Uncle Sam Needs You ... to Multiply

Lt. Daniel Choi became a lightning rod for opposition to anti-gay bias in the military, 07/27/09. (photo: Gloria Wright)

 

Reader Supported News | Perspective

e've got a multigenerational ecological disaster in the Gulf, the gulf between the rich and the rest of us bigger than ever, education in the toilet, budget deficits rising, chronic unemployment, healthcare in the tank ... and we cannot stop arguing about gay marriage?

Am I missing something?

Maybe it is something so basic, so seemingly banal that we just can't see the answer. Maybe it just comes down to numbers. The sort of numbers military planners use when plotting and planning the next round of deployments.

Perhaps the debate about gay marriage has less to do with the sexual behavior of consenting adults and more to do with future military might.

When Uncle Sam says he needs you ... what Sam really needs is procreators ... couples with willing eggs and legions of fast swimming sperm high-tailing it to the uterus. Those embryos will be the future soldiers filling boots on foreign battlefields and putting bullets in expensive guns.

America's birth rate is stagnant. Since we never really heeded Eisenhower's warning, the Military-Industrial Complex has emerged as one of the few remaining businesses we have. We don't make cell phones or cookware or even those plastic American flags we see every Fourth of July. What we do make is war. American arms dealers are the number one exporters of weapons worldwide. Dealing arms has become an integral part of our gross national product. The CIA, the Pentagon, and arms manufacturers often sell weapons to both sides of political and, sadly, military disputes. Not surprisingly, Americans have become more and more likely to become targets of political retaliation. In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration and the CIA armed Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Ayatollah's Iran at the same time ... as they fought a brutal war against each other. Talk about cornering a market! And, as we've known for decades, American dollars helped to train and arm Osama bin Laden's followers. Talk about opening new markets!

As Calvin Coolidge said, "The business of America is business."

But it was President Eisenhower who prophesied where we are today. However, Mr. Eisenhower could have never imagined the current debate and histrionics about homosexuals as a confounding corollary to the profiteering militarization of America. One thing the arms dealers, the Pentagon and the CIA cannot control is the birth rate.

A new baby boom requires a culture of conception. A quick look at the checkout stand of any grocery store shows that we have become obsessed with conception. "Stars" are featured on magazine covers for nothing more than sporting a suspected pregnancy "bump?" Getting pregnant and having babies is now a Hollywood resume builder. Why? Look once again at the UN and CIA's birth statistics worldwide. Notice who is third on the CIA's list of baby-makers. None other than Afghanistan! While confused, disillusioned, over-worked, and economically devastated Americans are putting off having children, the Islamic world marches ahead with the Old Testament directive to "be fruitful and multiply."

The discrimination and outrage targeting Gays may come down to simple demographics. Uncle Sam needs soldiers, and you can't make them.

I wouldn't have believed this had I not seen this played out in the extreme. Consider the plight of Romania. In 1966, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu noticed his country had a stagnant birth rate. President Ceausescu knew that to be a player on the world stage, he needed soldiers and a very hard working underclass. Mr. Ceausescu began promoting reproduction at any cost. Homosexuality was illegal. He outlawed birth control and encouraged lots of heterosexual sex. When a schoolgirl reached puberty, her sex life was encouraged and documented by the Romanian pregnancy police. Women who gave birth to five children were deemed heroines of the state. Those who gave birth to ten were akin to national gods ... very tired, worn-out, and impoverished gods. Those couples who did not reproduce were taxed into poverty. Ceausescu's plan worked in one sense. Tens of thousands of babies were born. Unfortunately, many Romanian families were too poor to feed their own children. That's when the self-proclaimed "Father and Mother" of Romania, Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu, encouraged Romanian families to bring their children to a state-run network of crowded orphanages. The children lived three and four to a crib in these horrible places, often lying unattended in their own waste ... until the Ceausescus were assassinated following a military coup in 1989, and the orphans were released into the streets.

When I reported from Romania thirty years later, many of those orphans, now adults, lived in sewers, drug-addicted and ravaged by AIDS. It taught me that government should never get involved with the sex lives of its citizens.

Perhaps cloning is the answer. Allow science to clone an army. Then homosexuals can lead productive lives without leading reproductive lives. Would the critics of gay marriage support Patriotic Petri dishes? Maybe if they don't ask, the government won't tell.

Leslie Griffith has been a television anchor, foreign correspondent and an investigative reporter in newspaper, radio and television for over 25 years. Among her many achievements are two Edward R Murrow Awards, nine Emmies, 37 Emmy Nominations, a National Emmy nomination for writing, and more than a dozen other awards for journalism. She is currently working on a documentary, giving speeches on "Reforming the Media," and writing for many on-line publications, as well as writing a book called "Shut Up and Read." She hopes the book, her speeches, and her articles on the media will help remind the nation that journalism was once about public service ... not profit. To contact Leslie, go to lesliegriffith.org.

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