There has been a steady stream of articles over the past year advocating for allowing gays to openly serve in the military and here is yet another one:
Congress should repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win, according to a new study released by a California-based research center.
The study was conducted by four retired military officers, including the three-star Air Force lieutenant general who in early 1993 was tasked with implementing President Clinton’s policy that the military stop questioning recruits on their sexual orientation.
“Evidence shows that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion,” the officers states. [Associated Press]
This AP article was actually quite good. First of all what I liked about it is it didn’t bash the military about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy which is something that annoys me greatly because the military didn’t make the policy, Congress did. The military just implements the policy that Congress legislates.
What else I like about the article was that it did not try to create this false perception of some great witch hunt in the military against gays as media articles in the past have often claimed. There is no witch hunt against gays in the military.
Finally what I liked about the article is that it actually exposed the motives of the group behind this study:
The study was sponsored by the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California at Santa Barbara, which said it picked the panel members to portray a bipartisan representation of the different service branches. According to its Web site, the Palm Center “is committed to keeping researchers, journalists and the general public informed of the latest developments in the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy debate.” Palm himself was “a staunch supporter of civil rights in the gay community,” the site says.
Two of the officers on the panel have endorsed Democratic candidates since leaving the military — Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, who supports Barack Obama, and Marine Corps Gen. Hugh Aitken, who backed Clinton in 1996.
I have lost count on how many times in the past have I had to expose these groups that release some study critical of the military just to find out it is a George Soros propaganda front group. So at least the AP journalist Anne Flaherty actually showed who the people behind this study are, a gay right activist group and Barack Obama supporters. With such people behind this study was there ever any doubt what they were going to conclude?
What this also tells us is that the trickle of articles coming out by these gay rights groups is that they are setting the conditions for a Barack Obama presidency to remove the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Personally the only issue I have with gays in the military is whether or not they try to seek to receive special treatment or not, such as trying to be allowed to march in gay pride parades in uniform for example.
Also I don’t think gays in the military have it all that bad, the people I see persecuted more then anyone is overweight servicemembers not gays. Just to clarify if you are obese and out shape then yes you shouldn’t be in the military, however I have seen guys that were technically overweight due to the Army’s height, weight system that easily pass a PT test but can’t pass the tape test. I have seen guys who easily pass a PT test have to starve themselves for a week and drink little water just to pass the tape test which in my opinion is dangerously unhealthy for soldiers to have to do just to pass a tape test. I have seen plenty of what I would classify good soldiers get chaptered for being overweight and not once have I been in unit that has had someone chaptered for being gay.
That is why I can’t get worked up about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because it is not much of an issue to begin with when compared to bigger issues the Army has.
Popularity: 2%
:mrgreen:...
6:45 pm on July 11th, 2008 1
What the hell is Bush up to. What if a gay general wont push the button becasue he doesnt want to wrinkel his dress. Or you are in a fox hole with a whole bucnch of gay solders and they want to have a gay orgy.
This is the end of the US military. Gays will be buggering everyone and force “PC” buggering.
1:38 am on July 12th, 2008 2
Many nations have openly gays serving in the military, however lodging can be a problem. Most of the dorms (at least when I was in) are a 2 person type with an adjoining bathroom. Having an openly gay man sharing a room with a straight person may cause problems. Conversly, having 2 gay men sharing a room could present there own particular problems.
Personally, I just don’t want to know. Just do your job and I’ll be a happy camper.
3:24 am on July 12th, 2008 3
meh. gays, who cares? I knew a few who kept it under wraps but we knew.
Now the weight policy, I’ve fought that for 11 years as a soldier. Many times I scored 300 on the PT test, run a 10:03 as my best time but was consistent in the 11’s. The tape would come back that I was 22% to 25% body fat when the Skin Caliper test I would do with my trainer at 24 hour fitness would usually come back 14% to 16% body fat.
5:20 am on July 12th, 2008 4
Hmmm…
“having 2 gay men sharing a room could present there own particular problems.”
What 2 gay men willingly do in their shared bathroom is no business of mine… ergo, no problem. In fact, it should be encouraged… less of that “My baby’s daddy” crap.
“Having an openly gay man sharing a room with a straight person may cause problems.”
No it doesn’t. It doubles your chance of getting laid on a slow Friday night. “So, uh, dude… my, uh, date fell through tonight. You, uh, wanna have a beer or something?”
7:26 am on July 12th, 2008 5
So what if your gay and don’t meet the weight requirements but you score 300 on your pt tests?
7:37 am on July 12th, 2008 6
“…the military didn’t make the policy, Congress did. The military just implements the policy Congress legislates.”
I’m sorry GI, but this is either a highly bowlderized interpretation of actual events or a fumbling attempt at historical revision.
Yes, GI, you’re right in that it was Congress who debated and eventually pushed through the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. But yet again, your engaging in a semantically shallow analysis.
Any sensible and serious telling of the history of the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy must contend with three indviduals: Senator Sam Nunn, who in 1993 chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee; Charles Moskos, the military sociologist who laid the intellectual foundations of the policy; and obviously Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It was these three individuals that gave serious energy in pushing through “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Did Congress play it’s substantial role? Of course. But so did very powerful and influential individuals such as Colin Powell. Moreover, it was due to vehement protests, in part by the Pentagon brass, on comments made by then President Bill Clinton, the resulted in the policy we have today.
So the notion that the military itself had no role whatsoever in crafting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is clearly and demonstrably false. They were one of the intials groups that ignited the controversy, and along with their allies in Congress, successfully manuevered in passing the policy into law.
