Liberal Grace

Pace thinks sinners shouldn't be in the military.

Pace is selectively applying the bible to the military. This is even worse than mixing church and state.



Gay Soldiers Dismayed by Pace's Comments

Some gay members of the military were shocked that outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace repeated his personal belief that homosexuality is immoral during congressional testimony Wednesday.

[...]

"My upbringing is one that says that sex between anyone other than a man or woman inside the bonds of marriage is a sin," he said during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing as protesters booed and called him a bigot.

I wonder if Pace's religious upbringing also taught that fornication was sin?

If so, shouldn't Pace also be calling for the expulsion of all soldiers guilty of fornication?

Here is a relevant passage in the KJV which Pace probably grew up with:

1 Corinthians 6:9 KJV (King James Version)

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

I grew up near a navy base and when the ships would come in, fornication was pretty much the main agenda item of shore leave with drinking a close second.

Speaking of drinking, I wonder if Pace's upbringing taught him that was sin, too? The bible certainly teaches so.

Read on to verse ten of 1 Corinthians 6:

... Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

So, if the military should not condone sin by allowing sinners into the military, shouldn't the military ban those who drink too?

That would certainly put the skids on war! The only soldiers left would be a small minority of just the most pious Christians.

I, myself, would actually have been allowed into the military since I was both celibate and sober as a youth.

Why? Because I take very seriously the moral obligations of the bible for Christians.

I, unlike many of my more verbally pious conservative friends, believe that Christian morality is for us Christians -- and should not be codified in the military code.

But what Pace has done is even worse than mixing religion and public policy -- he has selectively done so.

There is no big distinction between homosexuality, fornication or even gluttony and greed in the bible. Sin is sin.

To lift out homosexuality as a special category of sin, would be heretically altering scripture.

So, General Pace, should heretics be allowed in the military?

posted by LiberalGrace at 9:12 AM