General Pace: Collision at the Crossroads of Morality
March 26, 2007
S. Michael Craven

In comments reported March 13, 2007 by the Chicago Tribune, Marine Corps General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Peter Pace, compared homosexuality to adultery, saying he believed both were immoral. In response to questions regarding the military’s current policy toward gays, Pace said, “I do not believe the military is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way… I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts… Saying that gays should serve openly in the military, to me, says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity…”

The swift and condemning reaction to General Pace’s comments demand that we each know how to correctly respond to the rhetoric being thrown around, which is attempting, albeit indirectly, to establish a new morality. To be clear, General Pace said he thought “homosexual acts” were immoral thus he limited his comments to the behavior and did not condemn persons as he has been repeatedly accused of doing. Furthermore, General Pace placed homosexual acts in the same moral category as adultery, so he was not singling out “gays” or suggesting that homosexual acts are worse than any other immoral behavior. the rest