Wasn’t Klinger not gay but a cross-dresser in MASH? I thought it was his uncle who used the gay card to get out of WWI…
Aren’t all floridians a bunch of idiots who couldn’t vote correctly if their lives depended on it?
See it isn’t a statement, it’s a question.
If you go back and read my post again, you will see that I mentioned more than just equipment. The field these linguists were in is a field that requires more than just a g.e.d. to complete.
Keep in mind that the policymakers in the military are Officers.
Officers in todays military are expected to hold at least a bachelors degree, and yet, despite these educated men and women being the people setting policy, this ban continues. So I guess education has little to do with this ban.
P.s. The above question in no way indicates my true feelings about Floridians. It was used to make a point.
Also, here is a page with the minimum Army educational requirements for enlistment.
You will see that the minimum is a high-school diploma or equivalent. Not uneducated.
I would like to point out that the scores particlewill quoted above can be scored by a drooling idiot. Airman and I both maxed out the ASVAB Test.
I would also like to point out that most training and testing materials generated by the Armed Forces are written at a roughly ninth-grade level so they can be widely understood.
Until we get a President who is willing to stop pandering to the Religious Right, and until the services are willing to risk the fallout that forced integration will cause, nothing is going to change. All this discussion about the ban is so much navel-gazing.
Robin
As of 1998, more than half of Americans 25–64 years of age has some education beyond high school (cite: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/huscht98.pdf)
When I said “uneducated”, I didn’t mean they never saw a classroom in their lives, I meant that compared to other segments of the population they had less schooling.
Anyway, it was only a speculation on my part as to why the armed forces seem to be even more bigoted against gays than the rest of America. I never claimed anything more.
And here’s some more speculation: Perhaps the reason than people who have higher education in the public sector seem to be less bigoted is not a direct result of the education, but due to the fact that during the process of being educated they come into more contact with those they might be bigoted against.
No military training will bring a soldier into contact with “out” gays, so that education will do nothing to help anti-gay bigotry.
But yet you completely ignore my mention that the people who set the policy are generaly highly educated. Private Joe doesn’t set military policy. And I have found that General so-and-so isn’t usualy all that interested in Private Joe’s opinion one way or the other. So the assertion that a less educated majority in the military sets policy is asinine.
And, again, the fact that so many LGBT servicepeople have already served and currently serve in the military with distinction proves that integration can be successful.
Esprix
I guess what I am saying here is, do not blame the military in general for the ban. Blame those who make policy. If the Prez went on TV and said, “The Military must accept Gays and welcome them with open arms,” then the military would just have to suck it up, (so to speak) and do as the Commander-in-Chief says.
Those who didn’t like it would have to either live with it or leave when their enlistment is up.
But wuth this C.I.C. I doubt that will be happening soon.
Was General so-and-so higher’s education in a public college, or military school that banned gays? As I said before, I doubt that an education in an institution that bans gays will lessen anti-gay bigotry very much.
And even if the General did get his degree in a non-military school, or is totally unbigoted (for whatever reason, school or not) surely it’s possible that he might make policy with an eye towards not inciting Private Joe’s bigotry? Just because he doesn’t ask Private Joe’s opinion, I doubt that means he’s going to totally ignore it at the expense of dissention in the ranks.
Not blaming the military but blaming the CIC is like holding a parent 100 percent responsible when a child does something wrong. The parent might take some blame, but certainly not more than the child.
No, why would you say that? Define “uneducated.”
There’s a prevailing assumption here that professional soldiers are stupid or are all rednecks. That simply is not so.
Then MsRobyn said:
“Forced integration”? What are you talking about? Will they have to bus “homos” across town into all-straight areas? There’s nothing “forced” about NOT DISCRIMINATING.
And frankly, this should not be the service’s call. They’re supposed to follow the orders of civilian government, and if they don’t like it, well, get a new job. The right thing to do is for the government to say “No more rules against gays. Now go do your job.” Until the government does the right thing, it’s quite right to complain about it, because it’s wrong. It was wrong for the Army to be segregated by race, too.
Look, I was a soldier. I was a soldier in an army that, during my tenure, reversed this very rule. Lots of soldiers said they didn’t agree with it. I argued it was right and we had some heated discussions. Nobody’s unit fell apart or stopped doing its mission. They sucked it up and went on serving, as they should have, and it wasn’t really an issue for very long. I suspect the rank and file of the U.S. armed services would go on doing their jobs just as well as before.
Well, I can understand the point that Airman Doors was making back when – that when you have a valued and experienced employee with a particular quirk, you may find it better to ignore that quirk than to get rid of that employee’s experience and skills simply to avoid the quirk.
When the “experience and skills” are the strategic and tactical abilities of a longstanding general (the “valued employee”) and the quirk is homophobia…
Well, while the rule of the game is that he’s obliged to take the orders of the civilians over him – the President as Commander in Chief, and the Congress as the lawmakers who define what he may or may not do under the law – insisting that he get rid of the quirk when that may make him quit could be seen as counterproductive, regardless of how “right” it is in a moral and legal sense.
I admit this was mere speculation.
Look. The U.S. Armed Services have long been attractive to that segment of the population that either does not want or cannot attain further schooling. They feel that a high school diploma plus whatever training they can get in the service is sufficient.
A piece of paper from a high school or a college is not proof that someone is “educated”. We’ve all known people who may have a PhD but who still hold on to bigoted and ignorant attitudes. I can tell you Navy stories about shipmates who abused local residents of the cities we visited because they didn’t know local customs and didn’t care to learn about them. All of these people had high-school diplomas, and some of them were even college graduates. To me, “educated” connotes someone who is knowledgable about the world we live in, and who is reasonably open-minded about it.
I’m not saying (and have never said) that gays shouldn’t be in the military. I think that reversing the ban would be mutually beneficial to everyone. However, a lot is going to have to change before that can take place. The first and most important is that the pandering to the Religious Right needs to stop. The second is that there needs to be a better tolerance of gays. Tolerance can’t be forced; it took generations before blacks and women were fully accepted and integrated into the services. And the third is that the brass needs to make sure that a blind eye is never turned to discrimination and harassment. Without these things, a reversal on the ban of homosexuality is doomed to fail.
Robin
I would contend they are not fully accepted even today, sadly. Sexism thrives in many areas of the military.
For those who were discussing showers, what the fuck? The issue here is the same as the issue with women in Infantry units. A combatant’s personal feelings (based on being in a romantic relationship with another member of the unit) superceding the individual’s unwavering commitment to the mission and to the unit while under fire. If my girlfriend/boyfriend is pinned down, I may place a higher emphasis on his/her safety, and sacrifice the mission. If I were not romantically interested in said man/woman, she’d be treated like anyone else, not special. Their problem is not so much with gays in the military, but with ROMANCE in combat.
Not showers.
NOTE: This has been a point of clarification regarding the intent of this rule, and in no way defends or supports this rule, or the one about women in combat units.
Why is it that all the really interesting screennames invariably belong to assholes?
I was just thinking the same thing… what a waste of a good screen name.
Calling Libertarian…Libertarian, please answer the manly white, incredibly butch Man’s Phone in the Patriarchy Room.
Libertarian, please answer the manly white, incredibly butch Man’s Phone in the Patriarchy Room.
::grunt scratch::
**Pariah Carey wrote:
The greatest benefit, of course, would be the elimination of large numbers of these perverts from our society.**
Looks like another ape learned to walk up-right and figured out the secret of fire.