You answered your own question.
I don’t think I did. The fact is, neither a ban on gays in the military, nor a few people falsely claiming to be gay to dodge the draft stopped the draft from happening in the past. I don’t see why it would in the future.
As I lefty, I’m not all that impressed with Obama so far. Single payer should have been the law of the land by now.
However, the military suffers from a serious infection of old time religion.
Pissing them off by forcing gays onto em is just bound to cause all sorts of trouble. It’s better to purge the infection then change the policy.
Prudence is neither cowardice nor BS.
Claiming you were gay and had a lot more social reprecussions and was considerably more taboo in 1967. Even a lot of the people who were actually gay didn’t openly claim to be gay, nevermind
But now much of the stigma is gone, and its a hell of a lot easier to claim to be gay then to pull up stakes and run to Canada. Plus, of course, while in 1967 a good chunk of the actual gay population was in the closet and so presumably got drafted anyways. Now that closeted gays are rarer, even beyond people falsely claiming to be gay, DADT would be excluding several percent of the population from the draft.
Reminds me of the movie Stripes.
*Now, sometimes the Army’s
your best shot.
There’s some questions I have to ask.
They’re a little personal.
Have you ever been convicted
of a felony or a misdemeanour?
That’s robbery, rape, car theft,
that sort of thing?
-
Convicted?
-
Yeah.
-
No.
-
Never convicted.
That’s good. Good.
Are either of you homosexuals?
You mean, like, flaming or…?
Well, it’s a standard question
we have to ask.
No, we’re not homosexual,
but we are willing to learn.
Yeah, would they send us
someplace special?
*
How about: Obama isn’t a champion of gay rights?
The black community as a whole is pretty anti-gay. Obama has said that he’s opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds. So why would you think he has a burning desire to overturn ‘don’t ask - don’t tell’?
My guess is that his military advisers have told him not to do it, and his political advisers have told him not to do it, and it’s an issue that doesn’t matter much to him, so he’s not going to do it.
Well, he did make a campaign promise to do so. That doesn’t equate to a “burning desire”, but it does mean that he supports the repeal.
My guess is that, to the extent anyone is really even talking about this, it’s members of his party in Congress who are slowing things down. I expect that there are at least a few Democratic Congresscritters who are not wild about going on record as having allowed gays in the military.
As others have noted, Congress must act on this.
Uh…does that mean that this is less important than the DTV switch that he devoted time to already?
It could still be ahead of getting the NCAA to establish a Division 1 football playoff system, though.
Yeah, let’s not forget Perry Watkins.
He’s African-American, too. Wee!
So if I understand, he needs to spend his political capital on the economy, the environement, and health care. And then he will be able to use his remaining political capital on DADT, I wonder how much he will have left.
There’s still an awful lot of stigma regarding homosexuality, so I don’t think it would be common. Especially, because of don’t ask, don’t tell, the draft board just wouldn’t ask. What would likely happen is what the current de facto military policy is on homosexuality, which is, if you’re gay and they need you enough, they overlook it until they don’t need you anymore, and then they kick you out for being gay. Regardless of the actual regulations, that’s been the military’s real policy on homosexuality for quite some time.
I guess I qualify to answer this. Actually I do support repealing DADT, but this notion you have of protecting the privacy of a bedroom is just a foolish piece of twaddle when discussing military matters. According to the UCMJ there is no real privacy in this area - many things that are either small offenses or completely legal in the civilian world are criminalized in the military, as they are an affront to good order and discipline. Likewise, as a practical matter privacy does not exist in the military to the degree that it does in civilian life.
For about two years of my Navy enlistment I had 95 roommates - what privacy existed there?
Again, note that I support repeal of this law. That doesn’t change the fact that I witnessed two severe incidents in my five years of active duty involving gay servicemembers - these were massive breakdowns of discipline that had adverse effects on two separate military units. So while I think repeal is necessary, I don’t kid myself that things will be hunky-dory afterwards. A massive amount of training and strong discipline within units will be necessary to accomplish this, and even then there will be some incidents that will have to be dealt with individually.
The same applies to straight servicemembers, who get in trouble from time to time for adultery, nonsupport, sexual abuse, harassment and numerous other crimes. It would be wishful thinking to suppose that gay servicemembers are immune from this, both as perpetrators and victims. Dealing with this in the aftermath of repeal is the real test, and while I think the military can handle it people who don’t see the need for this are fooling themselves.
Note I said “their own bedroom”. When living with 95 other men I would not deem that as their own bedroom. When they go home on leave I’d say who they take into their bed is their own concern.
Certainly some behaviors are not cool while living in a military situation and that is understandable. I see nothing about being homosexual that makes a person any less capable of living in they environment. Indeed many homosexuals do get on just fine in that environment today and are not sneaking into their bunkmate’s bed for a quickie.
Gay service members are people like anyone else. Some are smart, some stupid. Some are cool, some assholes. They merely have a particular sexual attraction. Nothing else about them makes them any different and they are subject to all the foibles any human is. So sure, there will be conflict with gay service members. Bet there are interracial conflicts on occasion too in the military but we do not segregate or restrict service because of this. How is this any different?
There are lots and lots of cases where service men/women have served with distinction. Served for years and years. Then all of a sudden it’s, “You’re gay? You’re outta here!” Makes no sense.
Because telling gay people they can wait for their rights seems to be a perfectly valid political strategy. Elected officials routinely bump gay issues to the back burner in citing just about anything as a ‘more important’ issue. Why should Obama be any different.
Why hasn’t Obama done something?
Because he doesn’t give a shit about gay people – at least not after he’s gotten their vote. And hell, there will be enough gays who will buy the excuse that “he had to work on other priorities first but then will get to granting them equal rights” and subsequently vote for him for a second term (and it’s not like they’re going to vote Republican, anyway) that he doesn’t need to do anything for them.
Here’s a recent one. Yet another Arabic interpreter. It makes me weep that such a wonderful country can still be so blatantly, gloriously backwards. It would be deliciously ironic – the slavish, bumper-stickered soldier love and demand for protection at all costs versus the firing of a dozen valuable translators for what legal, consensual things they like to do with their genitals – if it weren’t so tragic.
An excerpt:
I don’t know about “an awful lot of stigma” now, even here in Texas. Especially for younger people, who have probably grown up seeing openly gay people on TV, something you didn’t see in the '60s. I think even some parents would encourage “coming out” vs drafting in, which I wouldn’t expect of many parents in the '60s. Besides, as everyone knows sexuality is a choice, right?
The military currently is kicking people out for stating they are gay, hmmm, and here I thought it was a time of war and they need recruits…
Here’s another one…Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach. Some points of note:
Note he did not “tell”. Someone else outted him.
This is one of those things you either get or you don’t. America’s military has a macho culture that looks down on homosexuality. People think it would undermine the morale of military service personnel to have open homosexuals in service. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know if this attitude is right or wrong, but there it is.
Whether or not the American military should change its macho culture is a different issue. But it seems to me that this is clearly the reason why homosexuality in the military is so controversial. It’s a clear-cut thing. It is not comparable to racial issues because masculinity is a concept that transcends races or creeds. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
Maybe it’s different in other countries. The UK doesn’t have the same kind of macho culture in the military, I guess. But over here, in America, it does.