Archbishop for the Military Services USA Timothy Broglio released a statement earlier this month arguing that the federal government should not repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prevents gay and lesbian men and women from serving openly in the military. He claims that doing so would compromise the faith and role of Roman Catholic military chaplains. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. His arguments are so spurious and misguided it is hard to find a place to begin in refuting them.
The separation of church and state is not threatened by a change in the DADT policy, despite the archbishop's claims. No Roman Catholic chaplain, nor any other chaplain with negative views of homosexuality, will be required to teach, preach, or counsel anything outside their own beliefs. No gay or lesbian serving in the military would expect to go to such a chaplain and receive a blessing on his or her sexual orientation.
The archbishop restates in his letter what everyone knows: The Roman Catholic Church believes and teaches that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and "are contrary to the natural law" and that "Homosexual persons are called to chastity." If you go to a chaplain with those beliefs under a repealed DADT, that's still what you're going to get in the way of counsel. What you won't get under the repeal is a dishonorable discharge to boot!
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The archbishop inexplicably goes on to drag alcoholics into the debate: "For years, those struggling with alcoholism have benefitted [sic] from Alcoholics Anonymous. Like homosexuality, there is rarely a cure. There is a control through a process, which is guarded by absolute secrecy. It is an equivalent to 'Don't ask don't tell'. The process has worked well for some time without the charge that it is discriminatory."
I can say as a recovering alcoholic and a gay man that there is no end to the problems with this analogy. No one would argue with the reality of the havoc created by an addiction to alcohol--a toll of pain and trouble visited on the individual, families, and society alike. No such social toll is caused by men and women proudly saying to the world, "I'm gay." Saying that there is no cure for homosexuality, as for alcoholism, is to say that there is something that needs curing. The archbishop is welcome to his opinion, but he must admit that it flies in the face of contrary judgments by every reputable psychiatric association in the world.
Archbishop Broglio's analogy of homosexuality with alcoholism is mind-boggling in its ignorance. Perhaps the archbishop should cease commenting in that vein, if he wishes to convince anyone with a brain of the rightness of letting DADT stand. DADT is a policy right out of the Bizarro world of hypocrisy, where up is down, black is white, and nothing is as it seems. That anyone advocates hiding and lying about one's sexual orientation under threat of expulsion as the proper way to run the military today is beyond belief.
Of course, read the rest of Bishop Gene's commentary at HP.
