Yep, I went through that as an Army Recruiter. Its part of the reason I hate the majority of people I meet. Lyin’ ass mother fuckers.
Obviously, they need a contracted civilian to act as a “demo homo” for recruiting purposes. “You say you’re gay, huh? Alright, make out with Steve here for five minutes.”
Demo homo. Funny as shit.
The military doesn’t have to prove anything. Declaring that one is gay under DADT creates a “rebutable presumption” that the servicemember will engage in “homosexual conduct.” The burden is on the servicemember to prove that he or she will not engage in such conduct. I believe there have been about three people who have successfully rebutted the presumption and were allowed to stay in the military following a declaration. I would imagine that their enlistment contracts were not renewed but I don’t know that for a fact.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is an excellent resource for information on DADT.
Enough do that plenty of gay people have been kicked out of the military recently because of it. The cite above demonstrates that; in particular, the linguistic blogosphere has been reporting a lot on experts in uncommon languages who are being kicked out of the military even as they claim to be short on translators.
Whether it’s a regular effort or not, the military is cutting of its nose to spite its face, and gays are being kicked out at an accelerating rate. So whether you personally care or not, it’s clear that there’s a problem here - the military is losing vital skills in order to weed out the homos. Denying that isn’t going to make it go away.
Clearly, your perspective as a member of the military is not giving you an accurate picture of the situation here. Der Trihs has summarized the issue pretty accurately, whether or not he’s served in the military (which I suspect he hasn’t.) I’m not sure you even think that being in the military is necessary in order to follow this news story.
WTF? Maybe it’s just me, but basically threatening* a high school student to force them to listen to you talk about joining the Marines is kind of screwed up, isn’t it? The kid might have been lying, he may not be, but either way, is it not legitimate to say “no thank you, I don’t want to hear this information?” If people can do so with every other telemarketer, and there are laws to avoid their harrassment, why are the Marines (or other military group) exempt?
*Ok, “threatening” might be a strong word, but I really don’t think you or anyone else should get away with treating people like that, quota or no quota.
Sorry for the hijack. I just don’t get it.
And I’d bet he slept like a baby.
From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles
On the land as on the sea.
First to fight for right and freedom
Hijack: Is there a way to get recruiters to STOP calling me? I took the ASVAB in high school because at the time I wanted to go into the military, and because it looks good on job applications when your possible future boss is ex-military. I unintentionally scored really high and I, four years later, still have people calling my parents house for me, from the Marines, Navy, Coast Guard, Army, and Air Force.
I can’t go into the military. I have medical problems that make it an issue. That, and I’m bisexual, but it doesn’t really come down to that. But for some reason this doesn’t seem to deter them, which, in my opinion, is kind of crappy. But my parents are getting annoyed at telling them I don’t live there anymore, because they don’t seem to have the ability to write that down on my little file thing.
Anyway, back to the ORIGINAL point of the thread:
I don’t think so. When it gets to the point of a draft, it’s “We need more warm bodies.” Whether gay or straight isn’t an issue.
~Tasha
I do respect people who chose the military as a career, and it’s true, we owe a lot to them. But the military isn’t for everyone. The attitude that everyone should be willing to do it is a little silly - isn’t that partially why the US (and Canada) doesn’t have a draft or mandatory service? So to treat people who aren’t interested (for whatever reason) as if they were inferior is a little uncalled for, IMHO. “Threatening” to out them (real or fake) is very much uncalled for. If I had received a call like that I’d be pretty pissed off, that’s all (I will acknowledge that in the story, the mother of the student was lying and they were messing around with the caller, but still, I think a “no thanks” should have sufficed).
As for DADT, if people WANT to be in the military, it shouldn’t matter what their orientation (gender, ethnicity, religion, etc) is. Those people that feel that military service is where they belong should be thanked for that, not ostracized for something that is unrelated to their abilities to do their jobs.
In this day and age, though, if the US’s involvement abroad was so expansive as to lead to a draft… I have the feeling openly gay people would be accepted. I can imagine a court case where straight people would argue that their being forced into service was unfair to them, discrimination based on their sexual orientation, and the courts would either have to allow homosexuals into the military or remove the draft requirement. I think they’d choose the former.
