In Britain, seven years after being forced by a European court to allow gays to serve openly, the policy is producing yawns:
Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears — about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness — have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.
Read the whole story here. An interesting side note is that the British military is keeping mum about the success of integrating homosexuals so as to avoid embarrassing the United States, which still expels homosexuals based on fears that have proved unfounded for its closest ally. It's hard to escape the conclusion that America's policy of exclusion remains in place for reasons of domestic politics, not military need.
Related Posts (on one page):
- No news is good news:
- Bad Week for DADT:
- Former JCS Head Now Opposes DADT:
The politics may not be entirely domestic. Consider the accomodations made by the United States to support Saudi Arabia in keeping American women in uniform out of sight and out of mind.
Well, that's what happens when those pesky civilians in Congress have a say in military matters.
This particular issue aside (gays in the military), I find it rather horrifying that an extranational court can order a sovereign state to change military personnel policy. I cannot think of many more critical issues to a nation-state than who serves in the military and in what capacity.
Glad we in the U.S. have not given in to such internationalism (yet).
Would it soothe your mortification to reflect on the fact that the members of the EU became members knowing that they were giving up certain aspects of their sovereignty? Perhaps they are lacking the capacity of informed consent, such as 4-year olds.
You sound like a drafter of the Virginia Resolution. The British people have either directly or through their representatives agreed to bind themselves to the decisions of a "foreign" court. You act like sovereignty is some absolute concept, but it isn't. You may find it horrifying, but the British disagreed and somehow manage to continue as if they still were a sovereign state.
So this is not new, but, apparently the official position is.
However.
When I was in the Army, 69-71, there were far more racial issues than were made public.
Having a racial situation in your unit was bad for the Officer Efficiency Report. So either it was ignored, or the troops took care of it in barracks, or it was given some other label which did not have a racial overtone.
For example, on Memorial Day weekend when I was in Infantry Advanced Individual Training, we had too much spare time and too little supervision. So some of the blacks decided that one of the two staircases was the Soul staircase. They beat up one of the guys in my platoon. Due to a lack of NCOs, the Army at the time was taking the ugliest trainee in the platoon and making him--me--an acting NCO. So I got my entrenching tool and went up and down the Soul staircase, up and down, up and down. Got tired, eventually, but nobody messed with me. This shouldn't have been the responsibility of a trainee whose badge of rank was a shoeshine cloth with the chevrons sewn on. But we didn't give the Soul staircase over to the blacks on some kind of informal adverse possession.
Had command had something to do with it, though, no doubt the hippy lawyers waiting for some such evidence of oppression would have been all over it. So maybe the Army was waiting for somebody like me to take care of it under the radar.
Point is, lots and lots of this stuff happened, without making the papers. The overall picture was not a yawner, but it was not realistic, not by any stretch.
Which is to say that the picture of the Brits from the outside could very well be considerably more congenial than what the squaddies are having to deal with. In fact, I'd think the odds of there being a major difference, more trouble than advertised by a lot, are very close to certain.
DC: If commenters are aware of specific problems generated by the presence of a few open gays in the British military, I’m sure we’d be interested to hear about them. I know I would be.
Over here in the training bases we've got issues with male/female trainees. TRADOC Reg 350-6 requires that female trainees have a "safe and secure" area with alarms, and that they're alarmed in after lights out. I can't wait to see how this is going to work when you have open homosexuals in the service.
You mean having competent Arab translators is a luxury? I'd say it's a necessity.
" I can't wait to see how this is going to work when you have open homosexuals in the service." Probably not much different from having open gays in the british, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and Israeli armie, all of which allow openly gay people to serve. I guess they are all 'pansified' as well. At least not like the Russian army, which regularly beats their servicemen...
And your theory is, of course, wrong. But it is so funny, it really made my day. Thanks!
No, it just means he realizes that gays run the same gamut of behaviors as straights.
The simple fact is that if gays are forced upon the military, there will be problems period. Regardless of why, it will become a major problem. Do you really want to disrupt our military for a social experiment, especially at this point?
Yeah. He does/they do want to disrupt the military.
It's not an unintended consequence. It's a goal.
I fear you are right!
And to the author of this article, I doubt that we would ever hear the actual results of British gays in the military - after all, it would be politically incorrect to say anything detrimental to the cause. Sooo... I would take anything they say with a large lump of salt.
I mean, we hear this all the time but without actual, um, operational details, it doesn't tell us much.
Some years ago, when this came around, there were Congressional hearings. That the Israelis had gays openly in the IDF was said to be indicative that it was just dan and finedy.
However, a following testifyer described the IDF's situation in more detail. The IDF didn't put open gays in line units. They got rear area--crap, um, non-standard...uh, support jobs where unit cohesion and communal living were not issues. Like, I suppose, working in intel analysis back in Tel Aviv or someplace and living on the economy, as many in the IDF do, off post.
But they were not, said the follow-up, in the line units. For some reason left unsaid. The point was that the IDF's experience didn't have much to do with what the activists were proposing for the US military. The reason for the doctrine was not stated.
And we are supposed to take your objections seriously. Sheesh.
First, let us be clear about a few things. One, the military has no problem with gay men and women serving the military, and has stated so repeatedly. The military has said that gay men and women have served just as well and admirably as any others. Two, the ONLY problem the military has is that if OPENLY gay men and women serve, the problem will be with the other men and women who are anti-gay and won't be able to work with them. So in other words, the military is acceding to the cowards and bigots, claiming that they are the ones who are be disruptive, not the gays. Three, we currently have many gay peopel serving in the military. Four, I personally know of many people who have served or currently are serving in the military in Iraq, and are doing so openly, and have no problem with either the other soldiers or their commanders. Today's army is quite different from even ten years ago, and most soldiers simply don't care whether someone is gay or not.
Furthermore, we are discharging gay translators of Arabic and other critical languages simply because these people are gay. Yet we have a critical shortage of translators. This is directly hampering our abilities to detect terrorism, and wins the hearts and minds of the Iraqis and Afghanis. It makes working and fighting in those countries extremely difficult.
