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Time for gays in the military?
Shinto
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Should gays be allowed into the military immediately, or should we wait for a time when the military is under less pressure?
It sounds like a bullshit excuse, but the military does actually have quite a bit on its plate without implimenting a big change in social policy.
Or do we need people to enlist so badly that gays should be let in tommorrow? We're letting in people who are halfway to hardened criminals after all.
It sounds like a bullshit excuse, but the military does actually have quite a bit on its plate without implimenting a big change in social policy.
Or do we need people to enlist so badly that gays should be let in tommorrow? We're letting in people who are halfway to hardened criminals after all.
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What impact exactly will this "big change in social policy" have? Is this not the simple abolishment of a stupid rule? It's not like the military would need to reorganise anything to accommodate the change.
Edit: This is an honest question - I know little about the workings of the US military.
I mean, to them, 'gender identity disorder' is just a misspelling of 'gay' right?
Not tangential-- My gut says that the military won't do anything like this for a long time, just because politically we're at sort of a standstill. It would be, as you said, a very large change in social policy; furthermore, it's an instance of the federal government 'going soft' on an issue that, beyond and perhaps 'more important' than its pragmatic nature, is a voter catch-point.
I imagine we'll see the terms of enlistment and benefits changed before we see such broad and sweeping social policy change.
It's generally considered that socially the military is a fairly reactionary group and that allowing gays to serve openly would create a lot of tension within units.
I suspect that you'd run into a lot of entrenched resistance. I'm talking out my ass here, but I suspect that the military is in general not a bastion of enlightened tolerance.
You seperate men from women in basic and what not, for obvious reasons.
How do you seperate gay men? Do you have a platoon of gay guys showering with each other in basic?
But who's to know who's gay and who isn't? Where is this tension being directed? Even bigots don't treat everyone with mistrust because some of them might be gay.
Well RBB, if gays are serving openly then I would assume that others would know that they were gay?
Give them a chance to prove their worth?
I imagine one of the better ways to change the minds of the conservative people in the army might be to show that infact homosexual people really are neither better nor worse soldiers than straight people
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Hawaii has a clause in its constitution saying every citizen who is able has the right to serve in the defense of its republic.
I've always found that interesting.
So yeah, if you wait for the military to be doing its normal thing then you have just got a group of people who have been mostly selected from the least gay-tolerant sectors of the population - force them to realise that their predjudice is based off nothing when they just don't have a choice is going to be the best way of making them realise that their beliefs are ridiculous
You win the topic.
And you would be correct, sir.
Very correct.
Having served in both a combat arms line company as well as the headquarters of a combat arms battalion (armor and infantry respectively), I can tell you that in the Army at least not only is active and confrontational homophobia tolerated, it's practically encouraged.
It's not something that will go smoothly. I think it needs to be done, and soon, but I'm not convinced that now is the time. All the more reason to get out of Iraq, I suppose.
Though I can see integrating some of the higher-echelon and non-combat units, even now. It wouldn't be a bad start, if we felt the burning need to do it immediately.
This is going to be the stereotypical answer, but that was the same argument used against ending segregation in the Armed Forces, and it's as bad now as it was done. "They don't want to do it and won't like it" isn't a valid argument against ending discrimination.
well, I think it is better than having a backdoor draft.
you said backdoor
oh yeah
meh, I'm not gay. I'm not in the military. I think it should happen soon, but well... moral isn't that high right now, and I think it would make things worse. I'd like to think just saying that it was over and done with should be enough.
Personally the whole having gay only barracks is pretty dumb, and as far as worrying about people doing amoral stuff, I'm more worried about Joe Douchebag deciding to take matters into his own hands, than anything the gays would do. I just don't see how shit won't happen, and that is going to play all sorts of hell.
now, well is just does not feel like the right time. When will the right time be? When are we going to be out of Iraq? Are we actually going to invade iran? I think it would in some ways be an undue burden on the folks out there actually getting killed. But I have no idea when that kind of thing is going to change. Half of me says "Fuck it. Do it now. Get it over with. They had to deal with blacks in Vam(or Korea?(maybe it was an issue both places, don't know.)) and that worked itself out. They are fucking solders and if they don't fucking like it, they will just have to deal with it. If they can't deal with it, they can go to fucking jail and/or accept a dishonorable discharge."
