I have seen militaries that have political opinions. I do not like living in or even visiting countries with those sorts of militaries.
I do not care what anyone in uniform thinks about political matters. It is not a democracy.
Are you normally in the habit of making decisions without regard for their effects?
If the army wanted you to have an opinion, they would have issued you one.
I knew that article would show up here. Right on the money as usual. 
Well, I’m not outraged, but it’s not as if they asked soilders how they felt about racial integration, women on naval vessels or in fighter planes. The politicians told command to make it so, and it was so, and, with few exceptions, that’s how it should be.
They wouldn’t.
No it doesn’t.
The effects will be whatever the fuck they are ordered to be.
The military is making no decision. The politicians are making a decision. When they make it, soldiers will do as they are told.
No, the effects will be much more far-reaching than that.
I would venture to say that the effects will somewhat decimate the military. Not that it’s a bad thing, mind you, but we need to face reality.
I predict that no less than one in five enlisted men, maybe more, and one in four officers will quit just as soon as they can. This change will be no less devastating to the military than integration was.
It’s one thing to talk about following orders, it’s another thing to talk about the reality of the situation. Oh, people will follow orders until the very day that they can get out, and they’re gone. That’s the absolute reality of it. While that’s not a bad thing, it will definitely reduce the military for years to come until people like me who don’t care start to enlist. It’ll also make the military much more white, as it were, because African-Americans, from every poll I’ve seen, absolutely hate homosexuals.
Hell, this could be a good thing for me. I’m already up for Master Sergeant, what with the loss of people I might one day make Chief. Bring it on.
Speaking as a Bleeding Heart Liberal, I hope you are wrong. But if we are short of people, maybe they can unretire me!
I think they recycled that last response for the current poll.
I don’t see how it’s a bad idea to find out what the views of service members are. Both the civilian and military authorities are going to have to deal with the consequences of any decisions that are made about gays serving in the armed forces. Planning ahead is a better idea than waiting and reacting after the fact.
None of this will happen. For all their talk, the career types won’t go anywhere when push comes to shove. This is not a volatile an issue as integration was, and there isn’t any draft anymore.
Believe what you want.
Of course, I AM there, and I actually deal with these people. But hey, as always you know better than I do.
We’ll see. For my part, I have no doubt whatsoever that my numbers will hold up where I’m at. None whatsoever.
Some people, including military people, made similar doom-and-gloom predictions before countries like Australia, the UK, and Canada allowed gays to serve openly in the military, and yet in those countries the transition has been smooth and pretty much hassle-free, and hasn’t resulted in anything like the dramatic declines in personnel that you are predicting for the US military.
If you’re right about the attrition rate that will occur in the United States, then the only conclusions we can reasonably draw is that American soldiers are not, in fact the professionals that they claim to be, and that Americans as a population are more bigoted and reactionary than people in similar Western democracies. And that will be pretty damn sad, in my opinion.
Here are lists of countries that allow gays to serve openly (Group A), and countries that don’t (Group B):
Group A Group B
Australia China
United Kingdom Cuba
Spain Egypt
Germany Iran
New Zealand North Korea
Canada Singapore
Israel Syria
France Turkey
Netherlands Venezuela
Norway Yemen
That the US is still siding with Group B in this issue is a discredit to its government, its military, and its people.
Whence came this information?
No, it implies that they are human, and products of their environment. They need only be “professional” for the terms of their commitment, and no more.
Is there any doubt of that? You need only look at the results of Prop 8 in California, by far the most “liberal” state in the United States, to see that.
Agreed. But that’s the way it is.
I originally got it from Wikipedia, when i posted the same lists in a thread some months ago.
If you want a more scholarly, official source, you can read Gays in Foreign Militaries 2010: A Global Primer (PDF), produced by the Palm Center at UC Santa Barbara. Near the end, the report lists countries that allow gays to serve openly.
The Executive Summary of the report contains an interesting observation that speaks directly to the argument that allowing gays to serve in the US will lead large numbers of servicemembers refusing to re-enlist:
It could be that, despite the threats, American servicemen and women will do the same.
If they resign just because of the policy, that suggests that their sense of professionalism is subordinate to their bigotry. That would make them pretty unprofessional, in my book.
I’m actually quite surprised at the reputation California has in America, most often among people who actually don’t seem to know very much about it. Many people seem to be under the impression that the state consists of San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and a few select neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
Rather than point to the Prop 8 decision as a surprise (i was disappointed by the result, but not especially surprised), maybe it simply indicates that California isn’t as liberal as many people assume. Despite the stereotype of Birkenstock-wearing hippies that Americans love to throw about, California has large swaths of very conservative people. The whole Inland Empire and the Central Valley contains tons of conservatives, as do SoCal coastal urban regions like San Diego and Orange Counties, and Ventura County. The conservatism here is reflected not only on social and cultural issues like Prop 8 and immigration, but on economic issues like property taxes (the famous, or infamous, Prop 13 of 1978).
Not to mention that Nixon and Reagan both come from California.