Gays already serve in the military, and are forced to live a life of secrecy and half-truths to avoid recriminations. DADT should be ended with a simple penstroke by the Commander-in-Chief. by Tully
(libertarian)
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen also are expected to announce the creation of a group to assess how to carry out a full repeal of the decades-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which requires gay soldiers to keep their sexual orientation secret.
But Gates and Mullen are also expected to tell senators that it could take years to integrate gay men and lesbians fully into the military, defense officials said. Two appointees will be named to oversee a group that will draw up plans for integrating the armed forces, according to sources familiar with the Pentagon's deliberations on the subject. The planning effort is expected to take up to a year.
Among the issues to be addressed by the group: whether gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will face any restrictions on exhibiting their sexual orientation on the job; whether the Pentagon will be obligated to provide for their domestic partners; and whether straight military personnel could be compelled to share quarters with gays
What a foot-dragging, anemic, crock of shit.
"Years to implement?" It's really very easy: Just end it.
The military already has MANY gay and lesbian members SERVING AND FIGHTING AND DIEING. It is *NOT* a question of figuring out "how to let them in." THEY ARE IN ALREADY. Straight soldiers are ALREADY COMPELLED to share quarters with gay soldiers, just as white soldiers are COMPELLED to share quarters with black sodiers (gasp!)...and military preparedness and unit cohesion does not suffer.
But individual soldiers do suffer.
A group of soldiers are on leave or having a little down time at a local watering hole. Many of them comment on the tail they hope they get, or wolf-whistle at the waitress they call 'sweetheart,' and comment among themselves as to how hot she is. This of course, is normal, red-blooded American Boy-talk, right?
But one of the soldiers in their midst has to pretend. He has to force a smile, or force a stupid comment or become 'suspect' by the others. He can't be who he is, or say what or how he feels. Because if he does, he loses his job, his health insurance, his honor, his pension.
Elsewhere, a group of soldiers are talking about how they miss their wives and children, and sharing stories of Christmas and breakfasts and vacations, and how they can't wait to see them again. But another soldier is forced to lie, saying there is no one in his life, no one to go back to. If he admits to having a partner, he avoids or invents that partner's name...becasue if he shares his longing, too, he loses his job, his health insurance, his honor, his pension.
Oh, he's good enough to shoot and fight and die. He's good enough to serve, and receive medals and honors - As long as he lives in a closet of denial, as long as he shares nothing, as long as he avoids friendship with others in his platoon, as long as he holds everything so close to his chest that no one gets in.
President Obama, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and as the Head of the Executive Branch, with one penstroke you can end DADT dismissals just as Harry Truman integrated the military. It's time to do it NOW, before another American hero loses his or her lifetime contribution to our nation because of your cowardice. End DADT Now.
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Absolutely NOT! People who serve in the military do drugs, should they be allowed to serve if they admit their use? People in the military commit all kinds of crimes and perversions including homosexuality. If they admit them, they should be booted out. There is absolutely no way this should be allowed, and the best answer to this ludcrious idea would be for re-enlistments to drop substantially as a result of this open discussion of an absolutely horrendous idea. The economy is already in the tank because if the possibility of huge tax increases and nationalized health care...so we might as well destroy our armed forces with rumors, or even actions which seem to be leading to open homosexuality... for this veteran...the answer is no way.  Â
I served honorably in the military. Unfortunately, out here in California they're trying to pass medical marijuana laws (what a crock; just a bunch of refer heads). Once this is passed the military will be forced to allow openly high personnel. We can kiss the strongest fighting military in the history of man "Goodbye."
Obviously the two of you haven't got a clue between the two of you. In Canada we have gays serving openly in the military and we have medical marijuana. Neither has affected the strength of our military one jot. I've served my country and could care one bit who the soldier serving next to me comes home to as long as they can fight as well as anyone else. Your kind of bigotry does a diservice to your country and your armed forces.
It's always funny to hear the Doom and Gloom senario from Conservatives when it comes to nixing DADT. Especially when it was Barry Goldwater (the man who was one of Reagan's influences) who originally believed that it shouldn't matter if someone is gay as long as they can shoot straight. Him also saying at the time when many on the right (who probably still to an extent) believe that being gay is a disease.
President Obama, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and as the Head of the Executive Branch, with one penstroke you can end DADT dismissals just as Harry Truman integrated the military.
Like most other people, you misunderstand DADT and the ban on gays in the military. Nobody in the chain-of-command, including the President, has the authority to change the policy. In fact there is no "policy" as such. The issue is Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which states:(
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration , however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.
(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
When gays are booted out of the military, it is for violation of this article (which is why Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, with less than two years remaining until he was eligible to retire, was discharged after he was found not guilty of rape charges brought by a jilted gay lover). The UCMJ was enacted by Congress, and only Congress can change it.
The comparison with Truman's integration of the Armed Forces by executive order is not valid. The military already had non-whites serving legally and openly, albeit in segregated units. The UCMJ did not have to be changed to integrate the military.
I note that all your arguments are based on events NOT on the battlefield during a fire fight. The fundamental role of a military is to win the fire fight on the ground. In that situation soldier A may have to order soldier B to take an action that endangers the life of solider B. That is a far different place than is a bar having a drink among friends.
I know that I can not write anything that will change your mind. My only hope is that you will on your own consider the issues that arise when commands, that must be obeyed, are given and where sexual relationships of one kind or another may be involved.
By all means,let's have a politically correct, all-inclusive imperial US military invading and eternally occupying the   politically incorrect Muslim world and forcing political correctness down their throats at gunpoint! Talk about "winning hearts and minds"! And think of all the politically correct liberal-left civilians who will be cheerleading the invasion and never-ending occupation of the un-PC Muslim world in order to mandate that they submit to remaking them in the empire's PC image! And keeping straights from dodging a likely future wartime draft by making sure to make it impossible to claim to be gay in order to not end up drafted, it's sheer genius! Lot's of future cannon fodder will most surely thank those who will make that event possible! This endless war against a tactic (terrorism) will badly need all the disposable heroes it can get! We  dare not discriminate against, based upon sexual preference, any man or woman  willing to end up dead for the greater glory of the  military/industrial complex!
"My only hope is that you will on your own consider the issues that arise when commands, that must be obeyed, are given and where sexual relationships of one kind or another may be involved."
Two MAJOR flaws with that thinking:
1) It is baseless ignorance and prejudice to suggest that a gay soldier cannot obey an order in the military. They already do - AND EARN MEDALS FOR IT. Victor Fehrenbach = Exhibit A.
2) Gay Relationships between soldiers - and, I might add, between officers and soldiers...ALREADY EXIST, IN SURPRISINGLY LARGE NUMBERS. Therefore, the problem you allude to would already exist...and in fact, it is OPENNESS that would enable officers to make better-informed and transparent judgement calls, whereas keeping these things in the shadows and hush-hush is a set-up for ill-informed - and corrupt - decisions.
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