Don't ask Don't tell

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[Lani]

The Senate Armed Forces Committee is continuing the DADT hearings this Thursday.  Oddly, the witnesses are still "to be announced". http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=4405

A December 2006 poll of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan also found 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/08/dadt-military-poll/

[Lani]

Take a look at the charts in this article: Support for Gays in the Military Depends on the Question http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/11/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6198284.shtml

A new CBS News/ New York Times poll finds that the wording of the question is key when it comes to determining whether Americans support allowing gays to serve in the military.

In the poll, 59 percent say they now support allowing "homosexuals" to serve in the U.S. military, including 34 percent who say they strongly favor that. Ten percent say they somewhat oppose it and 19 percent say they strongly oppose it.

But the numbers differ when the question is changed to whether Americans support "gay men and lesbians" serving in the military. When the question is asked that way, 70 percent of Americans say they support gay men and lesbians serving in the military, including 19 percent who say they somewhat favor it. Seven percent somewhat oppose it, and 12 percent strongly oppose it.

[Sirenoftitan]

<snip>
Casey's statement put him at odds with earlier comments by General Ray Odierno, the US military commander in Iraq. "My opinion is, everyone should be allowed to serve, as long as we're still able to fight our wars and we're able to have forces that are capable of doing whatever we're asked to do," Odierno said on Monday.

Casey was asked by Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat with long military service, if he knew of any problems that US forces had serving alongside with other countries, such as Britain and Canada, which have already removed bans on gay soldiers. Casey replied that he had ''heard nothing from anyone about any conflicts with British or Canadian soldiers or any other countries' soldiers that have already implemented that policy".

'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal faces long battle Richard Adams, The Guardian

[daMamma]

I've only 2 questions for anyone within or entering the military.

a) Can you do the job?
b) Will you be able to perform to the best of your abilities when needed?

The whining is just superficial BS designed to deflect from the issue of personal biases.

[LisaB]

I think it's safe to say that no change in history comes without a lot of predicting the End of Everything As We Know It.  Any social change comes with great resistance. 

They'll find out their fears make them foolish, and by then it will have been "their idea all along."  *rolls eyes*

[daMamma]

So true!

[Jaime from Wasilla]

From The Advocate November 2009

Straight Guys Tell By Michael Joseph Gross

You’ve heard the threats -- about how gay men in the shower might bring down the U.S. military with a wink, a pinch, or a flick of a wet towel. But where’s the truth in that? What’s it really like to serve alongside gay and lesbian service members?

This is a great article, and tells more about the reality on the ground with real soldiers than the rantings of a homophobic commander.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from straight soldiers about their gay comrades:

“My battle buddy in one of the toughest courses in the Army got kicked out because he happened to be gay. And the guy who took his place couldn’t carry his lunch.”

“A couple of the best soldiers I’ve known have been gay. One of them got drunk and got in a fight one night. He cleaned the guy’s clock and looked down at him and said, in front of a bunch of people, ‘How does it feel to get your ass beat by a faggot?’ He got thrown out over that remark. Which is stupid. It made me angry the way that was handled, because if a soldier is gay, it makes no difference to me. It’s a personal decision, and if that’s their decision and they still do their job, and the same policies governing sexual harassment and fraternization apply to them, then there is no reason for this policy to exist.”

The best one I have edited for a PG rating:

“You have to be a little bit gay to be in the infantry. (snip) Gay, as in, you have to like being around guys, touching guys, being touched by guys, being pretty much only with guys. Not sucking-c**k gay. Anybody tries to cross that line with me, he gets slapped. But if that’s what you want to do on your own time, in your own life, and you can shoot as good as I can, I. Do. Not. Give. A. S**t.”

[LisaB]

There's just some delicious irony in all this somewhere.  I mean, here are (some) guys terrified they might be sexually harassed by some guy they work with. 

Welcome to being a woman, dude.    Hell, if we can put up with it for centuries with NO recourse, surely you can hack it in this day and age of "awareness."   

[ds55]

There's just some delicious irony in all this somewhere.  I mean, here are (some) guys terrified they might be sexually harassed by some guy they work with. 

Welcome to being a woman, dude.    Hell, if we can put up with it for centuries with NO recourse, surely you can hack it in this day and age of "awareness."   

[Forty Watt]

I used to think the same thing about the *gay panic defense*, where defendants claimed that they had committed assault or murder because homosexual panic had made them violent. 

If we applied that to women being afraid of being sexually harassed by men, the streets would be littered with bodies.   

[Jaime from Wasilla]

If they kicked men out of the military for harrassing women, would there BE a military?

[Forty Watt]

You know that letter John McCain keeps waving about signed by a thousand or so retired and flag general officers saying allowing gays to serve openly in the military would be A BAD THING?

Well, setting aside the people who said they never signed it, there is also this:

The average age of the officers is 74. The "oldest living signer is 98, and several signers died in the time since the document was published." Servicemembers United Executive Director Alex Nicholson added that only "a small fraction of these officers have even served in the military during the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' period, much less in the 21st century military," so it's hard to believe that they "know how accepting and tolerant 18- and 21-year-olds are today."

"At least one signer, Gen. Louis Menetrey, was deceased when the letter was published and didn't sign the document himself. According to a footnote on the letter, his wife signed the document for him after his death using power of attorney -- six years after Alzheimer's disease robbed him of the ability to communicate."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/mccains-dadt-support-lett_n_487226.html

[Sirenoftitan]

General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command and perhaps the most influential member of the US armed forces, today gave qualified support for changing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays and lesbians from openly serving in the American military.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/16/petraeus-dont-ask-dont-tell

[daMamma]

They really should just do what everyone has done and get over it.  This whole separate but equal as long as noone knows stuff is nothing short of discrimination.  And if the government can do it, why not everybody in the private sector.  Hence stupid crap like prop 8 and the like.

Someone wants to join the service, risk their life to protect us, our nation and our constitution, then I'm damn glad to have them.  Which side of the plate they eat from makes no difference and frankly isn't any of anyone's business anyway.

[Jaime from Wasilla]

More Evidence Against DADT

A new poll finds that 73% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans say it is “personally acceptable to them if gay and lesbian people were allowed to serve openly in the military.”

[daMamma]

That number sounds about right.  Maybe a bit low, but about right. 

[Forty Watt]

On Thursday, though, the debate in Washington [over DADT] leapt across the Atlantic. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, former NATO commander and retired Marine General John J. Sheehan insinuated that the Dutch military's failure to prevent the 1995 massacre of thousands of civilians in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war was partly due to the presence of openly gay soldiers in Holland's army.

In a rambling statement on the transformation of European militaries after the end of the Cold War, Sheehan said that the Dutch battalion at Srebrenica "was under strength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them."

When asked by Committee Chairman Carl Levin if Dutch leaders had told him that the service of homosexual soldiers was to blame, Sheehan said "yes they did. They included that as part of the problem."

Needless to say, the Dutch are not well pleased.

Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop issued a statement calling the remarks "outrageous and unworthy of a soldier." He went on to say, "I do not want to waste any more words on the matter."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,684669,00.html#ref=rss

[Irishgirl]

If the far right keeps this up, they are going to alienate the entire world.

[daMamma]

If the far right keeps this up, they are going to alienate the entire world.

I don't think they care.  It has always been their way or the highway.  A real if you don't like it go take a suck-pill type of attitude.  W merely brought that out into the open and made it acceptable behaviour.

The very definition of Ugly American IMHO.

[Irishgirl]