A Ramble About "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

I've been watching a certain news program at night on my iPod. It's by no means a conservative news program, but I appreciate the honesty, candor, and humor the host, Rachel Maddow, brings to the realm of politics, and the light she tries to shed on the otherwise intentionally muddied subject of politics. I don't always agree with her point of view, but I appreciate it and it has opened my own eyes to things I would have otherwise not been aware of had I stuck only to watching shows which purport to reflect views more closely associated with my own.



One of the topics she has covered recently are the debates and court rulings over the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. This is the policy of the United States military that, if you are a homosexual, practicing or otherwise, employed by the US military, officer or enlisted, you are obliged to neither reveal this information yourself, and they are obliged to not ask you outright. If somehow this information falls into the hands of the military then they will discharge you, honorably or dishonorably as the case may be.



Whatever other arguments may be held against it's repeal, there seems to be one overriding argument in favor of removing it. It violates the United States Constitution and the basic principle of equality and civil rights which is enshrined therein. There is no solid evidence that a person who is homosexual is any less capable of serving in the US military than a person who is heterosexual, and from my (admittedly limited) understanding, there is a great deal of evidence that persons who have been discharged under this law were extremely capable personnel, and the removal of them from service has been a terrible disservice to the operation of the US military.



So, why are so many people, especially professing Christian people, in the US government, and the US at large against having homosexual people serving openly in the US military? I believe the answer is that it is a result of misunderstanding and misteaching about the practice and application of the Christian faith and the teachings regarding not only homosexuality, but any sexual practice whether it is popularly considered deviant or not.



What is the ideal "sexual state" of the practicing Christian as found in both Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition?



Chastity.



Let me say this again. The ideal sexual relationship in Christian practice according to the writings of Holy Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers and Leaders for the last two thousand years is, and has always been, no sexual relationship at all. So if we were all to live according to the Biblical ideal, none of us who profess and practice Jesus Christ would be married or have children.



Why is chastity the ideal sexual relationship? Because the practice of Christianity is the denial of one's self, and the discipline and denial of one's own bodily appetites, bringing them under the control of Grace. It is the letting go of one's possessions, relationships (both friendships and family relationships), attachments, desires, and the emptying of one's entire being to pursue the one and only relationship which truly matters: one's relationship with God through and in Jesus Christ. He gave up His life for us, and so the practice of Christianity is to respond in kind. If something draws our attention away from Him it is to be cut off and let go of, otherwise it becomes a trap.



This was the teaching of both Jesus Christ and St. Paul:



Matthew 10:32-39 (WEB)

Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.A man’s foes will be those of his own household.He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me, isn’t worthy of me.He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.


Matthew 10:44-45 (WEB)

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.



Matthew 19:4-12(WEB)

He answered, "“Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”"They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a bill of divorce, and divorce her?”He said to them, "“Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so.I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”"His disciples said to him, “If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”But he said to them, "“Not all men can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.”



1 Corinthians 7:1-8, 27-28, 32-35(WEB)

Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife. Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn. ... Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek to be freed. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife. But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you. ... But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. This I say for your own profit; not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.



Philippians 3:7-14

However, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.


The Sacrament of Marriage was given as a compromise or a concession for those of us who want to follow Jesus Christ, and devote ourselves to Him, but for whom also certain passions overwhelm us. Jesus Christ Himself was celibate by all trustworthy records. So was St. Paul. To my knowledge, many of His Apostles were not. Certainly not St. Peter of whom even Holy Scripture says He was married and mentions both his wife and his mother-in-law.



Within the Church, marriage is the only permissible actively sexual relationship because it was the only one sanctioned by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and their successors the Patriarchs, Bishops, and Fathers of the Church.



Now, how then do we respond to actively practicing homosexuals? According to Jesus Christ, with love, compassion, and understanding; the same way He responds to us. As He taught: "how can you see well enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye when you have a log in your own eye?" And also "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistrust you and abuse you." (See the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and the Sermon on the Plains in Luke 6). In other words, we respond to homosexuals the same way we are taught and avowed to respond to everyone irregardless of who they are or what they do to us or anyone else. We are to care about them, love them, and help them in any way we can.



If it is a homosexual person who stands outside the Church, who are we, and what right do we have to judge them or look down on them? Weren't, and often aren't, we in the same position at one time or another? Blind and incapable of seeing our own Disorder and Malfunction for what it truly is? Didn't God have to break through our blindness with His light and doesn't He continuously still have to do so?



If it is a homosexual who stands inside the Church, who are we to beat up on our brother or sister who is struggling with desires and attachments? We are to love and care about them and when they reach out for help we are to gently guide them back to the path. We cannot abandon the Sacred Tradition and teaching of Holy Scripture just because it is the popular thing to do in any age whether it is in sanctioning practicing homosexual activity within the Church, or in bashing and persecuting practicing homosexuals. Both are forbidden. Ours is the path of Love Himself: The Path of Jesus Christ. And it is only in the practice of this path wherein any of us find our salvation in Him, and deviation from it is to step off into darkness and our own personal Gehenna from which it is very hard to recover in this life, and impossible in the next.



God desires that none, I repeat none, should perish but that all should come to repentance and know Him. It is our job to help people out of hell, not to gleefully condemn them to it, irregardless of what they've done, because we have the exact same Problem and would be there ourselves if someone had not intervened in our lives, and if God Himself did not constantly intervene.



Don't ask? Don't tell? It shouldn't matter if they do. Our response should always be the same no matter what. His is with us.