And most translators are gay, and the military knows it. They are trained in Monterrey, CA, and so grads are called Monterrey Marys, since everyone knows that most are gay. If you truly believe that gays are so bad for the military, then you will have to fire most of them. How does that help us? And the final irony is that recently, many of those fired linguists are now hired for the US State Department, where at least they can do some work.
And what has this to do with gays in the military? Perhaps I missed your point.
I think you're drawing too broad a conclusion from what I'm saying. I'm thinking about this down at the implementation level. Current U.S. Army policy in initial entry training (IET) units is that there is a separate, alarmed, area for females, ostensibly to protect them from the male Soldiers. Will this system be able to stand, given that parallels can be drawn to having heterosexual and homosexual Soldiers together?
Also, IET Soldiers are required to practice a "battle buddy" system where they may not be alone with a member of the opposite sex--or alone, period. There's no controversy within the Army that trainees getting their freak on with each other in the close-quarters training environment is detrimental. What systems will be necessary to overcome this? Is it possible? What effect will that have on the training base, and will the damage to training be worth (probably marginal) added value of open homosexual Soldiers?
I note that the translator issue is being dragged out again. I'm curious, how many translators were chaptered out for all causes? A lot of people get thrown out of the military for adultery, but that doesn't get attention since there's no adulterer's lobby. Relative to Chapter 15s, how many translators were shown the door because they were married, but not to each other? Dropping the "no adultery" rule is a very bad idea, so should there be a special "I'm a translator, so I can be an individual" clause within regulations?
As to Al's comment about the difference between the British and U.S. Armies regarding cultural sensitivity: I think that the point he's trying to make is that what works for the Brits, or the Israelis, or Nigeria, or whoever may have very little to do with what will work for the U.S. Army. This is because the American Army is staffed by Americans, who may have vastly different ideas about what is appropriate discourse. My buddy is currently being trained by a British officer, and says that he's a really good guy and very competent, but he's politically incorrect and probably wouldn't survive in the U.S. Army.
"Most translators are gay"
And the proof of your statement is?
I've been a translator for over twenty years, I am active in translation organizations, and, yes, a few translators are gay... but at a ratio no greater than the general population is.
Neither of you are really correct. In some sense the RANGE of straight and gay behaviors are going to be the same because the range is always defined by the most extreme example you can find. What MarkF is talking about is presumably a statistical difference in behavior.
Now it does seem pretty clear that a few (small fraction) of my gay friends do go out of their way to be hyper-masculine. While this is hardly a representative survey I suspect the effect is real. After all many gay guys are attracted to hyper-masculinity so, just like the rest of us, will alter their behavior in ways that they think make them more desirable and attractive. Also I suspect the experience of growing up in a now welcoming environment tends to push gays either towards hyper-masculinity (trying to prove to themselves they are masculine) or to overreact to that once they come out by rejecting even more masculine trappings than they had adopted while in the closet.
However, it would be far to simplistic to just say that gay guys were more often hyper-masculine/feminine. Obviously even the hyper-masculine gay guys aren't masculine in every traditional sense of the term (they are gay and have sex with guys).
This simply is not true. Nor is it true that any straight man will try to have sex with all those female recruits. I have known plenty of people in the military, and yes, there are problems of discipline. Those problems occur in every military unit, always have, and there is a process for dealing with it already. but for the vast majority of military folks, the are mature and professional. To believe otherwise is to demean the character and quality of the people who defend us. The US Army is not some sort of sex romp!
If you believe otherwise, then you have to believe that all gay people should be denied any military service, whether openly gay or closeted. Obviously, even the military doesn't advocate this. And more interestingly, if it WAS a problem, then we should see greater numbers of discharges during an actual war. The truth is that the number of discharges DADT have decreased dramatically. In fact, there have been numerous cases of late where people wanted to get out of the military by claiming themselves gay, and the military refused!
So if your fears had any justifications, then the military would be acting on them. They are not.
he military previously confirmed that seven translators who specialized in Arabic had been discharged between 1998 and 2003 because they were gay. The military did not break down the discharges by year, but said some, but not all, of the additional 13 discharges of Arabic speakers occurred in 2004.
‘Still have a language problem’
Aaron Belkin, the center’s director, said he wants the public to see the real costs of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“We had a language problem after 9/11, and we still have a language problem,” Belkin said Wednesday.
The military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts.
“The military is placing homophobia well ahead of national security,” said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of gay military members. “It’s rather appalling that in the weeks leading up to 9/11 messages were coming in, waiting to be translated ... and at the same time they were firing people who could’ve done that job.”
In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 543 Arabic linguists and 166 Farsi linguists graduated from their 63-week courses, according to a DLI spokesman. That was up from 377 and 139, respectively, in the previous year.
Experts have identified the shortage of Arabic linguists as contributing to the government’s failure to thwart the Sept. 11 attacks. The independent Sept. 11 commission made similar conclusions.
‘ ... your life under scrutiny’
Ian Finkenbinder, an Army Arabic linguist who graduated from the Defense Language Institute in 2002, was discharged from the military last month after announcing to his superiors that he’s gay. Finkenbinder, who said his close friends in the Army already knew he was gay, served eight months in Iraq and was about to return for a second tour when he made the revelation official.
Well, this is rather funny. Now I am hearing that the US Army is so politically correct, unlike those mean and tough Brits who can speak their minds, that OUR sensibilities are so uptight that we simply cannot talk about things like gay people, or blacks, or asians, without running afoul of the speech MPs. It makes you wonder how we can do anything at all!
And so if the army's delicate sensibilities actually had to deal with openly gay men, these not-so-very-tough Marines would just fall to pieces, and they wouldn't be able to even shoot their guns straight.
Sheesh. You would think from the commentators here that our army is more concerned about the etiquette of tea parties than how to fight a war. and that somehow *gay men*, of all people, would disrupt this perfect little party.
