How seriously does the US military take 'homosexual misconduct'?

Factual Questions
41

Since this isn’t in GD and I’m frankly not feeling up to debating it anyway, I’ll just point out for the record that I am very well aware of the difference between being in the military and working in an office building. Especially considering that I, my parents, three of my uncles, my grandfather, etc. etc. have all served in the US military.

I think you’ll find that spending your most formative years without a father figure because your dad is serving in Iraq, and then growing up to serve in the military yourself, and then watching your father die from a service-related disability, will tend to educate you on the difference between a military job and a regular office job.

Just a little.

42

By the way, you’ll also find that Richard Marcinko was right when he said that assuming makes an ass out of U and me.

Oh my God, how did I know who Richard Marcinko is?! I thought I was some pinko sissy-boy!

43

I don’t wish to highjack but, I remember reading William Manchester’s Good bye Darkness he mentioned being brought into large formations where they would trot out someone who had been convicted of homosexual acts and publicly sentence them to 99 years. :eek: I wonder what happened to those guys.

44

My answer to the OP:

It boils down to a combination of three factors for the in-service homosexual:

  1. Job Performance

  2. Personal Behavior

  3. Unit Leadership

If you are gay, in the military, and you do your job well, aren’t “Out, Loud, And Proud!!!”, and your unit leadership is more concerned about getting their mission accomplished rather than social engineering, then you’ll probably be okay.

All of that is subject to change. For instance, a change-of-command could lead to your serving under some medieval bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone spewing Phelpsian nightmare who will not only see you discharged from the military, but will go out of their way to see to it that you suffer through every step along the way in the most humiliating way possible.

We had several known homosexuals in both of the units (combat arms) I served in during my time in the Army. The quiet ones who took their private lives off-post and “away” were left alone. The ones who insisted on having same-sex orgies in the barracks came to grief.

We did have one seriously dumb-assed kid who confessed to being gay in order to secure a discharge, but he declined to ever “prove” he was gay.

45

I’m sorry to quote the whole thing but this is spot on. Well done, and very accurate.

46

Because it’s a tradeoff. They’re letting the gay person be open at the expense of the people that have to shower with them. Is it a good tradeoff? I dunno. I’d rather have it our way. Is there a reason that a gay person has to be out about it? As has been pointed out already, if it’s downplayed (not necessarily hidden), no one cares but a few jerks.

Didn’t say you did. It’s not about physical harm. It’s about not wanting someone to see you naked if they can be attracted to you. Men can’t shower with women for the same reason.

I haven’t said any of that. Again, it’s not about physical harm, assault, rape, or any of that. It’s about privacy of one’s body. That’s why it’s more of a problem in units that find themselves living together closely and less of a problem in HQ units like mine. It’s not “If you let gays be open, all hell breaks loose.”, it’s “If you let gays be open, it does more harm than good.”

I’d be OK, I guess, with a policy for gays that’s the same for women. In certain units, you can’t mix sexual attraction into the equation. If it’s OK for a woman to be in the unit, it’s OK for a gay. I suppose if you want me to change my mind, you have to convince me that the closetting sacrifice is *worse *than the sacrifices that would be made by straights living closely with gays.

47

Oh Jesus fucking Christ IntelSoldier, my eyes just rolled right up into my head. You’re saying that the right for someone else to actually be open about their lives (the same right you seem to take for granted) and not get summarily fired from their career, is not only equal to, but is trumped by your desire to not be seen by other men naked in the shower who might fancy you.

What are you, 12? This is the most pathetic reasoning I’ve heard coming out of the mouth of someone on this subject. “I don’t want you to look at me in the shower” is the kind of thing that was said to me when I was in secondary school by people who were too young and ignorant to know any better. You’re asking other people to forfeit one of the most fundamental rights we ask for in free society, to be ourselves and not have to lie about who we are, on the basis that these people make you feel a bit icky.

With that reasoning then lets give the blacks their own water fountains again, because I’m not comfortable with people of other colours associating with me and so I shouldn’t have to if I don’t want to. Oh yes, and those Jews, we all know what sneaky and duplicitious people they are and I’d prefer not to have to deal with them at all, so I think they should wear stars of David on their clothes for everyone to see in case they feel the same. Hey, I’m in the majority, so what I want goes, right? And if those people want to serve in the military with me, well, I agree it’s a sacrifice they have to make but I think it’s worth it for me not to be slightly uncomfortable.

