"Other immoral activities can disqualify recruits." Immoral in who's eyes? A paternalistic theocracy that is populated by a bunch of closet cases who end up molesting children after repressing their sexuality for years?

Given the complexity of the issue, I'll need to think about that for awhile. We should pray about it a bit too.
------------------------
Think about it for as long as you'd like. Think about it while you sleep all comfy with a crucifix over your head while gay service men and women are fleeing bullets--as they always have.

Soon, you can think about it while married gay military personnel in military housing are too occupied with their lives to be bothered with what "you think."

Hopefully, in the not too distant future, men like Cardinal William Lavada, no. 2 man in the Vatican, famed protector of the largest pedophile priest rings in America, will not give the rest of us anything to think about as they will disappear. They will disappear because when they surface, they will be arrested.

Hopefully, soon, the rest of us will not have to think about why WaPo and the New York Times do not report on Vatican Bank's laundering of 200,000,000 dollars of mafia money. That would be the mafia that assassinates Italian mayors, attorneys, et al, who try to reduce the power of organized crime.

Hopefully, soon, the United Nations will demand that Vatican Nation release its Holocaust era archives, giving the rest of us another thing we won't have to think about.

Hopefully, soon, the United Nations will demand the return of the loot 200 Nazi priests stole from the tens of thousands of Jews, Serbian Orthodox, and Roma that said priests tortured to death, and the rest of us won't have to think about that.

Hopefully, soon, the rest of us won't have to think about the Bishops' manipulation of Congress, ability to shape the health care bill so that it deprives poor women of choice, conscience clauses, etc., because church and state will be separate.

And who knows? Maybe sooner than you think, the rest of us won't have to think about what you think since you won't be publishing your arrogant nonsense.

Take your arguments to God, supposed creator of all humankind to include homosexuals!! Or on the other hand, have all-gay military units but should gay unions/marriages be allowed in this group? Why not since pregnancy will not be an issue.

Why is the Washington Post giving column space to an anti-gay Catholic theologian, with marginal military expertise, who spouting off the same nonsense that gay-bashing homophobes have been putting out for decades? Why is the Post allowing itself to be a platform for bigots who rant on about the "unique" culture of the military, while ignoring the corrosive effects of Don't Ask/Don't Tell on military morale and integrity because of the continued hounding, blackmailing and threatening of gay and lesbian soldiers who put their lives on the line for this country, even while denied equal protection under the law?

Why is the WaPo publishing opinion pieces from students of theology rather than experts on the issue?

Bravo Apaganplace! Justice delayed is justice denied.

Yeah, Colorado, that Pope's one of the worst offenders at the whole "We'll act decisively against abuse by blaming it all on homosexuality and calling gay people child molesters! That'll teach em! It's not like the systemic abuse is unconfined to man-on-boy sex or anything! Ignore the other kinds! Be more homophobic! That'll help the victims report what's happening and find help! Really!"

Not like Protestants don't do it, too.

But, yeah, that's pretty galling.

Meanwhile:

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI condemned the abuse of children by priests Monday, saying the church will never stop deploring such behavior.

When did the church even start "deporing such behavior." When they turned all their pedophiles over to civil authorities for trial, or when they "defrocked" them?

Should be "Men who prey on little boys are most often heterosexual in their sexual relationships WITH OTHER ADULTS, if they have any, which they often don't."

Gotta start proofing better.

Colorado - not to nitpick too much, but it's a nit that needs picking. Men who prey on little boys are most often heterosexual in their sexual relationships, if they have any, which they often don't.
Man-boy pedophilia isn't a function of normal homosexuality, any more than man-girl pedophilia is a function of normal heterosexuality.
Man-on-man rape isn't a function of normal homosexuality any more than man-on-woman rapeis a function of normal heterosexuality.
The church wasn't hiding gay men, it was hiding child rapists.

Colorado:

""Huh? What is the author saying? Can Catholics really speak about gays with a straight face while still hiding them in their clergy?""

It's not 'gays' they're hiding, it's *closeted, repressed men who don't know their own sexualities and *cultivate and use an atmosphere of homophobia to exploit who they will of either sex, anyway.**

There's no mature sexuality of any kind in what the Church teaches and shelters. Only 'power,' which is all abusers care about.

Huh? What is the author saying? Can Catholics really speak about gays with a straight face while still hiding them in their clergy?

As for you hateful "Christian" gaybashing Huckabees, may God bless you with a gay child or grandchild to open your cold, ignorant hearts.

It worked for your Lord Cheney so there's hope for you, too.

Yeah, Lepi.

It's amazing some of the blindness they teach in Catholic schools, eh?

""Several soldiers suffered serious frostbite.

Towards the end of the course I found myself teamed with men I knew less well. One was skittish about entering the fighting position after a lengthy march in the dark. "I'm no queer!" he protested. We looked at him incredulously, "How have you survived the cold?""

Ask a 'queer.'

Or maybe someone so afraid of being seen as 'queer' over even something totally practical and innocent as warmth in a subzero entrenchment that he'd rather risk his own life and *the mission you mention* ...than be seen as 'queer.'

Is that *healthy,* 'Padre?' Is that *unit cohesion?* Is that *virtuous?* Is that *combat effectiveness?*

Is that even 'macho?'

All for your fears? Your scorn, your bigotry, your dogma?

That's the 'good' you're trying to defend with civil injustice and very real harm to military families?

Really?

Now, PaganPlace.

*Everybody* knows that a gay man is nothing more than a walking erection looking for a place to - well, you know - what *they* do. Not one is capable of being rational and thinking about anything except his gonads, even with live ammunition flying past his head, and sub-freezing temperatures. *Everybody* knows that, even folks who have never knowingly met a gay man. Especially folks who have never knowingly met a gay man.

And the fact is, while some of the best militaries in the world have had openly-gay soldiers for decades, now, without significant problems, equal rights in America are waiting on homophobes 'growing up' and seeing their fellow soldiers as something more than a 'Don't drop the soap' joke.

These *fears* themselves are based in bigotry, not reality.

Lesbian troops are subjected to injustice over these fears of men about men... even if women are kept out of the kind of combat situations that men fear they couldn't control themselves in, anyway.

What happens in this climate of fear and suspicion is not 'good for unit cohesion,' ...quite the contrary.

Gay and lesbian troops can't show these fears as unfounded, as in fact an artifact of the very bigotry and dehumanization that is used as an excuse to continue and reinforce the bigotry and dehumanization itself... If they can't be open about who they are,

This policy is based in the notion... reinforces the notion... Creates the notion... That our troops can't be professional.

It's some *straight* men who feel they have a right to make a pass at anyone they feel like, any time they feel like.

They're just afraid they'll be treated as they treat others. But there's no rational basis for this.

""The effort it took convincing our comrade that it was not "gay" to spoon in a foxhole demonstrates the practical challenges to be faced if "out" homosexuals are to be incorporated into combat units. A challenge, however, is not evidence that something should not be done.""

Why? Is it any less "challenge" to have an atmosphere of homophobia that insists all gay men must be wanting to be sexual with any other man... In subzero temperatures... And that further, no one even knows who might be gay because they aren't allowed to be honest?

This is all predicated on the presumption that gay men are nothing but walking sex acts.

And while you're "thinking about it," nothing changes.