Don't Ask, Don't Tell

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Er, is this because you assume that because someone is gay they they will have HIV? If so, that is a rather out dated stereotype. The majority of people with HIV are heterosexual Africans. Maybe we should test all the black people instead (sarcasm).


I can't tell if you're joking or not. If not, that is another stereotype. :/

They have to be in completely different units to date.

I am against Don't Ask Don't Tell, but I don't like that a single judge was able to order an a injunction on it. A single judge shouldn't have that much power.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101012/ap_ ... n_military

The courts are charged with interpreting the law and upholding justice. This particular judge was just doing her job.

EDITED because I don't always pay enough attention to people's gender.

Last edited by Orwell on 16 Oct 2010, 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Her job.

The judge is a woman.

No, the late 90s. Basically, the author said "diseases often enter society through social changes. Promiscuous homosexuality was a major social change of the time." The issue is that it really wasn't much of an answer to what the author seemed to be wanting to solve. Also, it was rather lacking in hard data.

john_browning: i may be drunk off my ass, but you're full of s**t.

That's what I was told by a navy recruiter when he was answering questions about the [then] ongoing sexual misconduct scandal in the military in 1996-1997.

BS. dadt is from '93. what "completely different units" are you talking about?

or are you just full of s**t?

He's talking about *anyone* dating *anyone* in the military.

There are a lot of rules about that sort of thing to maintain "good order and discipline".

I think most of the concern is about the chain of command, since if a supervisor were romantically involved with a subordinate, it would look like favoritism even if it weren't. I don't remember ever hearing a 'completely different units' rule, but IIRC they do something like that with married couples who both join up and one becomes an officer and the other enlisted.

A short history of gays in the US military.

1. Homosexuals prohibited. You were asked at the time you wanted to enlist if you were gay. To get in, gays had to lie. If discovered, you likely were kicked out (depended on how desperate military was for manpower at the time).

2. Bill Clinton promises gay rights advocates that he'd allow gays to openly serve if elected. Tries to do it, but it goes over like a poop in a punch bowl. Eventually got "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" passed. Essentially maintains the status quo of homosexuals being prohibited from military service, but the military can't ask, gays are advised to not disclose, and the military is supposed to be barred from doing witch hunts for gays/lesbians in the military. Many gay/lesbian groups claim the effort to identify and kick out gays and lesbians in the military skyrocketed after DADTDP was introduced.

I get a little peeved at the idea of banning Don't Ask/Don't Tell because it's really a misnomer of what is being sought.

Do we want gays/lesbians serving "openly?"

Do we want to just allow them to serve?

Are we going back to a strict prohibition on gays in the military?

To me, there is no question that gays/lesbians have been in military organizations throughout history. There is also no doubt that removing them from service/barring them from service just for their sexual inclinations is detrimental to military effectiveness as it eliminates talent we might need in the defense of a nation.

THAT BEING SAID....

I can't say I support gays/lesbians serving "openly." One's sexual inclinations are private and should remain private. The problem is that the military environment imposes 24/7 communal living which make it an effort to keep private. Guys presuming you are straight won't feel bashful about shoving their heterosexual lifestyles in your face, but to do the other would really create issues. Even among men who are okay with gays being gay, they do not want unwelcome sexual advances nor would be comfortable having the gay lifestyle always put on display before them.

Frankly, I've also heard of a lot of "faggoty" behavior going on with "straight" men (e.g., horseplay) that they seem okay with because they all know they aren't gay but they'd be really messed up if they were doing those same activities with guys they knew were homosexual. Please don't ask me to explain how that works...I can't figure it out either.

I do think that gays/lesbians should be allowed to serve, but they would have to comply with certain standards of professional conduct. I can see that position going over badly with gay/lesbian groups who want nothing less that total acceptance of an open lifestyle, but I don't see their goal as being obtainable. Likewise, I see with my position that it could be too easy for a "gay basher" to level false claims against a gay service member to get them in trouble.

We can see by the integration of women into limited combat roles that gays/lesbians serving openly will be a source of problems. In spite of saying men and women are equal, there are many issues within the military of making it work, and I have no delusions that it would be easy integrating gays/lesbians to serve openly.

Hence, I think the best that can be done is say there's nothing wrong with being homosexual, but your conduct towards others can be grounds for discipline and expulsion from the military. This would (at least as a policy) reward homosexuals who are professionals and act as such.

Let 'em serve openly.

Not every military situation has this problem, but I don't see how letting gay people be openly gay would hurt anyone's privacy.


Nobody wants unwelcome sexual advances. The military has rules about sexual harassment, they already apply to everybody.


I'm not sure what this means.


So people might not be able to engage in the traditional forms of horseplay and would have to invent new ones?


Or someone who just happens to dislike someone.

I know of one person who was kicked out for being gay after someone found something on a website where they talked about wearing dresses. I know of another person who was known to have posted on some online dating site, a man looking for men with a picture posted, who had nothing happen to him at all.


