General Peter Pace, like most people, believes that homosexual intercourse is wrong, and the other day he said as much in an interview. Now, predictably, he is being vilified by progressives, some of whom are demanding an apology. What would he apologize for? He has every right to believe that homosexual conduct is wrong and to say so. (Whether it was prudent of him to say so is another matter. He appears now to regret it.) I’m not saying that his belief about the immorality of homosexual conduct should have any bearing on his enforcement of the law. It should not. He is a public official, with public responsibilities. He should enforce the law as written, even if he disagrees with it. If he disagrees with it, for any reason (moral or otherwise), he should work to change it—on his own time.

Addendum: I laughed when I read the comment of one of the homosexual activists. He described General Pace’s moral judgment as “personal bias.” That’s interesting. According to this view, if I say that lying is wrong, I’m biased. If I say that there is a duty to relieve suffering, I’m biased. If I say that promises should be kept, I’m biased. If I condemn the killing of innocent human beings, I’m biased. If I say that abortion is morally permissible, I’m biased. If moral judgment is “personal bias,” then everyone is biased all the time, for everyone makes moral judgments all the time. That drains the term “bias” of its meaning. The activist might reply that not all moral judgments are “personal biases”; only some of them are. But which ones, and why? He must provide a criterion that sorts moral judgments into the proper categories. I suspect that by “bias” he means “moral judgment with which I disagree.” In other words, he’s using manipulative rhetoric.

Addendum 2: Here is another source of data on what people believe. Key paragraphs:

Another GSS item administered over the past quarter century asks whether sexual relations between two adults of the same sex are “always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all.” Between 1973 and 1993, more than two-thirds of the public considered homosexuality to be “always wrong.” The proportion responding “never” or “only sometimes” wrong ranged around 20%.

Since 1993, however, a shift has been apparent in responses to this item. The proportion saying homosexual behavior is “always wrong” began to decline in 1993, dropping to 54% in 1998 and 53% in 2002. Although a majority still regards homosexual behavior as wrong, the trend is clearly in the direction of less condemnation.

Any interpretation of responses to this item must acknowledge the response bias invited by its wording: The question’s phrasing strongly suggests that homosexual relations are wrong to at least some extent. Data from other surveys with differently worded items assessing the morality of homosexual behavior, however, are consistent with responses to the GSS item. In a 1996 Gallup poll, for example, 59% of the public believed that homosexual behavior is morally wrong, compared to 34% who believed that it is not morally wrong.

Keep in mind that these are polls of Americans. When you factor in nonAmericans, most of whom are either Roman Catholic or Muslim, the percentage of people who believe that homosexual intercourse is wrong is probably close to 80.