As for stats on the Monterrey Marys, I have none. I can just say that I am active with the Serviceman's Legal Defense Network, and have many friends there. This is what they tell me. Perhaps they are wrong, but many have graduated from that very program. I am inclined to think that perhaps they exaggerate a bit, but generally they are true.
The United States Navy has informed Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight that it intends to fire him under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law just weeks prior to completing his one-year commitment. Knight, an openly gay sailor, was recalled to active duty in June 2006 and recently completed a tour of duty in Kuwait, where he was open about his sexual orientation with his command and fellow sailors. Knight told his story last weekend in the newspaper Stars &Stripes
"Our nation should be embarrassed that our armed forces are forced to respond to Knight’s selfless service with a government-sanctioned pink slip."
and was notified yesterday that he will be receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy based, in part, on his recent media interviews. Knight was scheduled to end his commitment on May 28, 2007, but will face early dismissal because he chose to go public about his experience.
“Jason Knight was an exemplary sailor who gladly returned to active duty when our country needed him,” said Sharra E. Greer, director of law and policy for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). “Now, despite his dedication and service, and the praise of those he served alongside, the Navy has decided to fire him because he dared to tell his story and put a public face to the courage of lesbian and gay service personnel. Our nation should be embarrassed that our armed forces are forced to respond to Knight’s selfless service with a government-sanctioned pink slip. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ silences lesbians and gays and attempts to make them invisible. Because Knight refused invisibility, he will now be fired.”
Knight, a trained Hebrew linguist, was re-called to active duty and served with Naval Customs Battalion Romeo in Kuwait. He told Stars &Stripes that, having ‘come out’ to his command during his previous enlistment, he saw no reason to hide his sexual orientation. Many of his colleagues spoke to the newspaper in support of him. “The Navy tends to keep people who don’t want to be here, but Jason does,” Petty Officer 1st Class Tisha Hanson told the paper. “(I)t doesn’t bother me.”
“I have now spent five years in the Navy, and I have loved every minute of it,” Knight said today. “It is unfortunate that in our country, which prides itself on being a beacon of liberty to the world, discrimination is still alive and well, even in our own government. I am proud to be among the one million gay veterans who have answered the call to duty, and I look forward to working alongside them to topple this un-American and counter-productive law.”
They decided to fire him only after he went public with this ridiculously, and the Navy was then forced to follow their own policy of firing him.
And who lost ultimately? The American people, because we already have a shortage of good, trained and experienced people ready to serve our country.
It's not *just* that people are worried that bigoted members of the military will react badly. In general terms the military just orders everyone not to be bigoted anymore, even if it doesn't stop them, and everyone pretends like they aren't, at least while watched. But there really aren't that many people who care about race, gender or orientation past a determination if a fellow soldier is reliable or not, will pull their weight or not.
The larger issue is the PITA issue. What is one more housing headache worth, one more interpersonal headache worth? (For this reason alone a whole lot of people would be happy if there were no women in uniform.) The military will deal with what it's ordered to deal with but deep down most would prefer to simplify rather than complicate the human element. At least, as it is, those in charge can pretend (in an officially pretending sort of way) that all they've got to deal with is het men and het women. Which is all ready a pain in the *ss, but at least it's an equation with only one variable.
I think that gays should be able to serve openly and in any capacity but I'm not foolish enough to think that it won't require changes or adjustment.
Because of it, the article basically says *nothing* and I'm left wondering if it wasn't a reluctance about embarrassing America but more of a reluctance about embarrassing themselves or giving a too detailed account of military life.
It's the money, stupid.
In the British military, a servicemember who declares he is gay can also declare his domestic partner for full spousal benefits. I am in the (american) Army, and I don't know if you guys are aware but there is a huge disparity between the take-home pay married soldiers and single soldiers get... this greatly incentivizes marriage to soldiers, so much so that "contract marriages" are a common occurence, not to mention many rather hasty and ill-thought-out "love matches" that last, oh, a matter of months. (Besides just the pay, for lower-ranking soldiers marriage enables living outside the barracks -- this is also key.) Given the current situation, which already resembles welfare fraud, I can only imagine the havoc institutionalizing homosexual partnerships would cause. Any soldier would then be able to declare their best friend their "domestic partner", shack up with said friend, give that friend valuable health insurance, and otherwise live a fun bachelor (or bachelorette) lifestyle outside of the supervision of the barracks -- all on the Army's dime, and all without actually being gay.
Y'all have probably seen articles mentioning how much it costs for the Army to maintain an active-duty soldier for a year -- it's an amount in the six figures. A lot of that money goes to health care provided for the civilian dependents soldiers have in tow. Making it much easier for soldiers to declare civilian dependents will just jack up the cost higher. That is what I think the Army is afraid of.
I personally have absolutely no problem serving with gay soldiers, and most members of the military do not either, according to a recent Army Times survey. It's just a money thing.
However, while I was wondering about taking the time to dig it up, somebody else did. Didn't change Colin's views, of course. That isn't the intent of demanding cites. But it did quiet him down. Some benefit, eventually.
I'm not going to bother with your complaint that I'm making a foolish assertion by digging up cites. Because we all know of people who have said it. When I was in, civilian lawyers would fight for blacks courtmartialed for offenses against order and discipline. Not for whites. The reason was to promote racial discord and thus damage the military. Almost worked, too.
There was one twit in the DOD, a female assistant deputy secretary for something or other who said the Marines were excessively militaristic and that something should be done. She was dumped. Point was, she got there in the first place.
Anyway, Randy R. We both know it.
And I didn't say "all". You did. As I keep saying, how on earth do people expect misrepresenting what somebody says here is going to do them any good? Am I supposed to be confused about what I said?
Wow. Dude, take a deep breath and calm down.
"You are making an assumption that gay men are attracted to any and all men, that gay men won't pass up any opportunity to have sex with another man and will make attempts to any other man when possible.
This simply is not true. Nor is it true that any straight man will try to have sex with all those female recruits."
