In a disaplay of seriously flawed priorities, House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon claims that he'd rather see a military appropriations bill fail than have it pass without the restrictions he wants. Clearly, if McKeon is willing to disrupt the legislative process for his beliefs, these must be some issues that are crucial to the fundamental operations of our military, right? Funding for new weapons technology? New readiness standards? Maybe an official stance on torture? Nope, none of those things; McKeon is worried about military chaplains performing gay marriages.
The official Pentagon stance on chaplains and gay marriages is that chaplains are allowed but not required to perform the ceremonies. McKeon's version of the bill passed through the House back in May with a complete ban on military gay marriages, but it's been held up in the Senate because of the restriction. In a recent interview, McKeon made it abundantly clear that he would not accept a new version of the bill that ignored the chaplain issue.
McKeon is also taking a similar stance on another issue (whether or not terror suspects can have civilian trials), but I'm willing to give him a pass on that (even though I disagree with him) because it's at least a security issue. But gay marriages? How in the hell does that have anything to do with the proper function of our military? McKeon is threatening to hold defense funding hostage to deal with a social issue in a very underhanded fashion, and that simply should not be acceptable.
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