10:25 am on July 12th, 2008 7
I liked the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy”. Both in the military and after I retired. I really don’t want to know what anyones sexual preferences are and in the work place I don’t care. There are so many males that I have known who feel they must tell me thier penis size. Usually the ones who have a small one and feel the need to express it. I really, really, don’t care and don’t want to know. So now the boss has to deal with “Hi sarge, I’m gay you know.” Give everyone a break and tell them to keep thier sexual preferences out of military life and my life as well.
12:38 pm on July 12th, 2008 8
The biggest concern is that lonely, bored, horney GIs who are not gay will get sucked into it…
…so to speak.
1:06 pm on July 12th, 2008 9
Gaetano is also engaging in some historic revisionism. I was in the Pentagon when Clinton came into office and I participated in the early Army working groups at the Pentagon that met to work out the integration of gays in the military. The military didn’t like the whole gays in the military issue and weren’t happy with Clinton but most of the senior leadership in the Pentagon saluted and began to prepare for the policy to change.
Senator Nunn among others heard loud and clear from their constituents that they wanted the Congress to oppose. The radical gay rights group Act Up staged a “kiss in” protest in Nunn’s front office and it did not have its intended affect. He was disgusted ss were a large number of staff on the Hill and Act Up definitely helped kill the Clinton initiative. The White House also was rocked by the reaction from the publicand Clinton was in swift retreat. Powell, Aspin and Nunn provided him a reasonable opportunity based on the new policy to retreat. Clinton grabbed it and ran with it and probably smacked Stephanopoulos about the head and shoulders for getting him into that one in the first place.
I agree with GI in terms of the way the Army generally deals with gays. My policy for gay and heterosexual misbehavior was always, don’t put it in my face and make me deal with it. The only gays I tossed were those who didn’t keep their hands to home and molested other soldiers. And of course there was the time I was walking through my motorpool in Graf and I found two soldiers going at it in the back of a Gamma Goat (yeah I’m an old guy). No matter what, for some reason that Goat’s bumper number was always being repainted HHB-69 by some clever jokester.
Today, so many gay soldiers are being discharged because they are stepping forward and saying “Iraq sucks and so do I.” You sign up today for 4 years, you’re going to do 8 after you are recalled from the IRR. Just say you are gay and you’re out. Obviously a lot of young men and women are stepping forward to “tell.”
11:50 am on July 13th, 2008 10
If you want to assert that I’m equally engaged in revisionism, DMZDave, I won’t take that away from you. However, I do ask that you provide some sort of concrete evidence that indicates so, rather than trying to pass off your own personal experience as proof of your assertion.
I’m well aware of the personal positions of high level civilian officials at the time, as well as the sort political stunts engaged in by some activist groups. I’m also aware, as you stated, that many American voters had strong opposition to fully integrating homosexuals into the military and that they strongly voiced those concerns to their representatives.
However, all those things do not take away from the main point that I was making to GI: that the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy IS NOT something that was solely created by representatives and senators in the United States Congress. The impression that GI gives, is that high level Pentagon officials had no say in the current policy. In GI’s formulation, the military was merely “following orders”.
It is this argument that most know to be utterly false. You didn’t have to have been in the Pentagon’s working group in 1993 to know that fact.
In his book, “War in a Time of Peace”, the late journalist David Halberstam writes this about Powell and the issue of gays in the military:
“Powell himself was very conservative on this issue, and friends remember him becoming quite irate when the argument was made that integrating gays into the military was a step not unlike integrating blacks some 45 years earlier. It was by no means the same, he said quite vehemently. Powell was also speaking for many of his colleagues who were decidedly unenthusiastic about the idea. Opposition on the part of the Joint Chiefs and within the entire military cadre would be very, very strong, he said, because it touched on issue of human sexuality, opening up questions far more divisive than those raised by racial integration. POWELL ADVOCATED A “DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL” POLICY, which would not satisfy everyone-indeed, it would probably not satisfy anyone on either side-but it would almost surely work. The military, he(Powell) believed, with its inherent codes of justice and fairness, would do the rest.”
(This quote is taken from page 205 of the paper edition of “War in a Time of Peace)
There you have it: GI’s Congress, ALONG with its conservative allies in the military forced on President Clinton and then pushed through the current policy.
To be honest DMZDave, I think that you give me way too much credit when you say that I’m engaging in “revisionism”. When the fact of the matter is, I’m engaging in something far more mundane: stating a mere, obvious fact.
7:40 pm on July 13th, 2008 11
It is interesting that Gaetano goes out of his way to make his argument just come back to the conclusion I made before:
Bottom line is that it is a Congressional policy that if people want to change it they need to call their Congressmen not the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
9:53 pm on July 13th, 2008 12
Goodness gracious, GI! I guess reading comprehension wasn’t one of your fortes when you took the ASVAB.
I’ve made it pretty clear that the current policy concerning gays in the military wasn’t created and enacted solely by Congress, as you absurdly note. Anybody who goes through the primary and secondary accounts of the history of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, knows that Pentagon officials played a large hand in crafting the policy that we have today.
The current policy is something that the military brass was willing to accept in 1993 and Congress abetted their willingness.
So, the notion that all one has to do is go and petition their elected representative to have the policy changed is pat at best. Such a notion totally ignores the powerful institutional pressure, outside the Congress, that keeps the status quo in place.
10:38 pm on July 13th, 2008 13
“There are so many males that I have known who feel they must tell me thier penis size. Usually the ones who have a small one and feel the need to express it.”
You are a fruit cake.
1:36 am on July 14th, 2008 14
Sounds like USFK should model itself on the Sacred Band of Thebes.
It would solve that whole juicy girl problem, too.