Hubble head

Exactly the point. What you don't know about your fellow soldier's private sex life won't hurt him/her or you. Hence the term, don't ask, don't tell.

It's obvious there are gays in the military and its obvious they can do their job well. But today's military, unlike -500 BCE Alex the Great's- is very homophobic. Plain and simple. Keeping gays hidden, not out in the open is the best current solution for US forces.

I guess you can't blame the policy as much as the society that dictates it.

Bree

Well, then we "gays" shouldn't have to hear about heterosexual exploits! No more "gawd, wasn't that blonde fucking HOT!" or "last night I did so-and-so and she actually used her TEETH!" - both of which (and more) I've heard come out of my esteemed military friends.

If gays can't talk about their sex life, can't admire an attractive person from afar, and can't let ANYONE know about their disgusting desires on pain of losing their position - well, no one else should be allowed to do those things, either.

PS - I love how people automatically assume that, if you're gay, you're CONSTANTLY checking other people out. As if we have nothing else but sex on the brain - c'mon, I can shower at the YMCA with other women and not have sexual thoughts! What kind of people do you think we are, anyway?

ImGod

In my day, the YMCA was for young christian men (and the villiage people of course). All the women had go to the YWCA.

Hmph, mixing boys and girls together in hot, sweaty environments. It's no wonder the worlds going to hell in a hand basket.

Hugo Holbling

In military terms, the only consideration to bear in mind is Operational Effectiveness (OE). The position of the MOD in the UK was legally unsustainable and no case could be successfully made for homosexuals undermining OE, hence the <a href="http://www.mod.uk/issues/homosexuality/statement.htm" target="_blank">statement</a> by the Defence Secretary back in 2000. Nevertheless, general intolerance of homosexuals remains a feature of life in the UK military.

Jessi

The one working (maybe) rationale I've heard against gays in the military was that it could be used as blackmail, e.g. "Tell me what the mission is or I'll tell your wife/CO/etc. that you hit on me." Or something like that. That's what my mom says. I don't know anything about the military, but she wanted to put her 2 cents in.

I don't think the being-seen-naked argument works, because that assumes that gay people are just walking hormones who can't control their sexual urges. Also, I'm sure military people are brave enough to say "I'm not interested" even if they were propositioned.

Ronin

Seems an awful lot like a post hoc argument to me ~ one can only be 'blackmailed' by using the very same stigma currently promoted by the military.

How would the extortionist make any headway if one's sexual preference was open and no big deal?

How would heteros be immune to this type of baiting?

John Hancock

If he covers my ass when incomeing who cares if He'd like to kiss it. Stop being silly!

RED DAVE

Morat says:

Exactly so.

All this crap about the ignorance and/or lack of education of people in the military is just that. How much greater was racism at the end of WWII when integration began?

Where there's a will there's a way, and the present right wing regime, so eager to teach those Iraqis about the virtues of democracy and corporate skullduggery, maintains its prejudices with the thinnest of rationalizations.

Either: gays will try to seduce their fellows or there might be blackmail or a general lowering of morale.

Standard Conservative crap! Take an existing social evil (racism, homophobia), freeze it in the mind as an eternal condition of mankind based on human nature or justify it by pointing out that change will be a danger to the status quo.

Why not just come out of the closet right wingers? You're racist and homophobic and content to be so. Why equivocate like that wimp Trent Lott. Proudly affirm your bigotry and challenge the world!

Back to the good old days of real Conservatives, when White men weren't afraid to dominate the world! Get rid of the colored, the broads, the queers, the Yids. Invade 'em. Kill 'em. Or fuck 'em!

(Did anyone catch Bushy's threat to use nuclear weapons on Iraq?)

Love to You All in This Season of Peace

RED DAVE

[ December 22, 2002: Message edited by: RED DAVE ]</p>

Celsus

Well, in that case the one-party authoritarian state/society I'm living under must be more enlightened than the US.

Whee...

Joel

ex-joejoejoe

liquid

Interesting...

A number of people have come along and said 'Who cares if you might be changing, showering and sleeping in close proximity with those who could find you sexually attractive? You certainly shouldn't'.

Of course, they seemed to have missed the little point that I, as a heterosexual male, am prevented from changing in women's changing rooms, sleeping in their dorms and taking my shower with them. And no-one seems to mind about that - indeed, I can imagine the fuss it would cause... there is no qualitative difference, but male/female segregation is somehow OK.

Incidentally, I don't know what the status is in the US, but in the UK;

1)Girls can join scouts. Boys cannot join guides.
2)Men-only clubs have been upheld as discriminatory. Women-only clubs (such as the WI), are of course still perfectly within their rights to refuse men.
3)Women are allowed in the YMCA. Men are not allowed in the YWCA.
4)University scholarships only for women (and as an aside, ethnic minorities) are termed non-discriminatory, and allowed. Men-only, or white-only scholarships are non-existent, and maybe even illegal.
I could go on.

Now, I am not intending to be completely critical - I do in fact think that gays have a place in the armed forces, and the YWCAs, for instance, are often shelters for battered women. And there are valid reasons for attracted more women into engineering courses.

But you must admit that there are double standards being accepted, exercised and even promoted by even those people who are seeking to establish orientation-equality in the military.

Perhaps ideally no-one would mind about anything, so when that day of perfect harmony comes, I'd like to share a shower with some of you attractive women out there and diligently not appreciate your feminine allure