DADT Repeal Not A Moral Decision

There is a post up earlier today today here at Big Peace that questions the wisdom of repealing DADT, which is a perfectly fine thing to question. But in doing so the author, a Reserve NCO, decides that DADT is a misnomer and so rechristens it the “repeal of morality”

I wrote a letter in late May 2011 to the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) requesting that Congress reconsider repealing what is popularly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). DADT is a misnomer. And so I shall refer to the repeal as the repealing of morality from the Armed Forces.

…. Really? When the Hell did the military become bound by anyone’s or any group’s particular morals? I recall Orders, Rules, Regulations, Codes of Conduct, Laws, and SOPs, but I fail to recall any moral code that the military recognizes. That is because the military is a secular organization and thus cannot and should not be espousing or bound by the morals of any group.

Mr. Hair does not explain what morality he feels is expressed in DADT or the open restriction against gays serving in the military so I don’t know exactly what his thoughts are. But he needs to understand that the only place that legitimate military authority comes from is the civilian control exercised by the Commander in Chief and Congress in accordance with the Constitution.

This is not to say that military members don’t abide by their own morality and the military as a whole acts within the bounds of a moral universe. But changing a rule about which Americans can or cannot serve is not properly a moral decision and attempting to make it one obscures the rest of his often legitimate arguments.