[rubbing temples]
Maybe you missed the part where I AGREED WITH YOU, Homebrew. I support having gays openly serve. I’m just realistic about what has to happen so that can be realized.
You know, I’m a recent veteran. I’m a pretty valuable research tool all by myself. You might want to listen to what I have to say, informed by my recent experience.
Were you in the service in the early 90s when job options began opening up to women? What was the prediction then? The same arguments were used againt desegregation in the late 50s and 60s. Did it turn out to hurt readiness and morale in either of these cases? Why would it be different to allow gay folk to serve now? Why are your dire warnings - identical to those of the past incorrect warnings concerning women and blacks - any more “realistic” than those?
Since the brass took the lead in the case of integration and expanding the role of women, then they should take the lead now. Instead they’ve fought tooth and nail to keep homosexuality as a disqualifying attribute. How then is it not reasonable to interpret their actions as homophobic?
Truman ordered integration in 1948. The Air Force submitted it’s plan the next year and had 95% of it’s black service members integrated by the end of 1950. DADT was implemented a decade ago. Are you telling me that it’s taken 10 years and the Brass still hasn’t come up with a plan because they can’t think of how, even though they’re not bigoted and would like to? Bullshit. They haven’t because they’re bigots and they won’t until they’re forced to.
Well, as a matter of fact, Homebrew, I can speak quite well to this, because my period of service covered 1993 to 1998, about exactly when women were being given far greater roles in the Navy.
It was a period of transition, and it wasn’t easy. It did have, too, impacts on readiness, as the pregnancy statistics demonstrate.
Even now, women aren’t permitted in all Navy jobs. They’re restricted from submarine duty entirely, for example. Surface ship billets for women were initially show in coming until the ships could be converted, in shipyard periods, to accomodate them with separate berthing, shower, and head spaces.
Sexual harassment training had to be increased. It’s now covered in basic training and reinforced annually.
The services had to decide whether or not to train male and female recruits together or separately. Only the Marine Corps decided to continue training female recruits separately in boot camp. The other services combined men and women and trained them in combined units.
The Army had, several years ago, a scandal involving sexual harrassment and abuse of female recruits by drill sergeants. So these are still issues the services have to deal with.
So overall, yes, it was managed well, but it was managed well over time by a large military bureaucracy committed to making it work. These sorts of changes don’t happen overnight.
Like I’ve said before, yes, I advocate change, but it has to be done like this. Lay the groundwork, and then make it happen. Otherwise, change will fail. And we don’t want that to happen here. The stakes are way too high.
But how do you explain the fact that they haven’t even begun to change? Why wasn’t the groundwork begun 10 years ago?
What reasonable explanation is there besides the bigotry of the brass, as demonstrated so aptly when Clinton first spoke of lifting the ban? For intance, in 1993 a Congressional survey of all active-duty Admirals and Generals showed over 90% opposed lifting the ban. Many members of the Joints Chiefs of Staff threatened to resign if Clinton issued the executive order he promised and instructed Les Aspin to draft it. What is the basis for that opposition besides bigotry?
You ask us to consider a rationale besides bigotry; but you give us nothing else to consider. The evidence, I’m afraid supports the conclusion that the military, and the brass in particular, is homophobic.
I never made any such assertion in this thread. I won’t waste my time trying, either, because I’ve already been told that “every time you put out more words on the subject you come off more and more like an bigoted ignorant dumbfuck asshole” after explaining why morale might be affected. I don’t feel the need to be insulted or dismissed just because you’re offended by it.
But then again, I have to ask, is discrimination automatically bigotry? Because the military discriminates all of the time.
Living quarters are better for officers than for enlisted personnel, for example. Also, annoying requirements that are routinely foisted on junior enlisted personnel, like being required to live aboard ship, are routinely waived for officers.
The military also won’t let in some people that would be let into any normal job. If you’ve ever joined the Communist Party, you can’t join the Army. This is not a line item on the Wal-Mart or Amway application.
There are good reasons for all of this. And, at one time, it was considered quite sound to exclude homosexuals as well. For one thing, they were considered security risks because they could be blackmailed. I alluded to this earlier.
The military also feared that sexual misconduct among men confined together would created morale problems, as it had in foreign militaries. The Royal Navy was notorious for this, leading to Winston Churchills famous expression, “Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”
I don’t think either of these issues are particularly germane today. But the prohibition against gays in the military remains, as a holdover of days past. Since the prohibition against gays in the military goes back a century or more, the continuation of the policy today could as easily be explained by inertia as by bigotry.
Again, I’m not the military apologist in this thread. But please consider how long it took to get women onto combat ships, a decision, BTW, I still wrestle with. This is an institution that resists change of any kind. Why would this change be any different? Just because you favor it more, Homebrew?
No it’s not, which is why it’s important to look at the reason behind the discrimination. Presumably officers are treated better than enlisted because officers have more responsibilities than enlisted and so are accorded privileges commensurate with those responsibilities.
And the military’s bar on openly gay servicemembers is based on…what? Empirical evidence that it has a negative effect on the military? Cite the study. Every study of the issue I’ve ever heard of, from the Crittendon Report in 1957 to the DoD’s own internal study in 1989 (the PERSEREC report) recommending abolishing the ban to the RAND Corporation report in the early 90s, has found no rational reason for maintaining the ban. Most of the court decisions affirming the ban have nothing to do with its merits but instead rely on the traditional deference civilian courts give the military to conduct its own business. The Vice-President, back when he was Secretary of Defense, had a gay assistant secretary (Pete Williams, now an NBC reporter) and declared the policy an “old chestnut.” Discrimination without rational basis is bigotry, period.
