In March, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indulged in an act of self-exposure that I consider to be far more obscene than dropping his pants would have been:

My upbringing is such that I believe that there are certain things, certain types of conduct, that are immoral. I believe that military members who sleep with other military members’ wives are immoral in their conduct and that we should not tolerate that. I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. … saying that gays should serve openly in the military, to me, says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity.

Yesterday, in a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Peter Pace went even further, revealing himself to be a perfectly tight-assed little puritanical prig. Offered a chance by Senator Tom Harkin to disavow his previous statement, Pace chose instead to offer an even stronger condemnation of homosexuality, and what he sees as other equally heinous sins:

So I would repeat. My upbringing is one that says, sex, other than between man and a woman inside the bonds of marriage, is a sin. … We should respect those that want to serve the nation, but not through the law of the land condone activity that in my upbringing, is counter to God’s law.

I guess such narrow-minded bigotry is shocking no matter where one encounters it, and it’s certainly not more shocking in any moral sense to find it coming from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it is perhaps more troubling.

How would such a man feel forced to act if he found himself serving under a President like Rudy Giuliani, for example? A self-admitted serial adulterer. A man who has repeatedly engaged in lustful fornication outside the sacrament of marriage. Would Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, be able to serve such a man whole-heartedly, a man who has repeatedly chosen to violate God’s law for the tawdry pleasures of the flesh, a man who has willfully placed himself on the path of sin? Would not serving such a man condone these willful violations of God’s law? How would a Peter Pace resolve such a painful conflict between his duty to his God’s law and his duty to the country?

How many more generals do we have running around who share the views of Peter Pace, or who hold other equally intolerant religious views? How can we afford to have such religious kooks in key command positions?

Don’t we need a litmus test to keep such religious kooks from holding positions where their conflicts of duty might compromise our freedom and our national security?