48

Do you have a cite on this, because I’m having a hard time believing it. Probably a third of the enlisted people I knew in the Army who had children, had them out of wedlock. I know you said you saw someone discharged from it during Basic Training, but during Basic you can get administratively discharged for any cause that would likely interfere with your ability to finish initial training (failure to pass fitness or qualification tests, illness, being unable to adapt to military life, etc).

It’s true that the Army does take in interest in things like spousal abuse, debt, failure to meet child support obligations, DUI (which is a big one). But at no time in any of my UCMJ classes did I ever hear anything about any punitive sanctions for having a child born out of wedlock.

49

Ha! In the military? You’re kidding me, right?

Your whole argument boils down to “Gay people make me uncomfortable. Therefore I’m cool with segregating them, or at least keeping up appearances of segregation. But they can still serve as long as they lie about who they are to everyone for their entire career. So I’m not a homophobe.” Yeah, have fun defending that position.

50

I get that as a general argument, but why the US military in particular? As I mentioned other countries have done just fine without a ban. Is there some major difference in how the US military operates that would require it as compared to the others?

51

I’ve already conceded (perhaps in another thread, I don’t remember) that it may well just be something you get kicked out of basic for. I’m not about to dig up cites because I don’t strongly believe it’s in the UCMJ and have no personal experience to corroborate that part one way or the other, so I hereby retract the statement in question.

52

Where do you get the idea that it’s a right to act however you want and get any job you want? A religious school can fire me for being an atheist. A hospital can fire me for smoking at work. In neither of these cases is it wrong to *be *an atheist or smoker. It’s wrong to show that. Same thing here. There is no right for someone to be open about their lives and not get fired for it. So yeah, I trump your fake “fundamental right”.

Under your logic, I could validly argue that if a woman won’t let me into their shower room, that they’re acting like 12 yr olds. What’s the difference between me looking at women and you looking at men in the shower? It is absurd to think that rejection of either is childish.

No I’m not. You can be who you are and not lie about it. Just don’t expect to keep your job (which, again, you aren’t entitled to).

Slightly? It’s my body. I’m saying “I don’t want you seeing it.” and you’re saying “Too bad. Let me in. Pass the soap?”

No, I’m not kidding you. I don’t understand how you can’t see the value of a policy that separates a person from the people he or she’d be attracted to. I’m not sure where you get the idea that my body is surrendered upon entry. *Could *they make me undress in front of women? Or a woman in front of men? Yes. But you’re arguing that they should.

You’re calling me a homophobe because I don’t want to shower/live with gay men? What’s next? I’m a homophobe if I don’t want to blow them? Yeah, have fun defending that position.

It’s not required. It’s simply better. I already said I could live with an open military. It’s not an improvement, though.

53

Intelsoldier - congrats, you just made my jaw fall open. There’s nothing more I can say on this topic to you, we’re very clearly living on different planets.

54

Ditto

55

I should add, though, that I’d appreciate it if all the people arguing against me (or for me) would specify if they agree with each other. It’s hard separating all my responses by person, and I end up crossing my ideas. Should I assume that those against me are united? For example, Illum, are you calling me a homophobe like DrCube?

56

While I have no problem with gay people, the US Army or the Illuminati, I feel I could get better behind this rant if service in the US military was mandatory, like a lot of European countries. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will allow you - that is, the volunteering you - to serve if you keep your personal life personal. I believe that is, pragmatically speaking, fine.

On a moral and ethical standpoint, of course, I believe it should be irrelevant under the context that no matter what your sexual orientation is, work romance is disallowed. A serviceman fondling another serviceman should be punished equally as much as a serviceman fondling a servicewoman.

As for large, or at least vocal and apparently influential, parts of the Military being uncomfortable around homosexual people held to the same standards as heterosexual people, I can only ask whether there’s been any research into the scale of the discomfort actually affecting readyness status. I mean, you’re already in one of the most dangerous, most stressed, high-tension jobs imagineable, usually living under rudimentary conditions in deployment zones. Of all the stresses in the job, the sexual orientation of the guy showering next to you is what’s going to crack you?