You need to work on reading comprehension. At no point did I claim that *all* men will do this. Only a very small fraction will. However, a small number of miscreants can have an effect on unit effectiveness and morale totally out of proportion to their number. Telling your female troops that only one or two of the 300 men that they're locked in a building with all night is a rapist is not all that comforting. However, that's neither here nor there, since I'm not claiming that homosexual *rape* will be a problem. I'm claiming that consensual sex will be a problem, and that it already is when even when we've got very clear criteria (do you have internal or external genitalia) for separating trainees.
"US Army is so politically correct, unlike those mean and tough Brits who can speak their minds"
What you can speak your mind about varies from military to military, based on the wider culture that they draw from. Making fun of someone's race could cause a meltdown if said to an American, because we are very sensitive to such things. Soldiers are civilians before they are Soldiers, and bring cultural baggage with them. A Brit may not mind having a racial slur used around him, because they don't see it as being as big a deal. I don't know what the limits are for British Soldiers, since I've never worked with any. However, I can attest that American Soldiers are as sensitive as American civilians about such things.
Usually commands don't seek out information about consensual sexual misconduct (adultery or sodomy) unless (a) the Soldier makes a pain in the ass of him- or herself (it becomes public somehow) or (b) they're caught in flagrante delecto or doing it in the barracks. The case of the Sailor you're describing above is an example. His command was going to pretend really hard that he wasn't in violation of the policy, until he made a big deal about it in public. What's laughable is the claim that he really, really wanted to be in the Navy, but the mean old Pentagon tossed him out against his will after he started screaming that he was violating the law from the rooftops. If he really wanted to be in the Navy, why did he leave in the first place? (he was called back--he finished his active-duty time, but got a letter saying that he'd have to come back or go to jail) This sounds a lot like the two or three cases a week I see of people who are trying to get themselves chaptered out of the Army. (Whether or not that's true for him--the story says he wants to stay in--isn't exactly a settled question for me. We hear all kinds of bizzare stories on a daily basis)
"Note that Jason was openly gay during his service. And yet he was recalled back into service!" Was that noted in his record? I don't see why it would be. I don't think that the same people who pulled his name into a list of people to bring back in necessarily had any information other than his personnel file. Also, when did he come out during his previous term? If it was close to his ETS date, it may have been easier to just let him go rather than try to Chapter 15 him. This story is very thin on a lot of the facts that would go into a Commander's decision-making process for personnel decisions. It does make a nice polemic, though.
Synova:
"I think that gays should be able to serve openly and in any capacity but I'm not foolish enough to think that it won't require changes or adjustment." Thank you! I disagree with you about allowing open gays in the military, but at least you're willing to grant my concern without trying to handwave it away.
For males, openly declaring yourself gay is a no questions asked ticket out of the military. The other choice is to get into trouble and get an other than honorable discharge. Not an optimal choice. DADT allows for an easy out. I wonder how many men who declared they were gay actually were.
It's changed somewhat. It used to be no questions asked, but now we investigate more into people who claim they're gay. The Army is trying to keep its retention up.(I suspect that a significant fraction of people who claim they're homosexual are just trying to get out, but I have no proof)
This is not quite the deadlock it seems, however, because increasingly it is becoming apparent that openly gay people are in fact serving in the US armed forces, despite the official policy, and with little or no ill consequences. So, the evidence is accumulating and in my view it is just a matter of time until the speculation becomes untenable.
I served as an enlisted Marine in the late 80s/early 90s. At the time, there had been a number of occasions of beatings, and one murder, in the Navy and Marine Corps for actual or suspected gay men. Merely being suspected of having gay traits was enough in several cases for a light beating.
I did serve in one unit where a Marine “came out” by getting drunk and attempting a sex act on another Marine. The unit had a very good Sergeant Major, by far the best I’ve ever seen, and that Marine was immediately transferred to the headquarters unit with a very high percentage of officers and senior NCO’s, pending discharge (immediately=within hours). This probably saved him from a severe beating or killing.
Later, I got called up out of college while I was in the National Guard, and sent to patrol a United States Army community for a year as a military policeman.
This was the height of the Clinton “don’t ask don’t tell” and a number of times we had cases where soldiers would become drunk, and hit on or actually perform an act with a fellow soldier. These events were very messy when they came to military police attention. They were made up much worse by the fact that at least the initiator knew his military career was over.
Screaming, crying, violence, attempts at self harm, and threats against others were all fairly common.
This is why I am willing to accept the decision of military leadership that being gay is incompatible with good order and discipline.
I don't believe that the DoD is a jobs program or vehicle of social equality. Its purpose is to kill people and break things, and not get our people killed and stuff broken while doing it. Things that make this more difficult are to be avoided. I believe that open homosexuals serving is one of these things.
Sara Lister.
I have her “challenge” coin on my wall right now with my other .mil stuff. When Clinton was invading Bosnia she came to our unit with a TV crew to explain the important things that the military mission would accomplish. She then asked if there were any questions.
I started asking about the history of the area, and inquired if we were going to use the iron fist, because impaling and torture chambers seem to be the only way to cause that region to mix religions peaceably. We had a debate on history, from the breakup of the Eastern Roman Empire on. She really got into it. Her chief of staff, some woman Colonel, started trying to punk me out. My National Guard unit was about one half real cops, and some saw that and decided to start asking questions about the timing of the invasion as opposed to Clinton’s reelection campaign.
Lister was escorted from the room by her Chief of Staff. Our first sergeant, who was not normally a decent guy, wandered over to say that when Lister sent down orders to assign us scut work as a punishment he would cover it for us.
As it turned out, she used the names that her Chief of Staff wrote down to send coins to me and the loudest two cops.
It did not surprise me that Lister said what she said, because she was more than ready for a good debate with me.
Nor, I suspect, has it hurt. At least in the US, allowing gays in the military would certainly help, as it would not be discharging the Arabic (and other translators) that are so desparately needed. Nor would it discharge Navy surgeons who are needed. (Yup -- it has discharged several).
