Your Tax Dollars at Work
July 11, 2010
Israeli soldiers
Can you imagine if the military had sent out a survey about troop attitudes prior to full racial desegregation of the military? Or prior to allowing women to serve in positions other than nurse and secretary to the Important People? Since when does the military, which is a totally paternalistic, top-down, do-as-we-say organization take a poll about how the troops feel about a major change in military policy? Ummmm, never? I think it’s more than practical for the DoD to try to figure out how best to make the change in policy go as smoothly as possible, but it’s quite another to send the message to both the troops and the top brass that if you disagree with the policy, you can vocally condemn it and even undermine attempts to change it.
Columbia Law School submitted a report to Congress which found that our allies- Great Britain, Israel, Canada and Australia- didn’t have a problem integrating openly gay service members. Of course they didn’t. Because once the decision was made they didn’t allow the top brass to undermine it.
I’d like to hear just one member of the U.S. Congress try to claim that one of the most formidable military forces in the world, the Israeli Defense Force, has suffered as a result of openly gay service members!
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Only the military would use the word “homosexual” repeatedly in the year 2010. It’s kind of the gay version of the word Negro.
Yeah, I don’t think Gates is too into repealing DADT despite finally saying he was – probably at the urging Obama. If it seems that way to some of us, then imagine what the troops think so I think you are right, it’s like they want to use this survey to prevent repealing DADT. I followed the link and read the questions and the whole survey is negative without coming out and saying anything negative outright if you know what I mean- it definitely seems like they are trying to influence the results with how the questions are phrased.
I don’t like Gates. I don’t trust him. He has the same views Bush does and I think Obama kept him on to try to win over the hawks. When will Obama learn that nothing he ever does will win over the GOP (or maybe even the Blue Dogs)?
So the defense department paid some private contractor millions of dollars and THAT’S what they came up with? Great. Where are all the deficit hawks?
Sodomites have no business in the military. Do you want our armed forces to act like a bunch of girls or do you want us to continue to be the most powerful military on the planet?
Yeah, because no heterosexuals ever engage in sodomy.
Get a dictionary asshat.
BTW, my comment above was in response to Go2Hell.
Wish he or she would follow their own advice.
We don’t let psych cases in the military so why should gays be allowed in? It’s a mental illness.
Like blind intolerance?
The pentagon is upset that their little survey made its way to the media:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/pentagon-slams-critics-of-dont-ask-dont-tell-survey.php?ref=fpb
Apparently, it’s every one else’s fault that that the survey is a bunch of biased nonsense.
Hey guys, this is change you can believe in, remember? No, this is who Barack Obama is- he stands for nothing, makes empty promises for political gain and then drags his feet hoping to get past 2010. But then comes 2012, so he’ll drag his feet some more. Then maybe, just maybe, if he wins a second term the gay democrats will actually be given a “thank you” for their slavish devotion to whatever loser democrat is in office. It doesn’t matter who the democrat is- Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, whatever. Democrats play the game, cash the checks, say the right things to get elected and then once in it’s adios amigos and the gay community is left wondering what the f@#k happened. But they still keep supporting ’em. Which is why the democrats know they never have to deliver on their promises to the gay community. Can you imagine democrats treating any other interest group that way year after year after year for decades? Of course not. Because the democrat motto is “vote for us, we suck less than the other guys do.”
When are people going to wake up?
A Code of Conduct that all military personal have to follow with regard to relationships and sex in the US military. They talked about it a lot when women began to serve. Back then they thought that, with women serving there in would be nothing but sex. Women were going to wreck war! Well, it’s been over two decades, where’s the catastrophe cause by all those damn females?
I think the issue of gay service is very much the same as the issue of women’s service was. That Code of Conduct will still be in place when there are gay service people and it will still need to be followed. It will still be against the rules to sleep with you fellow soldier, sailor, fighter pilot, marine, and anyone else I failed to mention. The idea that an openly gay soldier or two is going to destroy the very essence of our military ability is asinine at best. Great Britain and Israel, two of the world’s other big military powers, both allow openly gay service and they have yet have their militaries dissolve into a sea of antiquated stereotypes and I think the US armed forces will survive as well.
There is nothing about what you enjoy in the bedroom that impedes your ability to shoot a gun, drive a tank, fly a plane, or otherwise serve your country and, given that we have two conflicts running at the same time and many in high places seem to want to see us take on Iran as well, I don’t think that we should be turning away qualified individuals who have a desire to join one of our armed forces solely on the basis of who they date.
The military is trained from day one to follow orders, regardless of whether they agree with the orders. So the military brass sending a survey instead of just issuing an order can be perceived as a somewhat weak signal to the military. I would guess that most of the guys who will respond negatively regarding gay people to the survey would just get over it if an order were issued and they had no choice.
Interesting that all the discussion about DADT and “homosexuals” in the military usually focuses — explicitly or implicitly — on gay MEN. I’ll bet attitudes about gays in the military vary depending on gender, i.e. the idea of openly gay women in the Armed Forces doesn’t pose as much of a threat to heterosexual men (heck, it probably turns them on) and heterosexual women iseem less prone to vitriolic hatred and passionate bigotry on the subject of lesbians in the mitary.
Or am I being sexist? 😉
No, you’re not being sexist. The survey is like a representation of male fears about gay men (including fears about their *own* sexuality).
The survey focuses almost exclusively on the negative aspects of having glb serve openly and that will have an impact on the results of course. And the intermittent use of the word “homosexual” can’t be an accident. Research has shown that word has a more negative connotation than gay or lesbian, so once again it’s hard to not feel like the DoD is trying to ensure the results give them a chance to kick the can down the road a little more. I think they are looking for an excuse to NOT institute the policy any time in the foreseeable future.
How about the positives of open service? Like attracting more highly qualified people to serve in the Armed Forces at a time when we’ve had to lower our standards to reach recruitment goals (so as to not have to institute a draft which would ensure we don’t fight any more unnecessary wars). And not booting out people like Arabic translators who we sorely need. Or just doing the right thing.
unit cohesion was an excuse in the 40’s too: “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” — Former Klansman Senator Robert Byrd in 1944 who opposed gays in the military.
Yes, and had the DoD taken a survey regarding attitudes about serving with African Americans or women, the military wouldn’t have desegregated possibly for decades.