The White Papers

A few weeks ago Catholic churches were dealt a significant blow in regards to the new health-care mandate that President Obama’s administration has thrust upon America.  The churches themselves will not be required to provide birth control to their employees.  However, if the church runs a business – such as a hospital, which many Catholic churches do – they will have to provide birth control to their employees.  This goes against the tenets of the Catholic faith.

I am not a Catholic – I used to be one but converted to the Baptist faith 20 years ago.  Likewise, I frankly find the idea of birth control being a sin to be somewhat ridiculous.  But I stand with the Catholics on this one.  It’s not my place to tell the Catholic Church what they can and cannot believe, and it’s not President Obama’s place either.

How do you tell a religious organization that teaches one thing that they must pay for something that goes against the thing they teach against?  How do you do that in a country that has as one of its principal freedoms the right to practice the faith that you wish?  How do you do that and claim you are not attacking that very freedom?

I’ve heard all the arguments over the last several days.  Well what if a Jehovah’s Witness church wouldn’t pay for a blood transfusion?  What if a Christian Scientist church wouldn’t pay for any health care at all?  Great questions and 100% not related to the point at hand.  I agree with the idea that church cannot endanger a person’s life.  So, I’m ok with and look forward to the courts determining what exceptions there are in regards to these types of arguments.

Not taking birth control does not guarantee you are going to die.  I’m sure there are people who will inundate me with cases where birth control is needed to regulate a problem a woman is having and not to prevent a pregnancy.  But I will argue back that in many of the cases where the Catholic Church is being asked to violate their belief system those women are not taking birth control to save their life.  The primary use of birth control is to prevent pregnancy and that is also done by other means.  Protection for the man.  Abstinence.  Paying for the birth control yourself.  Quitting your job and working for a place that does pay for it.  There are options.  The idea that this is the only option is just plain silly – and goes a large way in showing the mentality of many that demand that others provide for their needs.

The other thing that is truly frightening is the military response to this.  Last week, the Catholic Church had its priests read a letter indicating they will not obey this unjust law.  This was to be read by the military priests too.  Except leaders in the military tried to prevent it from being read.  Some priests openly defied those leaders and I commend them for it.

Before anyone says that the military leaders did the right thing, let me ask you a question.  Back in 1991, while I was in the Marines, I wrote a letter to the local paper lambasting the military about the fact they don’t accept gays.  This is a position I held as a young man that I hold to some degree today with minor changes because the issue is more complicated than my 21 year old self realized.  I was taken to task severely by the NCO in charge of me and told I could not write any further letters without having them read by him.

Was he wrong? He told me I could not take a pro-gay point of view because I was in the military and the military at that point was not pro-gay.  If he was wrong at that point, then the military is wrong now for their trying to suppress the rights of the Catholic priests for speaking about something they morally object to.  It can’t be ok only if the reason the military did this is for the reason you agree with.

One other thing.  I’ve also heard that many Catholics also do not agree with the Church’s position on contraception.  This is not a valid argument for allowing this to happen.  Every person of faith has the right to determine if their beliefs coincide with that of their church.  That’s between them, the church and God.  That doesn’t mean the government gets to step in and say that it is time to change because many of your faith don’t practice this anyways.  What is happening here is a very subtle attempt to incite a rebellion in this faith.

I think the Obama administration has seriously miscalculated their position here.  I grew up Catholic and I truly believe the Church will shut down these businesses before they violate their principles. They did it with adoption agencies not too long ago and I really think they’ll do it here.  Then many people will be out of work and without health care access at all.  How’s that going to play out on an election year?

This is a ridiculous law and it needs to be removed.

I joined the United States Marine Corps in 1988.  That one sentence always makes me smile, because if you knew me, you’d be surprised I was a Marine. I’m not real military material – and Marines are the cream of the crop.  But I made it through boot camp and spent 3 years in North Carolina and finally a year in Okinawa.  I got out with an honorable discharge in 1992.

