Terence Jeffrey

The ultimate purpose of the U.S. military is simple: Defend the God-given liberty of Americans. Yet today we have a president who is using his power as commander in chief to wage war against the moral truth that makes liberty possible.

Last week, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta executed a directive from President Obama that requires the military to treat cohabitating homosexuals as if they were married couples.

Panetta did so in a memorandum he sent to the secretaries of the military departments and to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

"At the direction of the president, the department has conducted a careful and deliberative review of the benefits currently provided to the families of service members," Panetta wrote. "We have now identified additional family member and dependent benefits that we can lawfully provide to same-sex domestic partners of Military Service members and their children through changes in Department of Defense policies and regulations."

"These benefits shall be extended to the same-sex domestic partners and, where applicable, children of same-sex domestic partners, once the service member and their same-sex domestic partner have signed a declaration attesting to the existence of their committed relationship," said Panetta.

Panetta attached to his memo a copy of the "Declaration of Domestic Partnership" that cohabitating homosexuals must use to attest to the U.S. government they are in fact in the kind of "committed relationship" Panetta and Obama have in mind.

"For purposes of this declaration," it says, "the following definitions apply: Domestic Partner means a person in a domestic partnership with a service member of the same sex. Domestic Partnership means a committed relationship between two adults, of the same sex, that meets all of the requirements below."

One of the requirements is: "Neither of us is married (legally or by common law), joined in civil union with, or domestic partners with anyone else." Instead of taking unbreakable vows before God -- as married people do -- domestic partners in Obama's military will attest to the commander in chief that they are "two adults of the same sex."

Once cohabitating homosexuals have certified this, the military will grant them benefits that include joint duty assignments, space-available travel on DOD aircraft, child care, legal assistance, dependent ID cards, commissary privileges, exchange privileges, welfare and recreation programs, youth programs, transportation to and from primary and secondary school for minor dependents, "family center programs" and participation in surveys of military "families."

What happens if the cohabitating homosexuals break up? Their declaration to Obama says: "We must inform my service not later than 30 days after (a) the date of the dissolution of the domestic partnership, (b) the date the partnership no longer meets the eligibility requirements, or (c) termination of the domestic partnership by death."

Obama is not offering cohabitating heterosexuals the same deal -- yet.

In his memorandum, Panetta conceded there are some benefits the Obama administration cannot yet extend to cohabitating homosexuals because the Defense of Marriage Act is still in force. But he indicated he wants the military to act as quickly as possible in accommodating same-sex cohabitators.

"Implementation of these benefit changes will require substantial policy revision, training and, in the case of identification cards, technical upgrades," he said.

Training? Clearly, under this new directive, the armed services will need to "train" their personnel to treat cohabitating homosexuals as if they were married heads of families. In the armed services, at least, unless Congress does something to stop him, Obama can command people to do this.

As he did in his opposition to an Illinois bill that would simply have defined born babies as persons, and in his regulation requiring Catholics to act against their faith by buying or providing health care plans that cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, Obama here has put himself again in direct conflict with the natural law.

In 1937, Pope Pius XI, in an encyclical letter condemning the German Reich, spelled out the implications of a government that flouts the unchanging moral rules that govern all men and nations.

"To hand over the moral law to man's subjective opinion, which changes with the times, instead of anchoring it in the holy will of the eternal God and His commandments, is to open wide every door to the forces of destruction," said the pope. "The resulting dereliction of the eternal principles of an objective morality, which educates conscience and ennobles every department and organization of life, is a sin against the destiny of a nation, a sin whose bitter fruit will poison future generations."

"We are especially referring to what is called the natural law, written by the Creator's hand on the tablet of the heart and which reason, not blinded by sin or passion, can easily read," said the pope. "It is in the light of the commands of this natural law, that all positive law, whoever be the lawgiver, can be gauged in its moral content, and hence, in the authority it wields over conscience. Human laws in flagrant contradiction with the natural law are vitiated with a taint which no force, no power can mend."

America's commander in chief today is trying to finally and utterly uproot our society from a true understanding of the right to life, the nature of family and the freedom of conscience.

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