The new guidelines modify the Manual for Courts-Martial. Defense Secretary William Cohen said he wasn't lowering the standards against sexual misconduct. But many who testified believed it was one more attempt to force the military to adopt the sexual mores of the civilian world.
Daniel Heimback, a former Navy officer who now teaches at Southeast Baptist Theological Seminary, said "The changes to military adultery standards proposed by the administration are based on a self-oriented, feeling-based therapeutic ethic." He believed that the new wording placed a stricter burden of proof for triggering criminal charges. Thus, fewer officers would be removed from the services because of adulterous affairs.
He went on to add, "It is based on an ethic of individual desire and self-fulfillment that opposes and corrodes the ethic of self-sacrifice without which no military force can survive, much less succeed." Currently the military outlaws adultery because such illicit affairs within a unit create distrust and destroy cohesion.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said that the Pentagon only heard from what she called "extremely liberal groups" such as the National Organization for Women. Apparently they did not hear from people most likely to send their sons and daughters into combat.
Once again we see the attempt to change military policies to fit current social mores. In the past, President Clinton has signed an executive order to open the armed forces to homosexuals and placed women in air and sea combat jobs. Changing the military standards concerning adultery is just one more attempt to modify the military.
I'm Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries, and that's my opinion.
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