Legislation repealing the “Don”t ask, don”t tell” policy has turned the United States military into a new front for social and cultural experimentation. This is not in the public interest.

Stealing the language of the civil rights movement, homosexual activists have succeeded in making a flawed comparison between racial discrimination and homosexual sexual acts even though it is a comparison without merit. Membership in a racial category is a status; homosexual sexual practices are voluntary sexual actions. These actions have been defined and condemned as immoral by every society in history up until the present because they close the sex-act to the gift of life.

No-one with any moral foundation who accepts the existence of fundamental human rights supports discrimination against any human persons, including those with same sex attraction. That is not what is at issue here. The intent of this legislation is to enforce a societal acceptance of homosexual, bi-sexual and lesbian sexual relationships as morally equivalent to opposite sex marriage – or face the police power of the State. This is legally and socially dangerous as marriage can only be defined as the union of one man and one woman.

The repeal of Don”t ask, don”t tell” Repeal is not a civil rights breakthrough but a moral catastrophe foisted on the American public.

Larry S. Smith

Columbus

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.