I did not serve in a typical Marine type of job. I worked in an office for the most part.  I spent a year working as a Chaplain’s assistant, then working for a Logistics office and finally for an Intelligence office while in Okinawa.  I basically did…paperwork.  But a Marine is a Marine is a Marine.

For someone whose job was to do paperwork, I was always surprised by the amount of time I spent out in the field on exercises and forced marches and other such non-administrative tasks. The reason for this is primarily tied to what I said already.  A Marine is a Marine is a Marine. A Marine is to always be prepared to fight – no matter what their actual day-to-day job is.

I will be the first to admit to you that being a career Marine was not for me. That’s why I got out. I had other ambitions and the lifestyle was a little more than what I wanted.  But I always understood one thing about being a Marine.  It was something to be looked at as a great honor.  Not everyone wears that title and it’s a title filled with a lot of history and should always be treated with great respect.

The Marine Corps motto is “Semper Fidelis” or “Semper Fi” which translates to “Always Faithful”.  In essence, the way I always understood this is that you are faithful to your God, your country, your family and the Corps. This is why even 20 years after getting out of the Corps, I still think of myself as a Marine.  There is no such thing as an ex-Marine.  We are a band of men and women who form a group that not many understand.  It’s an honorable group filled with dignity and blood and tears of many wars over the course of our history.  Even if you never fought in a war, you are a part of that group because you are a Marine.

This is why I find myself in a very unenviable position today. This week a video came out of some Marine soldiers urinating on dead Taliban soldiers. As of this writing, it appears the video is legitimate. And as one may expect, this video has been met with outrage across the world.

However, I have seen a very confusing reaction amongst people in our own country. I – as a conservative Republican – tend to lean towards the attitudes that most conservatives share.  So imagine my surprise when the general reaction of most conservatives I read about was basically, “eh…no big deal.”  No big deal? These Marines urinated on dead people! How is that not a HUGE deal? Being a Marine is supposed to stand for something!  I don’t care what the person who is dead did, we don’t desecrate their bodies.  Ever. Period.

I know and understand that these Taliban soldiers have done horrible things.  I know that given half a chance, they’d have taken those Marines and done unspeakable things to them that makes urinating on them look like a day in the park.  Does. Not. Matter.  We, first as Marines, and second as AMERICANS, should always be better than this. We do not stoop to the same low levels of behavior that others do.  That’s grade-school mentality…”well they did it first!”  It’s ridiculous.

Let’s look at another way.  Consider the roles reversed – because they easily could be.  Picture your brother, uncle, husband, father off fighting a war against some country.  And the soldiers of that country killed your loved one and then stood over them and urinated on them.  Then they  videotaped it and put it out on the Internet for the world to see.  At that point do you still think its ok?  If your answer to that question is: “Well the Taliban does/did horrible things to us so they deserved it!” then you are still leading with a grade-school mentality.

And how about this? If urinating on them is ok – after all their dead and they deserve it…how is that any different from chopping off an ear for a souvenir? Cutting their head off and using it for a soccer ball? Or as gross as this sounds – eating a part of them?  Why is one thing ok but the others cross a line?

Now before anyone thinks I’m taking to task only the conservative side of our country – let me be clear on one thing – I don’t support the liberal side’s position either. While there tends to be the moral outrage amongst them on this issue that I do agree with – it seems that their moral outrage is not put in the same place as it usually is when there is a Republican president in office.

A few years ago – some soldiers did some despicable things to prisoners in Abu Ghraib and the first thing many liberals did – was blame George W. Bush. Where is the outrage against Barack Obama in this case of the Marines?

The left tend to take great excitement when a Marine defends the ludicrousness known as Occupy Wall Street but then turn on them in any case involving the military and their actions against other countries.  Their moral outrage is in no way consistent and in many cases hypocritical.

Ultimately, regardless of political belief, it is my belief that what these Marines did is not only wrong, it’s criminal and it goes against anything honorable about a Marine.  They should go to jail for these actions. As Marines, we need to remember who we are, what our history is, what we stand for and always act accordingly.  These men did not and as such have lost my respect.  While I will be “always faithful” to the Corps, I will not extend that to those four soldiers.  They no longer deserve it.