Obama to call for repeal of DADT in State of the Union

[Karalysia]

In college should gay students get separate "gay-only" dorm rooms? Or should colleges follow a DADT policy? What should be done about LGBTQQ organizations on campus, they might make people uncomfortable.

 

[MobBoss]

In college should gay students get separate "gay-only" dorm rooms? Or should colleges follow a DADT policy? What should be done about LGBTQQ organizations on campus, they might make people uncomfortable.

A campus is a very poor analogy for a military base.

Try harder.

 

[MobBoss]

Well, I already know of a translator who was kicked out of the army because he was gay (and did tell presumably).

Then it was his choice to leave. You do know they dont have to tell right? And that we are forbidden to investigate them simply because of rumor, right?

Point is, DADT absolutely allows gays to serve in the military, and gives them a way out once they no longer want to serve. Simple, actually.

Why should we assume that gay people cannot be the same kind of skilled professional that straight people are?

Not sure how you get that out of DADT. Thats not what its saying, nor its purpose.

And that is why I asked what the difference was, as you requested. Just telling me, it's not the same doesn't help me understand your position.

I stand next to those guys when I take a piss. My first thought is not, "my wiener is exposed to teh gay!".

What difference does showering with a gay or a heterosexual person make?

Take one and then you tell me.

Kidding aside, the idea of being viewed sexually by a member of the same sex makes some people very uncomfortable. Now, you can go on about how YOU dont care about that, but the Army doesnt deal with individuals, it has to deal with overall numbers.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Then it was his choice to leave. You do know they dont have to tell right? And that we are forbidden to investigate them simply because of rumor, right?

But why should he leave? I still don't have a clear answer to why.

Point is, DADT absolutely allows gays to serve in the military, and gives them a way out once they no longer want to serve. Simple, actually.

What difference does it make whether they tell or not. Isn't it their freedom of speech to do so if they wish?

Not sure how you get that out of DADT. Thats not what its saying, nor its purpose.

Then tell me what is it's purpose

Take one and then you tell me.

So, let me get this straight (pardon the pun). You are offering your unique army insight to those of us lacking it, but when push comes to shove your response is: try it yourself.

Here's the problem though: With DADT the gay person still knows he's gay, so for the gay person nothing changes. The only variable in the showering with gay person scenario is now that everyone knows. What difference does that make?

Do the non-gay suddenly become sexually aroused? Do you believe the gay person suddenly go: hey, you know what, now everyone knows I'm gay I might as well try to have a little action in the shower?

What?

edit: Regarding your edit, so the reason for DADT is that some people are uncomfortable showering with gay people?

Is that it's main purpose?

 

[MobBoss]

But why should he leave? I still don't have a clear answer to why.

Because apparently he didnt want to comply with DADT anymore.

What difference does it make whether they tell or not. Isn't it their freedom of speech to do so if they wish?

People in the miltiary dont have the same free speech rights everyone else does.

Then tell me what is it's purpose

Its a compromise to allow people to serve in the military without regard to their sexuality. It took away the militarys ability to actively investigate and pursue separations based solely on homosexuality, and essentially leaves it up to the individual to cross that line....or not.

So, let me get this straight (pardon the pun). You are offering your unique army insight to those of us lacking it, but when push comes to shove your response is: try it yourself.

If you choose to ignore my winkie smiley, yes.

Here's the problem though: With DADT the gay person still knows he's gay, so for the gay person nothing changes. The only variable in the showering with gay person scenario is now that everyone knows. What difference does that make?

A lot to some people.

Do the non-gay suddenly become sexually aroused?

Please be serious.

Do you believe the gay person suddenly go: hey, you know what, now everyone knows I'm gay I might as well try to have a little action in the shower?

I have been in long enough to have seen it all. Nothing surprises me anymore.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Like the Gay Marriage thread, it's not getting more clear here either, DADT still doesn't make any sense to me. In my opinion the military shouldn't investigate or pursue separations based on anyone's sexuality anyway, with or without DADT.

Thanks for trying anyway.

 

[MobBoss]

Like the Gay Marriage thread, it's not getting more clear here either, DADT still doesn't make any sense to me. In my opinion the military shouldn't investigate or pursue separations based on anyone's sexuality anyway, with or without DADT.

Thanks for trying anyway.

Well, in order for it to make sense to you it needs to be clear that current military regulations deem open homosexual behavior to not be compatible with military service is the US miltary.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, in order for it to make sense to you it needs to be clear that current military regulations deem open homosexual behavior to not be compatible with military service is the US miltary.

