YA know, it's aggravating. Every time it looks like the world is ready to party to hell in a handbasket, morality sticks its snout up in the air and ruins everything. Caught with our
morality down, againMorality has become just a vague idea, a wispy ghost of a concept with a bad rep. Morality is uncool, like bell-bottom pants and Sonny Bono. It's road kill on the superhighway to the new millennium. Or is it?
Gen. Joseph Ralston's bid to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is steamrolled because of an old extramarital affair. A female bomber pilot is washed out partly because she lied but mostly because she had an active sex life.
Call it what you will, but in reality, both are the result of morality, which, though smashed flat in the no-passing lane, still has enough life to waggle its finger and say "ta, ta, ta."
But wait a second. Didn't Bill Clinton all but admit to having an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers? Didn't Hillary say that was floozy under the bridge and she'd stand by her man? Isn't Bill in charge of all the military? Why'd the morality police let him off the hook?
That's the problem. Morality
isn't standing on all fours these days. Most people don't even recognize it, and most of them are federal judges. For instance, a state judge has the Ten Commandments posted on his courtroom wall. He's told that violates the separation of church and state.
This is the problem. Because, if you strip away the religious trappings, the Ten Commandments are, in one sense, morality codified: Don't kill, don't steal, don't fool around if you're married, honor your parents, don't lust after your friend's stereo, don't lie ... it is Life's User Manual in 10 easy-to-follow steps.
They also are a sneaky way to protect a lot of stupid people from ruining mankind. If you were to come up with a list of things to protect the human gene pool and assure public order, you couldn't come up with a better list. Don't fool around with your neighbor's wife, because, in the old days, when people lived in villages, chances were your neighbor's wife was a not-too-distant relative.
So the Ten Commandments are uncool, like Sonny Bono and bell-bottoms. What's left? Well, generally an uneasy sense that although there is right and wrong, we don't really know the difference and we don't really care anyway. Until your boyfriend starts sleeping with your best friend and then you have to go on Montel Williams and try to figure out why that is a bad thing. Daily talk shows are where morality is being reinvented.
While that may lead to high TV ratings, it creates confusion. With no real clear idea of what morality is, we slog around and come up with a bunch of conflicting rules.
Gays in the military are fine and presumably can have all the sex they want as long as no one asks them about it and they don't tell. Married heterosexuals separated from their spouses can't have sex and if they do, they have to tell when asked. Drill sergeants can't have sex at all. And if they do they go to prison for the rest of their lives. The highest-ranking military officer in the world, the U.S. president, can have affairs as long as his wife says it's OK. Confused?
The military long ago decided that it was useless to discuss morality with soldiers and sailors. Instead of the Ten Commandments, the Navy had the Articles of War, which were read once a week to everyone to scare the bejesus out of them. The Articles of War made the Ten Commandments look like the "Ten Suggestions on How to Throw A Girl Scout Tea Party."
Does what is happening in the military these days mean morality is making a comeback? No, it just means it's always there, lurking in the shadows like a virus, waiting for suitable human hosts. Unfortunately, an immediate epidemic is unlikely.