Are we not recruiters? WE ARE DEVO!
One of my colleagues is(was) Swiss, and being a male Swissman was of course also in the Swiss Army. THe subject came up once, and it seems that the Swiss army will exempt you from conscription if it is determined that you were gay. Apparently one of his relatives (cousine I think) tried to pull this scam and declared himself gay, but he was sent for a number of tests and interviews with psychiatrists who didn’t buy the story, so he served out his term anyway.
Nope. SCOTUS has already ruled in Rostker v. Goldberg 453 U.S. 57 (1981) that sex discrimination in the Military Selective Service Act does not violate the Constitution. Sex discrimination is analyzed under a higher level of scrutiny (intermediate) than is sexual orientation discrimination (rational basis review). That coupled with the “customary deference” (i.e. rolling over and playing dead whenever the military wants something) that the courts traditionally give the military and there’s no way that a lawsuit brought by straights challenging a gay-exclusive draft would succeed.
Sorry but the president can not just decide to start drafting. It would have to be a law passed by congress. A bunch of people who want to be re-elected. Never gonna happen.
I said “in my experience” because thats what I’ve experienced. But I wouldn’t go as far as to say combat arms units wouldn’t “weed out the homos”. Infantry units have a large amount of camaraderie, and macho-image thing.
But you can’t say that the military is losing vital people by kicking gays out. If recruiting is hard its more likely the situation in Iraq, not because gays are getting booted out. And before the situation in iraq the army was making its annual goals in recruiting and retention. i don’t know what the numbers are now, but I think I can say its not “because they don’t allow gays”.
Personally, I don’t give a rats ass if some other guy is gay, but i don’t have to live in a barracks and I’m not an infantryman or in combart arms so its unlikely that I’ll be sleeping in a foxhole with anyone. (knock on wood, because i have been deployed before). I understand the army’s reasoning, but i’m not saying its right or fair.
It’s funny that you didn’t even address what I said. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but according to their public statements, the military has a particular need for experts in the various flavors of Arabic, Persian, and so forth, and yet they’re continuing to kick gay people out of those positions. I’m not sure what you mean about “camaraderie”, but if you think that the macho atmosphere of a room full of translators is disrupted by having gay people present (who aren’t out - in most of these cases, it’s only after investigating people who’ve remained closeted that the discharges happen), then I’m not sure what to say.
Even what you say about combat units contradicts what you said earlier; not only do you admit you don’t know personally (and thus, by your own words shouldn’t be making claims one way or the other), but you actually offer your lukewarm support to kicking gays out of the military. So why in the world are you trying to claim it doesn’t happen? The evidence shows that it does, and it happens routinely, and the entire American public is in danger if vital intelligence is missed because of the well-known shortage of linguistic expertise. But if it’s really more important to preserve the rough-and-tumble masculinity of a group of translators than to protect the American people, by all means continue to defend it. If you don’t think it is, then you might wanna consider your own thoughts on the matter.
Also bear in mind that open bisexuals are not allowed to serve, either. If there were a draft in an unpopular war, young men would be declaring their bisexuality left and right. Even if our society attached a stigma to not serving later on, the fact that it was the military that refused to induct you would lessen the consequences of not serving.
Well, that would give them a non-combat job for all the openly-gay guys who are already in…
I’m going to have to give you a :dubious: on that one… you do realize that gay people can be both good at sports and popular?
You are assuming that keeping people out of uniform with those language skills is putting the entire populace in danger. I have met quite a few linguists used by the military, particularly Arabic and other Middle East languages. Almost all of them have been civilian contractors or civilian government employees. You can be Liberace gay and still be a government contractor. You make a hell of a lot more money too. I currently work in the MI field (part time). The language school is still one of the most sought after schools in the military. They are having no problem getting people into those schools.
So when someone politly said “I’m not interested” you left them alone?
A similar thing happened to my boyfriend, although he actually is gay. A recruiter called his house numerous times and he told them that no, he was not interested. They finally quit calling when his mother let them know that he was out on a date with his (at the time) boyfriend and she’d give him the message that they called.
If I hadn’t read other threads and messages of yours I would take offence at this comment. Just being a football player and popular has nothing to do with someone being gay.