Yes, I do understand that this is what the US military deems to be the case. I just was and still am puzzled by the motivation behind it. But the reason I say we're not getting anyway is clear for instance in the shower example:

What difference does that make?
A lot to some people.

Makes me none the wiser. But I have to bugger of from the PC now, so I thank you for your effort.

 

[JollyRoger]

It seems to me that since performing a homosexual act is obviously a choice, then making it open instead of secret would tempt those who choose not to engage in homosexual acts in the current environment to change their mind since it would no longer come with as much risk of being booted. We are protecting people who normally choose heterosexuality from choosing to openly experiment with non-heterosexual acts by imposing the DADT barrier. You people just do not realize how severe the temptations would be to members of our military if DADT was done away with.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I find this NY Times article, printed while the current DADT policy was being set by Clinton in 1993, is illuminating in a number of ways.

Spoiler :

UNTIL 1942, no specific proviso barred homosexuals from serving in the military. That year, military psychiatrists, new to the ranks, warned of the "psychopathic personality disorders" that would make homosexuals unfit to fight. Then they devised supposedly foolproof guides to ferret them out: an effeminate flip of hand or a certain nervousness when standing naked before an officer.

It never really worked. Homosexuals served throughout World War II and after. In the repressive atmosphere of the 1950's, discharges for homosexuality soared; at the height of the Vietnam War, when recruitment drives were at their peak, enforcement was lax.

The argument is also, inevitably, about sex. That may be why keeping the subject hidden has always had a certain intrinsic appeal in a country with puritanical roots.

Military leaders who reject the civil rights analogy say the controversy is not about sex or even equal rights, but the agenda of a special interest group. They fear that complying with President Clinton's orders would set a precedent, inviting demands for inclusion by everyone from the mentally handicapped to other sexual minorities like transsexuals. They also argue that it is a privilege to serve in the fighting forces, not a right. "It's a nightmare as far as the military is concerned," said Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine lieutenant general. "It threatens the strong, conservative, moralistic tradition of the troops."

Not everyone in the military agrees. Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Washington Post recently that the argument was fueled "more by emotion than by reason." He said that the armed forces' culture of strict discipline is, in fact, uniquely suited to control the behavior of both homosexuals and the heterosexuals who might bash them -- more so than civilian society.

Randy Shilts, the author of "Conduct Unbecoming," a new history of homosexuality in the military, points to the armed forces' policies on AIDS to illustrate how well the four services can cope with thorny problems when they must. "The armed forces has some of the most enlightened policies on H.I.V. in the country," he said. Discounting fears that wounded AIDS-infected soldiers might bleed on their buddies, he cited as an example the fact that regulations already prevent those soldiers from going into combat.

But even if the military can manage the transition, that does not necessarily mean the controversy will fade. There is a deeper source of discontent: "They want us to move faster than the country," said a former general who did not wish to be identified. Sodomy laws based on religious proscriptions against sex for sex's sake are still on the books in 24 states. The District of Columbia recently moved to drop its sodomy law, but Congress, which has final say, blocked a similar attempt in 1981.

The Supreme Court, too, was disinclined to undo a taboo that it says dates to biblical times. In its 1986 decision Bowers v. Hardwick, the Court upheld Georgia's sodomy law.

Another widespread objection is that it would feminize a male club. Enduring images of homosexual men depict them as effeminate, therefore weak, therefore a drain upon a mighty fighting force. Yet that ignores the role of a dominant participant in homosexual sex, a partner who takes the aggressive "male" role. The argument also raises the question whether anything could have feminized the force more than women. And women are already there.

Yet some soldiers are so perturbed by the prospect of including gay men in the ranks that they are willing to break the rules by assaulting fellow soldiers. Their explanation is that they fear attack or unwanted sexual advances -- sexual harassment -- as if they really don't believe that no means no. It is likely, too, that some fear their own reactions and the prospect that they might respond sexually. "Hatred of gay men," Ken Corbett, a psychologist, wrote in an Op-Ed article for The New York Times in February, "is based on fear of the self, not of an alien other." For decades, psychologists have said that at the core of homophobia is repressed fear and latent homosexuality.

Psychologists point to a rich history of songs, drag shows and jokes in the military that serve to neutralize powerful feelings. As early as 1941, the psychiatrist William Menninger described the typical soldier's wartime relationship as one of "disguised and sublimated homosexuality," a theme given voice in the popular war song, "My Buddy": "I miss your voice and the touch of your hand, my buddy."

