This year, when you are deciding whether or not to commemorate the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic — an event which told the whole world that men are supposed to die for women and children — please consider the implications of the crumbling theological foundations of the Church of Jesus Christ for this culture. Rarely will you hear of pastors, churches, or denominations denouncing as unbiblical the plague of a female military, yet that is exactly what it is: unbiblical and a judgment on our nation. It is, however, the logical and necessary conclusion of feminist, neo-feminist, Christian feminist, and anti-patriarchal sentiments in our culture and churches. Rather than viewing women as daughters, mothers, future mothers, and objects of protection, modern American males view them as competitors, as neo-men, and worse. Christian fathers and pastors contribute to this confusion by setting conflicting visions of womanhood before their daughters. The message, “Be feminine, be a soldier,” is one example. The message, “Forget motherhood, embrace your career, but be a virtuous woman,” is yet another.

Below are more quotes from the Salon article, “The Private War of Woman Soldiers.” Note the important statistics on rape in the military:

“Of course we were in combat!” said Laura Naylor, 25, who served with the Army Combat Military Police in Baghdad from 2003-04. “We were interchangeable with the infantry. They came to our police stations and helped pull security, and we helped them search houses and search people. That’s how it is in Iraq.”

Women are fighting in ground combat because there is no choice. This is a war with no front lines or safe zones, no hiding from in-flying mortars, car and roadside bombs, and not enough soldiers. As a result, women are coming home with missing limbs, mutilating wounds and severe trauma, just like the men.

All the women I interviewed held dangerous jobs in Iraq. They drove trucks along bomb-ridden roads, acted as gunners atop tanks and unarmored vehicles, raided houses, guarded prisoners, rescued the wounded in the midst of battle, and searched Iraqis at checkpoints. Some watched their best friends die, some were wounded, all saw the death and mutilation of Iraqi children and citizens.

Yet, despite the equal risks women are taking, they are still being treated as inferior soldiers and sex toys by many of their male colleagues. As Pickett told me, “It’s like sending three women to live in a frat house.”

Rape, sexual assault and harassment are nothing new to the military. They were a serious problem for the Women’s Army Corps in Vietnam, and the rapes and sexual hounding of Navy women at Tailhook in 1991 and of Army women at Aberdeen in 1996 became national news. A 2003 survey of female veterans from Vietnam through the first Gulf War found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans from Vietnam and all the wars since, who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder, found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military. And in a third study, conducted in 1992-93 with female veterans of the Gulf War and earlier wars, 90 percent said they had been sexually harassed in the military....