His argument (or at least the argument of other people who’ve made a similar argument to his), is that the presence of a known homosexual in a unit will decrease unit cohesion. Unit cohesion is basically the ability of a group to complete a task, and the argument is that it will reduce unit cohesion because the other members in the unit won’t like the gay or lesbian servicemember, won’t trust the gay or lesbian servicemember, and will be uncomfortable being around and working with the gay or lesbian servicemember. This might be conscious, with servicemembers actively taking actions or refusing to work with the gay or lesbian servicemember, or it might not even be conscious, leading to just a vague feeling of unease which causes tension So, therefore, personnel problems will make the military unit less efficient at performing their jobs. Since a combat unit’s job is to kill the bad guys and keep each other alive, this will lead to more combat deaths, because the troops won’t be as good at doing that.
::groan:: 
Agree 100%
I thought that he was actually different, and that his wartime experiences had given him an insight that other Republicans (and most Democrats) were lacking. Honor seemed to matter, and politics could be a civil affair, as after all both political parties were working in service to the greater good of the country as a whole.
I now believe that he spent every idle moment in captivity masturbating to mental images of 1000’s of different middle-aged housewives, except of course for his own wife, who was waiting at home for him.
Fuck you John McCain—When you die, you will be forgotten by the entire world within months, another senile old letcher, cold in the ground…
Given the number of Arabic interpreters they’ve lost due to DADT when there’s a backlog of documents to be translated I’d be very surprised to learn that DADT hasn’t led to deaths.
I have a good friend who’s a very decorated Navy Seal (long out of service and now a teacher). I won’t link to his facebook- wish I could- but it has a picture of him with members from his unit in Somalia and this (posted with his permission) caption:
"I am literally alive today because of comrades who were queer as a three dollar bill. I am not the only one, I literally trusted my lives to them and they did not let me down. I don’t discount McCain’s ordeal as a POW. I know the tortures he endured. Getting captured, however, doesn’t give you the moral ground to be an unimpeded douche bag for the rest of your overprivaleged, seemingly interminable time on this planet. As a former Seal from a Gold Star family I think I speak for the majority of us who went when called and fought next to those not telling when I say to McCain…“Shut the f@#k up. Sir.”
I was just mentioning this to my (Gulf War helicopter pilot) roomie last night.
Roomie said that there was only one lesbian she had a problem with. The other lesbians and gays did their jobs and didn’t bother her.
Re: McCain ‘letting himself be captured’. Wasn’t he injured such that he could not E&E? (Not that I agree with his stance on DADT, but fair is fair.)
I hope McCain lives long enough to win a Mickey Rooney look&soundalike contest the same week that Colin Powell divorces his wife and marries Ricky Martin in Vermont. Even the she-McCains seem to think he’s an irrelevant joke.
Yeah, removed that part as did my friend (which he admits he wrote in haste and anger).
In fairness, this is one argument that I have heard for not allowing women to serve in combat positions.
It means that now, and through his life, McCain lacks judgement. There are no shortage of people who maintain baseless ideas about this subject, and McCain used their voices to base his objections on. I’m disappointed that he doesn’t stand up and voice his own homophobia instead of using other’s to justify his stand.
Sadly, once again when John has been asked to lead, he has responded ‘Get off of my lawn!’
I thought it was clear that I do think it is stupid. The person who “explained” all this to me is a retired army officer who denies that he ever served with a gay person during his thirty year term. He isn’t exactly atypical in his beliefs.
It isn’t fun to watch a fallen hero.
He will go down in history as the last gasp in support of discrimination against gays in the military. What an unfortunate legacy.
Really, what’s with this guy that I used to disagree with but still respected? Did something happen at the Hanoi Hilton that he wants to remain secret forever?
The only thing that I can make of his statement is that he is saying that if all the closeted Republican homosexuals in the Senate suddenly came out they would kill him. Maybe that’s what he’s worried about.
This.
I think a large part of it is the generational transition. Baby Boomers are very concerned about ideological purity (whichever way their ideology happens to skew). Gen-Xers just want to get sh*t done. If what you think, feel, believe, or do doesn’t have anything to do with how well you do the job, we don’t give a f—.
Wow! With all the strong negative opinions expressed here, I had to double check to see if I’d wandered into the Pit by mistake. Don’t think I’ve seen this kind of thing in GQ before.
Anyway, about Gold Star families. I believe it originated in WWI. A family would put a silver star in their front window for every member who was in the service. A one of them died in combat, they changed the star to gold. It was basically a subtle form of bragging. I doubt if anyone actually puts the stars up anymore, but I could be wrong.
That is absolutely moronic, people dislike their co-workers all the damned time, and the job still gets done. The exact same damned excuse was used before they integrated the military, and the world didn’t explode when the first blacks got integrated. Many foreign military have gay-integrated service and they seem to muddle along just fine, and you can’t tell me that there are absolutely no homophobes in those armies.
Oh, no, it’s very common. There are little banners. (Maybe if you lived in AMERICA’S REAL HEARTLAND you’d see them all the time instead of whatever GODLESS LIBERAL BASTION you inhabit.)
Yes, that’s the argument in a nutshell. It’s the same tired tripe that was spouted in the '50s when Blacks were integrated into the services. It was discredited then. It was used in the '80s when women in uniform were becoming more common and wished to serve in more than limited capacities. It was discredited then too.
I went through Navy basic training in the early '80s. The company commander (naval equivalent of a DI) was required to lecture the unit on how to deal with navy women. He went into a 15-minute rant about the evils of women in “his” navy, then summed up by saying…“but you gotta be verrry careful how you treat 'em because they WILL screw you”. He did not mean “have sex with you”, he meant that if you gave a woman any reason however slight to file a harrassment charge, you’d be in big trouble. His attitude was that of a lot of “old heads”, but fortunately did not prevail.
FWIW, there have always been gays in the military, of course. Until now they just couldn’t be open about it. I knew several when I was in. In most cases it was a pretty open secret, most of the unit knew (or thought) they were gay, but as long as they did their job well and were generally well liked, it was never an issue. Unit cohesiveness works that way too…once someone is accepted within a unit, everyone in the group will willingly cover for them even if they don’t necessarily approve.
John McCain is an old man, stubbornly clinging to old prejudices and probably engaging in a bit of pandering to what he sees as his conservative base. Full acceptance of gays in the military will go foreward, as it should, and within a couple of years will be a non-issue.
SS
Reminds one of Wiiliam Jennings Bryan. Once the best voice against robber barons and warmongers now pandering to Bible literalists.
There are such people as non-elite Americans. I guess it’s too possible to abandon their legitimate fears and serve their irrational ones, calculating the’re that “some of the people” you can fool all of the time.
Agreed. I had a lot of respect for John McCain, back in the day, as someone who went through hell in the Hanoi Hilton, backed up Bill Clinton on normalizing trade relations with Vietnam, pushed for campaign finance reform and generally spoke his mind, but the Palin selection, his lurching hard-right on immigration to win his GOP primary earlier this year, and now this… ugh. A shabby, sorry end to what could have been a great career.