The implied double standard was made official in 1982. The Department of Defense regulations adopted that year allow a heterosexual to have homosexual sex and to be exonerated -- so long as he or she states that the incident was a lapse. Gay and lesbian soldiers, by contrast, are discharged just for identifying themselves as such. Women More Vulnerable

Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, a much-decorated nurse in the Army National Guard who was discharged last May for her sexual orientation, says the ban has left women particularly vulnerable. "There is a tremendous amount of lesbian-baiting in the service," she said. "Any straight man who propositions a woman and she's not interested, well, it can't be because he's not attractive. So it must be because she's a lesbian. It's used as a threat all the time."

Because homosexuals now have to hide, anyone in the armed forces, she says, can sabotage the career of another by making allegations about their sexuality. If homosexuals were allowed to be open, that disruption would disappear. Though men are equally susceptible to such accusations, they are less likely than women to be dismissed because of their orientation. Lesbians are discharged at a rate from two to six times higher than gay men, depending on the branch of the service.

Several books, but most notably Allan Berube's "Coming Out Under Fire," trace the start of a gay rights movement in America to the military itself. They argue that the relative openness of gay and lesbian relationships in the military in World War II eventually led to those veterans settling in port cities like San Francisco and New York where, for the first time, they established identifiable subcultures.

Men, too, often seemed to accept their gay comrades. Ben Small, a gay Army Air Corpsman stationed near New Guinea, once wrote away for a pile of dresses for a drag show. When the dresses arrived, he recounted in Mr. Berube's study, "Well, here's everybody in the office from the lieutenant on down trying on dresses! Everybody suddenly becomes a drag queen!"

Such tolerance would not last through the cold war. By the 1950's, Senator Joseph McCarthy was well into a civilian witch hunt that would quickly bleach the military's ranks as well. At the time, Senator McCarthy's right-hand man, Roy Cohn, and J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, both closeted themselves, presented the argument that homosexuals were the agents of communism. "One homosexual can pollute a Government office," concluded a report authorized by the Senate in 1950. Military discharges based on sexual orientation doubled in the 1950's and then increased by half again in the 1960's.

Today, many senior officers see the issue in a long historical perspective. Steeped in military lore that traces homosexuality to pre-Christian history, they point to tales of homosexuality on the front lines from the Sacred Band of Thebes in 338 B.C. (where each soldier was said to be a lover of another) to such military giants as Alexander the Great, Richard the Lion-Hearted and T. E. Lawrence (popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia). Seen in that context, said a retired general, the issue becomes more a matter of management than revolution.

Those comments were supportive, but typically oblique. General Trainor, who now directs the national security program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, may have encapsulated the military's gut reaction best. Given half a choice, he said, the military would have looked long and hard at the matter and then decided: "Listen, I'd rather not deal with it."

 

[The Imp]

A campus is a very poor analogy for a military base.

Try harder.

A prison?

 

[capslock]

Why should we assume that gay people cannot be the same kind of skilled professional that straight people are?
And that is why I asked what the difference was, as you requested. Just telling me, it's not the same doesn't help me understand your position.

I stand next to those guys when I take a piss. My first thought is not, "my wiener is exposed to teh gay!".

What difference does showering with a gay or a heterosexual person make?

I spent pages explaining it. Noone pays attention, or they think decreased efficiency is acceptable for their cause. Probably a little of both.

 

[Syterion]

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Don't you all want the approval of our founding fathers?

Benji boy here wanted fags to have rights beyond the ability to defect to the British.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I spent pages explaining it. Noone pays attention, or they think decreased efficiency is acceptable for their cause. Probably a little of both.

There is a third option you have not considered. I read what you wrote. In fact I read the whole thread before I replied and started asking questions. Have you considered the really outlandish possibility that my opinion is that you are wrong in your assessment?

Yeah I know, it's really mind boggling

I'm weird like that

 

[Mr. Dictator]

really, how hard is it to ask soldiers to be mature and see the person they're serving with, gay or straight, as an equal human being? in the end, they're still shooting the same people you are. and eventually, maybe you will want them watching your butt.

 

[otago]

Gays will not be the problem, the problem in the US military is Christian fundies who believe they took an oath to uphold their ideal of a religion and who put that before their oath to the constitution.

It would be the same in the UK etc if some fundy believed his religion came before his oath of allegiance to the crown.
And yes fundies can come from all religions.

