Parashuram blog

COMMENTARY | Senator John McCain (R-AZ) railed against the proposition that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" should be repealed at Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this week. He cited reports claiming that nearly half of the surveyed troops do not support the repeal of DADT and that the young men and women of the armed services were "mature enough to fight and die," so they should be mature enough to choose with whom they fight.

Sen. McCain's logic in that statement seems woefully flawed. The claim that our troops are mature enough to fight and die may very well be a valid one. After all, our government has decided upon the age of 18 as a minimum to enlist for a reason. We must believe they are mature enough to fight and die.

However, shouldn't that maturity extend to their treatment of their fellow soldiers? If McCain is claiming they are mature enough to die, which is a very grave reality that most of us do not face very often, why are they not mature enough to be around gay men and women?

McCain claims that we are doubting their maturity by forcing them to fight alongside gays. Is this really the case? Did the legality of blacks enlisting mean that our government did not think its white soldiers were mature? In fact, it is quite the opposite. The Pentagon officials are assuming American soldiers are mature enough to deal with gay service members, just as they were assuming they could when desegregation of the armed forces occurred.

This is not a case of our government seeing Americans soldiers as too childlike or immature to choose with whom they wish to go into the field of battle. It is a case of our government seeing the maturity and dignity of our troops and believing that these qualities will lead to acceptance of gays serving openly in the military.McCain is doing our soldiers a disservice by claiming what he does, especially in the fact of Pentagon reports that show approximately 70% of service members surveyed said a repeal with have little impact on their ability to fight, .