There is currently a recruiting shortage of men and women in the army. Many people here seem so concerned that if you allow gays in the military, it will cause problems. As we see from the story of Jason Knight, however, it often doesn't. And the more gays are integrated in the military, the less of a problem it will be. I have no doubt that blacks who served in the military in the 50s and 60s were more of a problem than they are today. Who, except an exceptionally hardened racist, would?
Today, we are recruiting from the bottom of the barrel. The information that I get is that the army is at the breaking point. Too many people are having to do longer tours. Yet the numbers of gays that have been discharged in the past ten years is several thousand, enough for an entire division! This is just madness, especially when other militaries, such as the Canadian, Israeli, NZ, Australian and Brits, not to mention the entire EU, allow gays.
I get that the military should primarily a place for our country's defense and not a social experiment. But when you fire needed personnel, that *hamperes*, not enhances, your ability to defend your country, right?
Aubrey: No, this is the first time that I have ever heard that anyone wants to destroy the military. As I said, I am active with SLDN, and you simply cannot find a more patriotic, pro-military bunch of people. They simply want to serve openly and honestly for their country.
Happyshooter: "I served as an enlisted Marine in the late 80s/early 90s."
Thanks for the info. HOwever, the military is really very different from even the 90s. Today, being gay is simply not the problem is was in the past.
But I agree -- for some people it is a problem. And that's why I like Citizen Deux's solution -- treat everyone the same. Anyone who violates a disciplinary order is subject to discipline, plain and simple. What's so hard about that?
They had four wounded, one seriously.
The outfit was not ready for prime time, as several evaluators noted.
We had quite a discussion on this on another post where it was asserted that, since we didn't know how big a regiment was in the IDF, we didn't know if they'd been outnumbered. That was a desperate measure by a fool, of course, since the HQ element on the screen had four all by itself. But at the end, the film showed the colonel high-fiving the guys and telling them they did a fine job--choke--and, as they came down the road, there were at least a dozen of them. That didn't include the HQ element or the wounded. So there were at least twenty that we saw or knew of in the regiment (commanded by a light colonel), where the desperate fool kept saying we didn't know how many there were to judge the IDF's performance. How many we didn't see is another question, but you'd figure that twenty guys with artillery support could take out three guys. The usual ratio of attacking troops to defending is three to one to be considered equal or to be considered to have a chance at succeeding. This outfit was at least six to one--that we saw--plus artillery.
Did gays have anything to do with this? Hard to say, but the atmosphere where other considerations besides hard, raw military competence are important might have something to do with it.
I recall that someone else bothered to take the time to find individual examples of individuals who fit the broad, inflammatory image you were attempting to apply to SSM advocates generally. Do you think that anyone can or will find such individuals matching your hysterical accusation here?
He does/they do want to disrupt the military.
It's not an unintended consequence. It's a goal.
One reason that opponents of military integration are often painted as bigots is that some few such opponents, in a manner similar to some few advocates of SSM, tar the rest. Your barking comments such as the one above are unpersuasive to anyone who doesn't already agree with you, except in that they make opponents of military integration look like ultra-radical lunatics with no care for the truth or for hard facts. In the long run, extremist ranting such as yours is a millstone around the neck of principled opponents of integration. Cheers to you for that, I suppose.
I thought the military didn't grant dependent status to unmarried "domestic partners," gay or straight--only married couples.
"One year after the Army failed to meet its annual recruiting goal by the widest margin in two decades, the Pentagon is to announce this week that the ground forces, and the rest of the military, all reached their targets for recruits in 2006."
The Army "rais[ed] the allowable age for recruits to 42, from 35" and "raised the limit on the percentage admitted into the service from the lower aptitude ranking, increasing the percentage to the Defense Department limit of 4 percent of recruits from 2 percent." "Some recruits also signed up after the Army waived criminal records that would have previously barred them." I assume these policy changes are what Randy R. meant by "bottom of the barrel."
According to the Army, no more than 500 recruits (out of 80,000) fell into the first category, and the deficiencies were only in the English language, not "mental aptitude." Criminal record waivers "would not be granted in cases of a pattern of offenses, as well as for people convicted of drug trafficking and sexual crimes." Assuming that the Army provides intensive English training for those who need it, and the criminal waivers were rational and appropriate, these seem like very reasonable and appropriate policies to me.
The article generally credits increased bonuses for the recruiting success. The forces met their goals by a slim margin, but the target numbers seemed pretty precise to me, suggesting that the planners had a fairly accurate and realistic idea going in how many they'd be able to sign up.
It has to have helped on at least a base level---they have more soldiers in uniform as a result. We're at a point where we need more soldiers. And translators. You call it "social advancement" but I call it getting bodies into uniforms who want to be there and want to serve. And more soldiers means getting my buddies home who have served admirably after multiple extensions. We're hurting for people, yet we allow prejudice to keep willing and able soldiers out of the service. I thought this whole Global War On Terror thing was supposed to be the fight of our generation, etc. But apparently it's more important to keep those pesky gays in their place than to improve national security.
And--as one poster above mentioned: the money has a lot to do with it. my only point was that "bottom of the barrel" is a bit vague and denigrates those that do volunteer.
Now, let's figure something else. Let's presume the proponents of SSM as a tool to destroy conventional marriage are right. For some complex of reasons we haven't spent time on, they're right. Why would it matter that there are only a few of them? The question is not their number, but the likelihood they're right. Now, if you want to take the next step and say, so what?, it would be more honest.
IMO, whatever the number, their views ought to be considered. Just in case they're right.
Ditto the issue with gays in the military: What if they're right, those who seek to use gays to ruin the military? Doesn't matter that there are only a few of them, that we know of.
There were only a few--so it is claimed--who were overtly saying they wanted to use racial discord to ruin the military in the late Sixties and early Seventies. But they damned near did it. Officers needed escorts to go into barracks, and were armed at times it had never been considered necessary before or since. Rogue MP units attacked married housing.
It has been referred to as the "hollow Army" and it was not a bug of the left's actions, it was a feature.