 

[bhsup]

But in the UK the Queen is the defender of the faith, and don't the fine folks in the UK's military take an oath of allegiance to the Queen? That kinda means they have to defend the faith too.

 

[.Shane.]

Well, in order for it to make sense to you it needs to be clear that current military regulations deem open homosexual behavior to not be compatible with military service is the US miltary.

An open heterosexual behavior is?

Define "open" behavior.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120764/conservatives-shift-favor-openly-gay-service-members.aspx

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,015 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted May 7-10, 2009, and with 1,015 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 19-21, 2004. For results based on these total samples of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Defense Secretary Gates and JCoS Chairman Adm. Mullen were upbraided by Republicans for moving ahead with how to eliminate DADT, instead of further studying whether it should be done or not, as their Commander-in-Chief ordered them to do!

Spoiler :

Two top Pentagon officials told Congress on Tuesday that they are moving ahead with plans to dismantle the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against homosexuals serving openly in the armed forces — drawing a sharp rebuke from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who accused Defense Secretary Robert Gates of trying to usurp Congress’s authority over the military.

“The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it,” Gates said in his opening statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee session. “We’ve received our orders from the commander in chief and are moving out accordingly.”

But McCain said Gates was disrespecting the statute Congress passed in 1993 setting the gays-in-the-military policy into law.

“I’m deeply disappointed with your statement, Secretary Gates,” McCain said. He charged Gates with treating repeal of the law as a fait accompli. “Your statement obviously is one that is clearly biased without the view of Congress being taken into consideration. … I’m happy to say that we still have a Congress of the United States to repeal 'don’t ask don’t tell,' despite your efforts to repeal it in many respects by fiat.”

Gates said he recently ordered a 45-day review on measures the military might take prior to repeal of the law to modify some of the policy’s impact. He said one possibility is increasing the amount of evidence needed to discharge a gay service member from the force. The secretary also said he was considering ending discharges based on third-party complaints, rather than on claims that a service member publicly disclosed his or her sexual orientation.

However, Gates said only a change in the law would permit a moratorium on all discharges based on sexual orientation. “The advice that I have been given is that the current law would not permit that,” the secretary said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.” In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama used the same language in calling for a repeal of the ban, saying: "It’s the right thing to do."

“We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals, and ours as institutions,” Mullen said.

Gates said he was asking two top officials, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, to oversee a yearlong review of how a repeal of the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' policy would be implemented in areas such as housing, fraternization rules, unit cohesion and recognition of same-sex relationships.

Views on the policy broke largely along party lines, with Republicans saying it should be kept in place or expressing concerns about repeal and Democrats urging the Pentagon to press forward. Maine Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican who expressed willingness to consider repeal.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) asked Gates and Mullen to respond to a legislative proposal that would repeal the policy at the end of the Pentagon’s study. “Language like this would make me much more comfortable, since I want a clear path to repeal,” Udall said.

Gates said while it’s critical that Congress settles the matter, the Pentagon would still need at least another year to implement the change. “We would feel that it would be very important that we be given some period of time for that implementation.”

“As urgently as some would like this to happen, it's just going to take some time,” Mullen added.

Gates and Mullen said that while advocates on both sides of the debate have claimed to know the general views of rank-and-file military personnel on the issue, there have been no reliable surveys indicating what soldiers or their families actually think.

However, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said gathering that kind of information from gays currently in the service who have not made their sexual orientation public will be very problematic.

“You have a real challenge in getting some of the most important input you may need,” she said.

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution. I also believe that the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change. I never underestimate their ability to adapt.

Link to video.

And the McCain hypocrisy continues:

Three years ago, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was pretty clear about his stand on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

A former war hero, McCain said he would support ending the ban once the military's top brass told him that they agreed with the change.

"The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it," McCain said in October 2006 to an audience of Iowa State University students.

That day arrived Tuesday, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen testifying to senators after President Obama's announcement that he would seek a congressional repeal of the 15-year-old policy.

In response, McCain declared himself "disappointed" in the testimony. "At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," he said bluntly, before describing it as "imperfect but effective."

But the McCain spin machine is already in operation:

McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said her boss has not shifted his position.

She noted that Mullen said repeatedly that he was speaking for himself and not for the military, and she dismissed Gates's testimony because he was expressing the Obama administration's line.

"There has to be a determination from our military leaders that they think it is a good idea to change the policy; then, of course, Senator McCain will listen to them."

CBS News blipvert on the subject:


Link to video.