{"id":42055,"date":"2017-10-20T00:30:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T03:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=42055"},"modified":"2017-10-20T01:32:09","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T04:32:09","slug":"former-army-secretary-eric-fanning-wrong-on-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/20\/former-army-secretary-eric-fanning-wrong-on-character\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Army Secretary Eric Fanning Wrong on Character"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning &#8212; known most widely as the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/2015\/09\/21\/army-secretary-nominee-eric-fanning-and-the-military-culture\/\">first openly homosexual<\/a>&#8221; Service Secretary &#8212; took to Time.com last Friday to <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/4981371\/erik-fanning-transgender-military-ban-donald-trump\/\">support the effort <\/a>to allow transgenders to serve in the US military.<\/p>\n<p>In so doing, he promoted a common canard &#8212; that the US military <strong>must<\/strong> accept <strong>everyone,<\/strong> regardless of sexual proclivities or behavior &#8212; because, well, America:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I know first-hand the need for our military to attract the best talent, regardless of their race, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Our <!--more-->all-volunteer military cannot long succeed, let alone thrive, when it turns away qualified, capable and patriotic individuals committed to serving their country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Not only <strong>can<\/strong> the US military succeed &#8212; <em>and thrive<\/em> &#8212; when it turns away certain individuals, it can <strong>only<\/strong> succeed if it turns away certain individuals.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-33684 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/fanning-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/fanning-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/fanning.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/>Dark times in our military history have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stripes.com\/news\/army\/army-taking-more-lower-quality-recruits-granting-more-marijuana-waivers-1.492047\">marked by lowering recruitment standards<\/a> to bolster the ranks with warm bodies who could &#8220;shoot straight&#8221; &#8212; even if they lacked the courage and character to act ethically or morally &#8220;straight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fanning also repeatedly &#8212; four times, in fact &#8212; makes the claim that transgenders are &#8220;qualified&#8221; to serve. That&#8217;s an empty assertion because, much like claims about gender today, it is a &#8220;fluid&#8221; term.<\/p>\n<p>Government officials who set military policies &#8212; and <em>only<\/em> they\u00a0&#8212; dictate who is and\u00a0is not &#8220;qualified.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If military policies change such that one &#8220;qualification&#8221; is consonance between one&#8217;s biological and mentally perceived gender, then, by definition, transgenders are <strong>not<\/strong> &#8220;qualified&#8221; &#8212; despite Fanning&#8217;s pleas to the contrary.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Fanning also re-makes the tired argument that transgenders <strong>have<\/strong> served in the military, <em>ergo<\/em> they should <strong>continue<\/strong> to serve in the military. It&#8217;s a noble, if underhanded, effort. Fanning is suggesting that any individual currently banned from serving simply needs to lie, cheat, or otherwise deceive their way into the military.<\/p>\n<p>By Fanning&#8217;s logic, once they can demonstrate their military service &#8212; even if it is against policy or the law &#8212; they will suddenly be &#8220;qualified&#8221;\u00a0and <strong>entitled to serve<\/strong> &#8212; despite\u00a0any law or policy that implies the contrary.<\/p>\n<p>Car thieves, drug users, pedophiles, wife beaters, tax cheats &#8212; all of whom have managed to serve in the US military contrary to law and policy &#8212; would be celebrating Fanning&#8217;s policy pronouncement, were he still the Secretary of the Army.<\/p>\n<p>Hypocritically, under Secretary Fanning the US Army banned and discharged plenty of &#8220;capable and patriotic&#8221; individuals, because the Army &#8212; led by Fanning &#8212; decided they weren&#8217;t &#8220;qualified&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, if Fanning&#8217;s advocacy succeeds, they may yet be able to demonstrate their &#8220;patriotism&#8221; and serve openly in the US military. After all, if all that matters is your ability to &#8220;shoot straight,&#8221; who retains the moral\u00a0authority to say they <em>shouldn&#8217;t<\/em> serve?\u00a0 What harm could it cause?<\/p>\n<p>Character matters.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Do not be deceived: &#8220;Bad company corrupts good morals.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8211; 1 Corinthians 15:33<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning &#8212; known most widely as the &#8220;first openly homosexual&#8221; Service Secretary &#8212; took to Time.com last Friday to support the effort to allow transgenders to serve in the US military. In so doing, he promoted a common canard &#8212; that the US military must accept everyone, regardless of sexual proclivities or behavior &#8212; [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[88,2043,973,4136,86,442,2,198,5587,1278],"class_list":["post-42055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-army","tag-character","tag-courage","tag-eric-fanning","tag-ethics","tag-homosexual","tag-military","tag-morality","tag-secretary-of-the-army","tag-transgender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}