I cannot tell precisely what you mean re: the "Moneterry Mary" bit of this thread. Are you asserting that there are a high propoportion of homosexulas within a particular M.O.S. or language group at Defense Language Instititute? Or are you making that assertion about D.L.I. in general?
I would find the latter assertion incredible. Though even if limited to translators per se I find the gist of your comments somewhat difficult to believe. Having graduated from D.L.I. (the Russian program) in the early/mid-'90s, I never perceived the post as having a large or even statistically significant population of homosexual soldiers, at least not any larger than the population as a whole.
But, perhaps, I have misunderstood your comments. I also was an interrogator (97E) being trained with some other interrogators and a lot of signal intelligence folks, not a translator. So maybe the translators are a different breed. Off the top of my head though, I cannot imagine why that would be the case.
About eleven thousand service members over the past decade. I think that eleven thousand experienced service members is a significant number, especially when many of them would have contributed to the critical NCO and specialist strength (such as the translators) that has been so important to the American military's effectiveness.
Richard, I'm willing to hear your proof for your conspiracy theories, if you care to support your assertion that destroying the military is the purpose of racial and sexual-orientation integration. Until then, please, feel free to continue ripping gaping holes in your own credibility and that of your fellow travelers.
I just personally doubt that such speculation about invisible harms is going to be enough to sustain this policy in the long run when gay people are visibly serving with distinction and there are no significant visible harms.
The other British servicemembers are pretty happy calling gays "pillow biters," "ass pirates," a sneering "queer" or "dyke", or other derogatory names, and the gays I knew of were pretty happy to return the compliment with "wog" or "boggy" or whatever derogatory nickname was at hand, often ethnically, racially or regionally based. LAMBDA and B-GLAD probably wouldn't agree with British-style integration and it would undo a lot of sensitivity training we've inflicted on the troops to this point. I never had a problem serving with gays because they were just other soldiers (and they tended to be superb wingmen, which was a plus) but it seems to me that the gays who serve, and the gays who are into the politics about gays who serve, tend to be two very different sorts of people.
BTW, Randy, I was also language qualified. While I served with a handful of gay soldiers who were language qualified, I never heard the term "Monterrey Mary." I guess maybe that's a term heterphobes use.
As before, you misrepresent what I said, presumably under the assumption I am incapable of scrolling up to double check.
I didn't say ruining the military was the goal of the integrationists. I said it was likely the goal of some of them. As ruining conventional marriage is the goal of some proponents of SSM, and as ruining the military was the goal of some who exacerbated the racial issues in the late Sixties and early Seventies. In the first case, wrt to marriage, another more energetic than I provided cites. In the latter case, we had the reality.
I have no reason to presume that every single proponent of gay integration has the best interests of gays, or of the military, at heart.
I recall the first female into a private military school. Possibly it was VMI. At the end, she said, surprised, that nobody had her interests in mind. She was a tool, the adults fighting their culture wars, putting the kids on point.
Too much of this stuff has happened for me to take the view that it can't possibly be the case in the matter of gay integration. Why should this be the first time?
I will not assume, however, that there is any meaningful or significant part of integrationists (race, sexual orientation, or gender) in the U.S. who push for integration because they believe such integration will destroy the institution they wish to integrate.
It's odd about folks who make that sort of point (see, also, "the Democrats/liberals hate the troops and hope we lose!" Such folks are either intentionally lying to try to inflict political damage, or they must have a sincerely held view of the country that they must find pretty darn depressing: believing that their political opponents, at least half the country, are intentionally trying to destroy the country.
The left's goal is to destroy the country. Others, such as democrats, have other goals and the consequences to the country are irrelevant.
I used to work with people who ranged from extreme libs to radicals. What we have now in this country was not acceptable to them.
They were smart enough to know they couldn't sell their vision as it was. So they labled their techniques for change as mom-and-apple-pie. I am under no moral requirement to believe people who have told me they lie.
When somebody says he wants some benign outcome and his actions point to another outcome, substantially different from the ostensible outcome, and when his responses to inquiries of why he's heading east when he claims the Baby Jesus wants him to go west are vague and internally inconsistent, I am entitled to think he's putting me on.
And, yeah, it's depressing.
And yet, there were 11,000 gay people who were active in the military and who have been discharged in the past decade. Did ANY of them seek to destroy the military? Did any of them succeed?
I guess the bottomline to people like this and ed o is that they have a very tough time with the fact that gays are being accepted more and more in our society, and in the military in particular. They cannot accept the fact that at least some miltary men don't automatically beat up or kill another serviceman just because he is gay. In other words, they simply refuse to believe that there are people who are not as bigoted as they are when it comes to gays. And so they cannot accept the fact that having openly gays serve in the military is no big deal.
Apparently, ed o &co actually want soldiers to beat up on gays so that they can have the excuse that gays won't work in the military. If they didn't have that to hang their hat upon, what else could they give as a reason? Everyone else is speculation and conspiracy theory stuff -- ooh those foxy gays just hate the military so much they are willing to go through basic training and put up with all the basic abuse soldiers go through just on the hope that one gay man can bring down the entire military-industrial complex.
It's always the same -- the number of gays in this country are infinitely small, so we shouldn't be concerned with them, but their tiny numbers belie the fact that they have this awesome power to destroy marriage and the military.
If we had just a fraction of the power you guys think we did, we would have everything we want, and we would all be rich beyond our dreams. I guess that's too bad....
I’ve heard variations of this fear applied to same sex unions in general. However, what’s to stop people from contracting fraudulent opposite-sex unions right now? In fact, the poster notes that this does in fact happen. So why would same sex unions make the situation any worse than it is when anyone who is minded to pull such a fraud can already do so? Moreover I would imagine that the social stigma of being thought gay when one is not would limit that gambit considerably.
Re: can you offer anything to show the British military's war fighting capabilities have gone up-the answer is no.
So what? The onus is on your side to show that there is a solid and compelling reason to continue our discriminatory policy. Discrmination is something that has to be strongly justified, not accepted as the default position. For example, we can concede there is a good reason we do not accept 60 year old recruits in the military, but if someone proposed excluding Blacks we would rightly reject that idea.
