A Spartan Military

I don't know if any of you have heard of Senator Mike Gravel, presidential candidate. Mr. Gravel was a senator from Alaska until 1981. He has recently got some notoriety from a video posted on You Tube over his comments on gays in the military. His position: The military should allow open homosexuality. No, actually, he goes a bit farther. The military should train their personnel to be homosexual. He uses Sparta as the basis of his remarks. They produced a renowned fighting force who were trained to be homosexuals. The reasoning is that people are more likely to fight hard for those whom they love. There you have it.

There were so many possible things to respond to that it was almost impossible to form a mental response. It was just easier to sit there and think, "Huh?????" I suppose that may be the genius of it. Where do you go? "Train people to be homosexual??? What about that whole 'born that way' argument?" "Only homosexuals can love their fellow fighting men?" "Since when did love equate to sexual attraction? I mean, I love my mom, but I'm sure not sexually attracted to her. Where's that connection coming from?" And, "Oh, by the way ... Sparta is no more. Isn't that an indication of something? I mean, do we want to base our military training methods on an army ... that lost?" At one point he compares Truman's integration of the races in the military to this topic. "They're all the same." No, they're not. Nowadays there are men and women and then some varying combinations of sexual preference. We don't consider men the same as women in the military precisely for reasons of differences of gender and sexual orientation. Of course, I already brought up some of my own concerns about the concept, none of which seem to be of the slightest concern for the good ex-senator.

The first concern listed really bother me. How do you train someone to be homosexual? In fact, the very hint of the idea of training people to be homosexual will get heterosexuals up in arms. As long as we think, "Well, that's you, but it's not me and I can't 'get it' from you", we feel pretty safe. But if you're actually going to suggest that it can be trained into a person, then all the old complaints are back in play. Should homosexuals be teachers? Should they be allowed to adopt or have child custody? I mean, the more people that are trained not to reproduce, the bigger the problem, right? The gay community has spent a great deal of time trying to tell us that they're born that way and it's not catching, and a lot of people have put it to rest for that reason. If that's not true, then the unrest will rise again.

But what I'm really hung up on, at this point, is this idea that "love = sexual relations". The idea seems to be that people only experience and display love by sexual means. Where does this come from? It seems to be often suggested, but the merest wisp of a thought ought to explode the idea. Children don't express love through sex. Families (parents to children, sibling to sibling, etc.) don't express love through sex. Heterosexual men can love men and women women without engaging in sex. In broader terms, people may love their country, but there is certainly no sex involved. Indeed, Christians are commanded to "love your neighbor as yourself." That does not carry sexual connotations. How could anyone even try to float that idea? Conversely, where does the notion come from that homosexuals love each other better? Is it possible to argue that a homosexual man would fight for his partner more vehemently than a father for his daughter or a mother for her child? Is it not possible that someone could love their country and fight for it?

I suppose it's no surprise that very few have heard of the senator who would be president. With reasoning like this, I think it would be frightening to have him in the office of the President. I'm frightened enough that there are actually people who around me who think like this. Surely this isn't the best we can do.