Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Senior aides to the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that Marine Gen. Peter Pace won't apologize for calling homosexuality immoral — an opinion that gay advocacy groups deplored.
In a newspaper interview Monday, Pace had likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces. "General Pace's comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces," the advocacy group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network said in a statement on its Web site.
I hate to do it, but I am taking Peter Pace's side on the apology issue. The whole dance of making bigots apologize for something they genuinely believe is absurd. The only way people apologize for being bigots is if they feel enough pressure to backtrack from remarks they genuinely believe.
I don't expect aryan supremicists to apologize for hating jews and blacks, I don't expect Dick Cheney to apologize for hating the truth, and I don't expect Pace to say he really didn't mean it and was sorry. He meant it. That is where we should start as a baseline. Should a congressional resolution denouncing his remarks be offered, should he face consequences, pickets and protests?
Apologize though? Why should he? He did us the invaluable thing of letting us know where he stands, and it's now our turn to let him know how we feel by our actions.
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