Really, so you seee no correlation at all between being very feminine acting and being homosexual? I see it all the time. I'm also arguing that there is a correlation between being ~hyper-masculine~ and being homosexual.
Most gay men fall between the extremes, but I think gay men are more likely than straight guys to fall at either extreme of the spectrum.
Other than what I already wrote, here's another "compelling reason": Privacy. There's not much of it in the military, so why should we force straights to shower and change in front of open gays?
It's up to your side to show why, if open homosexuals are allowed in the military, we should not just abolish the separation between the sexes, as well. And not just in the military, but everywhere. If it's O.K. to make straight guys undress in front of gays, why not make the ladies change in front of the straight guys?
Assuming you're being sincere, it must indeed be depressing for you to believe all that stuff. As someone who is left of center and hangs around many like-minded folks, I would try to cheer you up by telling you honestly that you're wrong -- and going beyond self-parody to boot -- but I doubt I would convince you.
More to the point here, however, you didn't answer the particular question about integration, so I'll ask it again. Assuming, arguendo, somebody, somewhere once said that adding gays, women, blacks, or whoever to the military would hurt the military and that's a good thing, is that really a valid argument against, say, integrating the army by race?
The point is that what happens when many openly gay people are in the military may have deleterious effects. The proponents of SSM as a tool to ruin conventional marriage have no doubt thought it through. Maybe they're right. Maybe not. I haven't thought it through. But then, I'm not promoting it as a way to ruin conventional marriage. What if they're right?
Those who deliberately exacerbated racial issues in order to ruin the Army practically succeeded, or temporarily succeeded.
Why is the issue of gay integration immune from the same kind of dynamic? Got any guarantees that the sort of thing we've seen before is absolutely not at work now?
We have had examples noted hereabouts that gay-integrated militaries don't seem to work so well. Perhaps it's the gay integration that did it. Perhaps it's something else entirely unrelated. Perhaps it's the change in the view of the military where social considerations are given preeminence over combat powerm and gay integration is only one issue of many.
During the last go'round on gay integration, one proponent on the subject admitted to Congress that there may well be a reduction in military efficiency. But we're a powerful nation and we can pay that price. Effin' admitted it and that we would pay a price. And didn't care.
There are, as I see it, three categories of proponents.
One thinks it would make no difference.
One thinks it would ruin the military or reduce its efficiency and that's the goal.
One thinks it would reduce the efficiency but doesn't care. We pay the price.
You think every single proponent of gay integration is in the first category?
(1) Substitute "racial integration" for "allowing gays and lesbians" in all of your arguments/posts and tell me what you think about them.
For example, let's assume there would be some resistance to openly gay soldiers by some folks in the armed services in the short term. That certainly happened with the integration of blacks -- my dad was in the army at the time and told me lots of stories about that. Was that a reason not to integrate on the basis of race?
(2) As to your list of types proponents, you're leaving the most important one out. Many folks (including me), believe that allowing gays and lesbians would IMPROVE military efficiency overall, just like allowing blacks in combat did, because it would create a larger pool of potentially good soldiers to choose from (see, e.g., the translators).
You say lots of things. You seem to give up before proving any of them.
I have no reason to presume that every single proponent of gay integration has the best interests of gays, or of the military, at heart.
On the contrary, you have their assurances, and the basis of their arguments, which is that integration would not harm the military. You also have the evidence that integration does not, in fact, harm the military. Integrationists say we want what’s best for civil society and the military. There is no empirical evidence of any harm that can be ascribed to keeping soldiers in uniform despite their orientations. Had the military successfully integrated years ago, we’d have more translators and other valuable personnel under arms in Iraq, greatly benefitting our war effort; how many generals would turn down 11,000 troops if they were offered today? What you have no reason to do is doubt the motives of integrationists. Your fervor to cast aspersions on them has more to do with your own preconceived conclusions than any effort of logic or reason, and you certainly haven’t offered any serious evidence.
I recall the first female into a private military school...
Racial integrationists were a cover for those who wanted to destroy the military, then women were a cover for those who wanted to destroy the military, and now gays are a cover for those who want to destroy the military? How clearly you must see, to perceive this dastardly decades-long conspiracy! What about law professors, academics, judges, reporters, and James Comey? Are they in on the conspiracy against the military, or just the general plot to destroy America?
The left's goal is to destroy the country.
I’m intrigued by your dedication to this incredibly irrational and counterfactual belief. Why would “the left” want to destroy the country? Qui bono? Is it an organized conspiracy, or just a widespread tendency you ascribe to people who are different than you? Why is there no evidence of this conspiracy or tendency - is there a second, more subtle conspiracy to cover it up? Was it a wicked leftist on the grassy knoll, and was he then or had he ever been a homosexual? Inquiring minds want to know!
The funny part is I see it exactly the other way around. *You* should need to show why adding turmoil to the system is worth the benefit of changing the status quo.
Why shouldn't the onus be on folks insisting that, in a time of war, we should exclude millions of potentially useful and valiant soldiers, based on one lone characteristic, to justify that policy? Why shouldn't they have to explain why that characteristic should be in all cases unambiguously disqualifying? Especially since we have evidence that (i) the fear of "turmoil" has likely been substantially overstated (see the experiences of other nations) and (ii) we know that the "status quo" has had real costs to our military efforts (e.g., the translators).
Accordingly, that is why pointing to specific shortgages (eg, an unmet need for translators) may be illustrative, but is unnecessary. That is also why in the absence of a demonstrated harm--and one which would outweigh the ordinary benefits--it is obvious that any otherwise qualified people should be allowed, and indeed encouraged, to serve in the armed forces.
The integration of blacks into the military begun in 1948 did not damage the combat effectiveness of the Army according to the folks I knew who were in in 1948, or who have studied it. By removing the second-best label from all-black units, morale improved. During WW II, blacks who were mostly in service and supply units, especially lifers, took reductions in grade in order to fit into a combat arms unit. 1948 was not the beginning of blacks in the military. It was the beginning of integrated units. This is a different scenario than the issue of gays.
