19. Be a Patriot
Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.
-Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Showing Up for the Constitution
On April 30, 1985, I raised my hand right in front of a Navy officer and said the following:
I, Jon Cutler, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same …
At that moment, I was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy and a Jewish chaplain. I was also a gay man at a time when that fact would have ended my military career if it became known.
And for the next 32 years, I served my nation in the U.S. Navy as a chaplain. I served in two wars — Desert Storm in 1991 and Iraq from 2008 to 2009 — with the U.S. Marine Corps. I was in direct combat. I also was called to the Pentagon right after 9/11 and was placed with the mortuary affairs team to search for body parts inside the Pentagon. I ended my career as a captain in the U.S. Navy and was the deputy chaplain for the U.S. Marine Corps. I was stationed at the Pentagon.
For 26 of those 32 years, I was in hiding as a gay man, hoping and praying that I would never be found out. During those years, I met my life partner, and in 2013, we were married. When I was deployed to Iraq for 13 months, he officially did not exist. It was not until 2011 when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed that I was finally able to not live in fear of the possibility of being expelled from the Navy.
Why, as a gay man knowing the consequences, did I serve in the Navy for 32 years, risking so much? Why did I raise my right hand and swear to the Constitution even though the rules at that time forbade me from serving?
Because I believe in the United States Constitution and in what it stands for — the ability to transform a nation and a society. I believe that each generation can make this nation greater, such as the Fourteenth Amendment (citizenship to former slaves and the equal protection under the laws), the Nineteenth Amendment (Women’s Right to Vote), the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Same Sex marriage equality act of 2015.
When I swore to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution, I believed in the power of the Constitution as a living document that can transform a nation and a society, so that eventually no matter how long it takes, all people within our nation will be recognized as full equals.
I lived to see one such change. On April 30, 2017, at my retirement ceremony, the deputy chief of chaplains of U.S. Navy, one-star admiral, officiated at this event. He formally recognized my husband and thanked him on behalf of the president of the United States for his support to the nation.
There is a ceremony when an officer retires from the Navy, called piping ashore, where the bosun’s whistle is sounded and the retired naval officer walks down the aisle lined by sailors in formal uniforms. The sailors on either side of the aisle render a final salute. I could never have imagined, when I raised my right hand in 1985, the day 32 years later when my husband would be walking next to me as we were both piped ashore.
I stand on the shoulders of the military men and women who suffered harshly for loving someone of the same sex. They suffered and never reaped the benefits. Because the Constitution is a living document, I was a beneficiary of the transformative power of this document. All within my lifetime.
We now face the possibility that the Constitution might be weakened dramatically or even dismantled.
The most important thing I learned in the military is that we are all equal — whether you’re enlisted or an officer, man or woman, gay or straight, no matter what our gender identity, or race or religion or no religion — because we all raised our right hand to swear or to affirm the U.S. Constitution. It is because of our universal belief of the importance of the centrality of the Constitution that we share the same mission to defend the Constitution against all foreign and domestic enemies. We share that essential bond and are willing to die for it as hundreds of thousands have done before us.
Raising our right hands is how we embody and ritualize an idea that we are swearing to defend.
For me, being a patriot — setting an example of what America means — meant showing up for the Constitution and the promise it represented, even when the powers that be said that its protections didn’t include me.