The only reasons military homosexuals could be blackmailed were because of societal prejudice against them and the fear of losing their military job. Societal prejudice has lessened over the last several decades. Remove the ban and you remove the last major underpinning of the blackmail argument.
By the way, AFAIK there are no recorded cases of an American soldier being blackmailed by a foreign power. The only instances of blackmail of homosexuals on record is the blackmail perpetrated by the military in hopes of turning up more homosexuals.
Then punish sexual misconduct rather than tarring all homosexual servicemembers as potential perpetrators.
Bullshit. If it was “inertia” that kept the ban in place then when Clinton moved to end it in 1993 the brass wouldn’t have reacted as violently as it did.
Riiiiight.
The difference being that gay people are and always have been fully integrated into the military.
Again, Otto, I agree. I said these issues aren’t valid today. I’ve said that the ban should be lifted. All I’ve tried to do in this thread is to help people understand military culture (without defending it, because I have issues with it as well.)
I’ve also spelled out the steps necessary for change to happen, because it won’t happen overnight. Training, judicial procedures, and the like would need to be in place first. An ongoing effort by the leadership would need to be made to make the transition happen. If this doesn’t happen, chaos will be the result, with gay servicemembers the victims.
I don’t know, because I wasn’t there, but perhaps the Pentagon leadership was resisting just such rapid and disruptive change. I can certainly understand why they’d fear it.
Goddammit. You keep saying it’s a disruptive change; but HOW is it so disruptive? The experience of our NATO Allies gives lie to that paranoia. The U.S. along with Turkey stands alone in banning gays from serving. Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK allow gays and lesbians to serve freely.
Except that not always true. The Armed Forces were racially integrated long before society in general and they accepted women into leadership roles as equals more readily than churches and business. In terms of judging a person on merit rather than immutable characteristics, the Military has often been the leader, except in this case.
And you’re not listening to me, Homebrew. If the change is quick, without adequate training, and without adequate discipline, it will be disruptive.
The change to include more women caused some disruptions, even with training and discipline. Same with integration of the force.
I am not being paranoid here. But I think anybody here with any understanding at all of the military knows that this will take some doing. Maureen has said it wouldn’t be easy, and she’s a veteran. Gobear stated earlier that he “understand(s) and respect(s) the military’s unease that openly gay soldiers could be prejudicial to good order and discipline,” though he too opposes DADT.
I have to ask, now, what the hell are we debating? Sounds like we’re all on the same page.
You said we’re wrong to assume bigotry on the part of the Brass because of it’s resistence to allowing gay members to serve openly. What we’ve been arguing is that the evidence, from the progress made with integration and other nations’ experiences, shows that if the Brass wanted to, they could make the change. Therefore we’re left only with bigotry as an explanation of why the Military refuses to lift the ban.
This charge of bigotry is supported by the continued harassment of suspected gay service members while the Officer Corps turns a blind eye or even participates.
from a 2000 report referenced by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
(bolding mine)
The lack of training points to the conclusion that the Military Brass has no intention to move from it’s position of bigotry. The groundwork you claim needs to be laid doesn’t seem to have even started. What can explain that failure except prejudice?
And again, Homebrew, there’s a concession from me above that in a force of 1.4 million service members, there are homophobes, and incidents will occur.
Get any 1.4 million Americans together, and tell me that wouldn’t be so. Hell, this many people would be a sizeable American city.
I can tell you that when I was in, it was made quite clear to me in any command I was in that harrassment of another servicemember for any reason wasn’t going to be tolerated. This was backed up by general military training that covered sexual harrassment, and that included harrassment of gays and lesbians.
I agree with the assertion above, that DADT shields attackers. Again, another reason I favor getting rid of it.
As to why the military hasn’t started changing - simple. The mission of the military isn’t to be a place for social change. It’s to fight wars, which it’s doing well now. The military simply isn’t going to fix what doesn’t seem broken. I’ll admit that fully.
The military didn’t integrate until Truman made them do so through executive order, after which point they followed their orders and did so well. The military didn’t admit women into greater roles in the 1990’s on its own, either. That change was directed from higher up in the executive branch.
This change will have to be directed as well. It’s just how it has to be. Expecting the military to self-direct this change is not realistic.
Besides, think of the wonderful excuse it gives the homophobes in the military? They can go forward with a clear conscience, because they can blame the change on the civilians. 
OK troops listen up! This is Richard Simmons. He is gonna teach us a class in “Bitch slap the terrorist 101.”
This guy is Christopher Lowell, he is gonna re-design the battlefield for us and give it a little feng shui.
These guys are the Fab Five. They are gonna give us all makeovers so we carry that certain savoire faire’ and panache’ as we get our asses blown off!
Sorry guys as long as that stereotype is alive, gays in the military will never be taken seriously.
I know that is a generalization, and I understand that they do not portray the majority of gays, but until a few sour apples stop ruining the image, the whole barrel will be tainted.
Just my $0.02
You are fucking moron.
I know that it is a generalization, and I understand that you do not portray the majority of Texans, but until a few sour apples stop ruining the image, the whole barrel will be tainted.
:wally
So what we need is a summer action movie with lots of explosions about three gay sweat-drench commandos kicking alien ass, is that it? Then all the impressionable teens will leave the theater going, “Wow, I used to think gays were just a bunch of poofers, but now I see they’re really muscular, teeth-grinding, uber-macho supermen!”
Pity that Arnold Schwarzenegger is busy these days, he’d be a perfect fit for the role…