Why would the left want to destroy the country? Ask them. It was their idea. The left preceded the USSR, and the left survives the USSR.
I knew a perfectly normal seeming clergyman in a mid-level hierarchical position in a liberal protestant denomination. He said he yearned to see the cross of Christ triumphant over chaos. Unfortunately, he didn't mean spiritual chaos, of which we will not soon run out. He meant the material chaos our settled arrangements don't provide. He would be working for real chaos. Sort of like bringing the end time ahead of time. And he liked the virile revolutionary regimes in Central America in the Eighties. Elections were, I guess, boring. And I don't get around all that much. That I run into people like this in no'count midwestern towns can't be a matter of hitting the infinitesimal, over and over again.
There are a good many reasons, many different. See Rebecca West's musings on the subject in her "The New Meaning of Treason".
The left has tried in the past, there's no reason to think they've stopped.
The gal who was used to integrate females into VMI was not treated kindly by those supposed to be her supporters. She was a tool. That, by itself, ought to tell you something.
And did I hear somebody I have the assurances of some folks? Like that's conclusive?
Colin. Dammit. Haven't I told you I know what I said? What's the point in making yourself look foolish by misrepresenting it? Get a grip.
Well, we agree that just because somebody says something is their goal, that doesn't mean the effect will be what they wish. Beyond that. . . .
There was very significant resistance to integrating blacks into the military in some quarters of the military. Again, my father was there at the time, but it's not hard to find more extensive documented history on this. I presume you agree that putting blacks into the military was a good thing despite this. My point is that this fact should be considered when debating any possible tensions integrating gays and lesbians might cause -- along with the increasing evidence from other countries that such integration doesn't actually cause problems.
As to your fevered imaginings about "the left" in the U.S., I'll stop being polite and start being honest. To the extent you think you are describing even a significant sliver of left/liberals in the U.S. today (or of those pushing for integration of the army), what you are saying would be slanderous if it wasn't so obviously and even comically false. And it's fundamentally lazy: don't want to engage in the arguments of the other side? Just assume their incredible bad faith (without having to provide evidence of or reason for such bad faith), and I guess you don't need to.
So the question is, why are they pretending?
Ooooooo. Paranoid.
So, answer the question. Why pretend?
Lots of space here.
I think this is a reasonable proposition; as the faction advocating a change in policy, I don't think it's beyond the pale to expect us to carry the burden of persuasion. Of course, I also think that we've met and more than met this burden, by identifying an invidious policy, pointing out specific and serious harms caused by it, and making serious and factually-supported arguments that our desired policy would not cause harm in the balance. The burden should then shift to those who oppose gays in uniform.
There are serious arguments to be made under that burden, such as what the short-term instability would be and how the military would adapt in barracks and combat situations. Ideally, those concerns are answered by the practical examples of other nations. In practice, advocates of integration lump those arguments in with the hysterical "gays are the gullible tools of the left which wants to destroy America" garbage that attends this debate, and they tend to get ignored.
Speaking of which, Richard, you haven't answered my question. Is this an organized conspiracy to destroy America for no particular reason? Are the Masons in on it?
So when the opportunity arises wrt gays and military life, I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing. I would be surprised, to put it more accurately, not to see it.
So the left as I describe it is small. Fine. It's interesting how many not of their kidney have the same tactics, rhetoric, and goals. So the rest of the fellow travelers don't carry an ANSWER ID card. So? If you differentiated yourself from their actions and rhetoric, that would be more persuasive.
We have, as I noted before, seen once-proud militaries not looking so hot. Correlation--bringing in gays--does not equal causation. But it does require explanation. IMO, it's the entire process of putting social concerns ahead of combat effectiveness. Which, as I noted, at least one proponent cheerfully admitted would suffer wrt gays.
In your zeal to add pointless insults, you miss the point of the analogy. Opponents of integrating gays and lesbians say, "but it will cause unrest in certain quarters of the military." There is no question that integrating blacks did exactly that, at least for a time (as opponents predicted it would). But, I think you would agree, that alone was not a sufficient reason to refuse to integrate the army on the basis of race. So, that alone is not a sufficient reason to refuse to integrate the army on the basis of sexual orientation.
That's not a smear tactic, facile, dishonest, that's a pretty tight comparison as far as it goes. You may believe that gays and lesbians are, in other ways, much different than blacks. But that wasn't the point.
So I have to prove to you that I am not part and parcel of ANSWER? It is to laugh. Please prove to me you're not part of the KKK. Because, you know, a big chunk of the political right. . .
And there is no "correlation" to cause us to wonder about any possible "causation." That's the whole point of the original post.
ANSWER is one part of the issue.
Another part would be, say, Pelosi's visit to Syria. Good for us???? How?
But, as James Lileks said, after the election, he'd be checking fares for the last helicopter off the embassy roof, were he an Iraqi who'd trusted the Americans. And Pelosi did what to allay those fears?
Beat Bush and hang the consequences.
As somebody noted, the capital city of the last country to trust us is Ho Chi Minh city. And the dems/left/libs think that was a hell of a good thing. And they're clearly trying like hell to make it happen again.
There actually is a correlation. As has been pointed out several times. The question is causation.
BTW, Colin Powell said he got "testy" when the gay issue and the racial integration issue were equated. He didn't see it the same. Probably a member of the KKK.
But the key is WHY each event would cause unrest. Integration "caused unrest" because certain whites didn't want blacks to be treated as equals. Bringing homosexuals into the military will cause unrest for quite different reasons. Pretending that it's all just apples and apples is ridiculous, and yes, facile and a smear tactic. Sexuality is not race and race is not sexuality.
At this point, I don't see the issue of gays in the military looking like a reprise of 48-49, but of 68-75. In neither case were the individuals, except in a few isolated instances, part of the problem except as tokens, symbols, or tools.