Then the other half of laughs cause I as said "dishonorable discharge", and it points out how crappy a lot of people over there have it. How coming out might effect a lot of the people over there negatively and cause a commotion and lead to more people getting hurt and us having to stay over there longer.
Politically, well... fucking nothing is going to get done any time soon. Not before an election year, and it is always a fucking election year. I don't even get to make these kind of decisions by fractional proxie, because I live in the south and no one down here would let the issue come anywhere near their platform, and prospects for anything executive (who would almost certainly veto right now) look like shit. I'd rather work on getting them treated like equals over here, before getting it so that they can get killed for us.
If it could be done as one fell swoop, that would be fucking dandy, but I think we have got to go so fucking far before that happens. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe them shedding some blood will have the effect of helping them out over here. Hell, blacks were dying here for a long time before they gained what we consider parity today... or whatever the fuck it is we call that.
Yeah, I'd support it now. I'd support it after the war. Hell, as sick to my stomach as the idea makes it, I'd even support phased insertion, so that while those that are over there serving, possibly along side unprepared bigots, out folk can join up along side bigots who got into it know there might be gays. Whatever... it is all progress, and it would be sorted out in a decade anyway.
But the political climate seems like one fully capable of putting it of indefinitely.
better?
The best way to do this is to go about it like when black people wanted civil rights. Let them be soldiers to show that gay people fight just the same as straight people..they'll protect you just like anyone else. The whole scare tactic of the gay men buttfucking the other soldiers is just bullshit. People shouldn't go to war just to get sex. People go to war to defend their country. If these gay soldiers really want to defend their country, abstinence should be the least of their worries.
And who knows, with all these soldiers being caught doing gay porn, the prospect of getting sex on the side isn't too far-fetched.
Major Tate: Sir, we're not prejudiced toward homosexuals.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace: You just don't want to see them serving in the Armed Forces?
Major Tate: No sir, I don't.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace: 'Cause they impose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion.
Major Tate: Yes, sir.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace: That's what I think, too. I also think the military wasn't designed to be an instrument of social change.
Major Tate: Yes, sir.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace: The problem with that is that what they were saying to me 50 years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an admiral in the U.S. Navy and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff... Beat that with a stick.
(Admiral Fitzwallace is black, if that makes more sense.)
I was in the AF Reserves for 3 and a half years, so I did the basic training + tech school thing. I have to say, I didn't have so much as an erection for the 7 weeks we were in basic training (whether from the stress and lack of sleep or from something in the water, who knows). We usually got 45 second "combat" showers. So that's really a moot point.
Not that I imagine gay people would be very tempted.
"Don't ask, don't tell" is a wildly incoherent policy morally and practically. It costs the public obscene amounts of money, it often has exactly the opposite of the intended impact (how many people even know about "don't harass, don't pursue"), and generally holds the military in stasis. As already mentioned, the armed forces bit the bullet in the forties and fifties and today they are the best racially integrated institutions in the U.S. Time to move ahead with gays, Iraq or no Iraq. Racial tension was an issue in Vietnam as well.
That's tripe, though. The last survey of US soldiers on this issue came out a couple of months ago, and 8/10 were fine with it. Simple fact is that thousands of homosexuals are already serving in the military, and the only thing a change in policy would do is stop the army from haemorrhaging good officers that get "found out" having relationships with the 'wrong' people. I can't believe they haven't bit the bullet and gotten over it yet, since they're so very desperate for numbers.
