General Fischer's Military

Recently Bryan Fischer declared that ‘[t]he U.S. military exists for one purpose: to protect the security of the American people from foreign threats,’ before arguing that the presence of homosexuals in said military undermines that purpose. Bryan’s rationale for this claim is that ‘the presence of openly gay soldiers affects unit cohesion and morale and thus interferes with mission capability.’

[Editors' Note: Bryan has neither served in the military nor undertaken any military 'missions.']

Forgetting that heterosexual and lesbian women also serve in the military, Fischer then spends a curious two paragraphs discussing gay men ‘ogling’ their fellow soldiers in the shower before exploring ‘anything goes’ tomfoolery in the barracks. Evidently Bryan believes that hetero and homosexual men are unable to coexist in the same space without having sex.

But Bryan’s argument runs contrary to evidence. In April 2009, Lt. Dan Choi was fired from the Army for informing his superiors that he's gay. Choi, who is a West Point graduate and is fluent in Arabic, was also open about his sexuality with his immediate subordinates, who formed a platoon under his command. His orientation had no effect on his work in the army.

Of his platoon, Choi remarks, they ‘know I’m gay. They don’t care. They are professional.’ He then states, ‘I have never, ever done anything homosexual while on duty and I never engaged in heterosexual conduct while on duty because the army is not about sexual anything.’

And that’s exactly the point. The army isn’t about sex; it’s about protecting the security of the United States. Choi speaks Arabic and was trained as an officer at one of the most elite military academies in the world. Firing him for being gay, something that matters more to Bryan Fischer than to Choi’s fellow soldiers, weakens the military and further drains it of much needed skill and leadership at a crucial moment in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We remain curious as to how Bryan Fischer claims to support the troops while working simutaneously to thin their ranks of talent at a time when it's needed the most.