Will he be allowed to believe that homosexuality is a sin that God will judge at the last day? Sure. Don’t ask. Will he be allowed to call his fellow serviceman to repentance? Surely not. Don’t tell.
I have been talking about the troops generally, but the question will also arise with regard to chaplains. Will they be permitted to preach through Romans? Don’t tell me that this is about whether homosexuals should be able to come out of the closet. It is whether evangelicals will be permitted to extend the love of Christ to them when they do. Everybody is acting as though the question concerns whether open homosexuals can serve in the military. The real question is whether open evangelicals will be allowed to do so.