Of course, I hope that the discomfort stereotypically felt by many heterosexual men around homosexual men will go away.
For the record, I do not feel that the civil rights of GLBT automatically trumps out here. The US Military is a volunteer enterprise where your life is only a tertiary issue in the scheme of things. Form should definitely follow function, in these cases and if actual and well-done research could show that having openly homosexual soldiers in the army would degrade combat effectiveness, mission readiness and so forth, that would be acceptable by me.

(Just to clarify: I don’t believe it would matter one way or the other, absent individual units who might get stuck with assholes who happen to be gay. Of course a blanket ban on being an asshole might be more judicious than blanket banning teh gay, but hey - since when should one treat the disease rather than the symptoms, eh?)

57

Were these men or women? I suspect that it makes a difference.

I was wondering about this. Especially during this war, I would think a few comments about the CIC would have slipped out by this point.

Yeah I think those foreigners who think it’s a theocracy over here have an exaggerated sense of how it really is. Attitudes are contextual - they depends on the situation (is it a poor teenager who is going to live on welfare and doesn’t understand birth control or a single professional woman who wants to raise a child on her own), and location (in the city few would look askance, but in a bible thumping rural town they might get all up in your business). The states here can be as culturally distinct as countries are in Europe.

It doesn’t surprise me that they contacted the guidance counselor, but it does surprise me that she gave out this information. Are military or general clearance investigators immune from doctor patient confidentiality?

True. Same thing happened with the CIA. “We can’t hire gays because they could be blackmailed, but they have to keep it a secret or else we won’t hire them” is quite the Catch-22. Now that they have pride day there, there’s no worries about blackmail and it’s not part of the hiring policy any more.

What kind of proof was asked for? :smiley:

That’s a lame reason. You’re already naked with a group of men. You already know that they aren’t allow to sexually harass you in any way. You have way more important things to worry about like guns and explosives. You already know that some of them are gay. You don’t know that just because someone is gay that they will be attracted to you in particular. But you want other soldiers to reorient their entire life so that you can avoid a small personal hang up. Get over it. Seriously, of all the things the military throws at you, that seems like if that’s going to break you, you aren’t going to be able to handle combat. Actually, I think they should put gays in showers on purpose to get rid of the guys who aren’t going to have the psychological strength to survive combat situations.

Is there some reason straight people have to be out about it? It would be a different situation if everyone in the military had to refrain from any talk about their personal lives or identity or preferences.

In any case I suspect it’s a straw man. If policy changed, people would learn to deal with it. The type of people who can’t deal with it probably aren’t the ideal candidates for the military experience anyway. And the amount of real man on woman harassment is probably a bigger actual problem.

58

It is simply not true that a single parent can not join the military. These situations are considered on a case-by-case basis. The military does want to ensure that single parents have contingency plans for child care during basic training and potential deployment, but if this is satisfied, they are generally OK with it.

I have personal experience with this. After my wife’s divorce from her first husband, she joined the Navy as a newly divorced single parent with two children. She went through six weeks of Officer Indoctrination School (OIS) in barracks. Her parents watched her kids. On several occasions she was told to standby for possible overseas deployment as a Navy Nurse in fleet hospitals or hospital ships. Once she was told to a pack a seabag and prepare for up to six months overseas. Her parents were ready to take the kids for her if this had happened.

I did of course mean the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). It was a typo.

I don’t the trainee was separated for the reason you think he was. I suspect the servicemember was separated for making noises about wanting to go home, and it was interfering with his ability to complete training.

Again, the issue is being able to do your job in the military, including completing the required training. It doesn’t have anything to do with being a single parent or having a child out of wedlock.

OK, you’ve said this twice, now. Cite?

59

Fair enough.

(I should finish reading the thread before posting.)

60

Don’t ask Don’t tell doesn’t keep gays from looking at you while naked in the shower, IntelSoldier. It just forces them to keep it a secret so you don’t have the option of taking a shower in the morning instead.

And I didn’t call you a homophobe. I implied that you were defending your position, and that of the Army, against charges of homophobia – with a poor outlook for success.