There are also more publicized instances of homophobic officers and soldiers going out of their way to ask, causing problems, etc...In every one of these cases, it was the intolerant individual causing the disruption, not the homosexual soldier. In the hypothetical question about whether gay soldiers would be able to behave themselves; any soldier violating military regulations would face military justice accordingly. But since most gay people, like most everyone, are adults capable of acting maturely, this won't be any more a problem than any other kind of misbehavior soldiers get up to.
Just like with the racial desegregation of the military, "But we're racists!" isn't an acceptable counterargument.
From my experience, all the gay soldiers/marines/airmen/sailors that want to serve, are serving. I don't think that by changing the policy, you are going to get a surge of recruits (especially now).
Most of the time, we only found out someone was gay in the ranks if they wanted to get out. Sometimes it was a lie, some we actually believed, but the only time the subject was brought up was when someone was discharged, and usually only because of their own admission.
I was in a 50 man shop (Network control center) and the subject of anything sexual was usually not talked about (unless between friends), it's not like a guy would come in on shift and talk about the hummer he got last night. So if anyone was gay (and there were a few) your personnel life (gay or straight) was not usually a topic of conversation anyway.
The policy and the supposed reasoning behind it don't match up. The problem is being caused by people intolerant of homosexuality joining the military, but instead of taking action against the bigots, the military takes action against homosexuals, which is ridiculous.
Well put. But since the military has recently relaxed rules on recruiting people affiliated with hate groups, I imagine they're going the opposite direction...
It isn't moot because they are not allowed to serve openly?
What I wonder is what difference the sexual preference makes? Most people don't care how you have sex with your wife/husband at home, (even though certain positions and acts are outlined as wrong in the UCMJ) so why should anyone care if you're gay?
Do people just want to be able to be in the military and yell "I'm gay?"
It's really more about wanting to be in the military and not having to devote time and energy to hiding yourself and living in fear of losing your career (or worse) if someone finds out that you like boys.
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I don't know how units would respond to it, because when I was in Iraq, there was a lot of (for lack of a better term) friendly faggotry. Of course our FISTers and mortars (me!) were pretty odd to begin with, but some highlights:
- Running around with your pants down and a glowstick in your buttcheeks going "I'M A FIREFLY" at two in the morning.
- The entire showing your balls game from Waiting
- Rubbing your balls all over someone's boom mike on their CVC helmet, and then asking them how your dick tastes at the end of the patrol
That and the fact one of our squad leaders in the company was gay, and it was pretty much an open secret among the leadership in our company. It was only because I used to go to a gay bar (the only place in that fucking city that wasn't packed to the gills with soldiers), and I was enjoying my beer and looked over and see the guy tongue deep with another dude. I kept it to myself for about 8 months before the topic of "Who's gay for reals?" came up on a Mosul rooftop. When I was alone with my squad leader I told him about what was up, since he had been hinting he knew the guy in question was gay. Turns out just about everyone knew, but because he did his job no one cared, and without hard proof no one would believe it anyway.
It always gets me about the Army though. They talk about how they have a "can do!" attitude when it comes not speaking up about invading a country with a small amount of troops. Of fighting a war with bullshit equipment and a mission that changes every 20 minutes or so. Its always "We'll do it!", but try to add homosexuals to the mix and that's the line in the sand that can't be crossed.
Whatever.
That, and the fact that under current policy gays are technically allowed to serve, but are basically required to remain absolutely abstinent for their entire enlistment...which means making a career of it while following "the rules" pretty much impossible.
@siliconenhanced: hmmm...maybe it could work then. Always seemed that combat units were pretty homophobic to me, but maybe that's just the ones I was in. Plus, the last time I was in an active-duty unit was almost a decade ago...my recent experience is with an infantry battalion of the Montana National Guard, and Montana is not exactly the font of tolerance in America.
I also was combat arms and in my BASIC training there was one fellow who was discharged for "failure to adapt" because the Drill Sargeants thought he was gay (high voice, slight build) It would be a tough roe to hoe at this poinnt in time.
- John Stuart Mill