I'm not sure how putting women into combat roles creates problems.

I do know how putting them on submarines would create problems, since I've been on submarines and I can guess what type of problems would be caused. Still, it's about time they were allowed on submarines, and the problems aren't insurmountable.


If you mean things like sexual harassment, that's already the case and wouldn't change.

The issue is "openly" gay. As I understand the term, it is to put your homosexual orientation on display. "Out and proud" is not conducive to a military environment. I think the gay rights groups want the freedom to not only serve but to flaunt their sexuality...which is inappropriate (in my opinion).

I have no issue with a gay/lesbian joining and serving. I have no issue with their sexuality "coming out" in due time to those who know them most from working with them. I do have an issue with people who'd join then deliberately announce their homosexuality to everyone as if it's supposed to mean something. You're either there to be a soldier/airman/sailor/Marine or to make a political statement. The first is acceptable, the other is not.



As I clarified above, constant and blatant references to homosexuality/the gay lifestyle. I'm certain we'd have to impose a professional decorum on all sides and ask everyone to act with a given degree of sexual modesty when it comes to their personal lives for the consideration and respect of the other people they serve with.



Somehow I suspect something as simple as that will be harder to accomplish than we think it should be. We've already seen it with women in the military. Some of them were okay with the horseplay...others found it offensive to the point of constituting sexual harassment.



Generally....women are held to lower standards, and the men tend to resent it...for good reason in my view. Women are held to lower fitness standards...which makes NO SENSE when you consider the PT test measures timed 2-mile run, push ups and sit ups...all things a woman can match or exceed where men are concerned. Men might be able to sprint faster and get a better minimum time on the 2-mile run, but anything a man can do in these respects, a woman in proper physical condition can do just as easily, and all they need (at most) is more time to get in shape due to a life of lack of physical training.

When a woman is not expected to lift as much, march as far, endure as much as a man in the same circumstance, invariably the women are held to a lower standard and the men get stuck picking up the slack. This is counterproductive to morale. A military unit will not tolerate a man who leaves his teammates to carry his share of the work. Having to do it for females is equally insulting.

That's just talking about the disparity in physical standards for men and women. Culturally, you've seen the issue with sexual tensions as you put a bunch of young men at their sexual peak around young women who are quite young themselves and expecting them to be professionals all the time is asking for a lot. Not that gays and lesbians haven't managed all this time, but their strategy was to stay hidden. If they served openly, I'm sure it will only add new dynamics to resolve, and I don't know how you'd craft a system that would equally respect the interests of all parties.



No. I'm envisioning more than just sexual harassment. If I went into an office environment and some guy was a real drag queen, I might be uncomfortable working around him. Now, if he claimed to be transgender, I'd probably have a tough time saying he can't do that at the office (usually transgender males are on the path to a sex-change operation). However, what if it's just a guy that likes to dress in drag? I'd deem that inappropriate for the office. Cross-dress on your own time.

In the military, you have a similar ideal. Keep your gay/lesbian affairs to yourself or at least only to people close enough to you that they are part of that "inner circle" of people you trust with that info. Being open to the whole unit could be seen as unprofessional conduct. Not clearly "sexual harassment" in terms of unwelcome sexual advances, but it certainly could create a hostile work environment.

Serving "openly" inherently creates workplace tensions that are unacceptable. I can't see how it's appropriate for any gay or straight person to come into the office and put their sex life on display for all to see. I don't think you could expect the military to be more permissive in this regard.

i had to read this over another three times because it looked like i missed something but it still seems to be missing... i'm not seeing where he was talking about "*anyone* dating *anyone* in the military."

also: as far as "horseplay" goes, i can't speak to every unit, but i know the good soldiers of the third infantry regiment enjoy a rousing game of "whoever stops humping first is gay!" which is apparently played by shouting that line and then dry humping the man next to you in formation. what did we do to follow up such a wonderful display?

full honors funerals in arlington national cemetery.

aside from a few genuine homophobes, no one that i knew cared.

have you ever seen how much a group of soldiers can drink at a party?

have you ever known a group of guys that age get that drunk without getting at least a little gay?

how terribly disruptive it would be if we had homosexuals serving alongside our soldiers in combat..... like the homosexuals serving in our allies' militaries......... alongside our units...... in combat...... *facepalm*


also: in the army, at least, fraternization between enlisted personnel and officers is discouraged, but last i checked not off limits, so long as they're not both in the same chain of command. enlisted personnel are allowed to fraternize with eachother (nco or not) again, so long as they're not in the same chain of command. i don't know if that's changed in the last few years.

Suppose Congress were to pass a law that said, "Black people are prohibited from voting." Should a single judge have the power to provide injunctive relief?

While there are different tests of constitutionality depending upon the public interest that purports to be protected, there are no gradations of constitutionality. Either a law passes judicial scrutiny or it does not, and if that law fails to pass judicial scrutiny then there is no legal basis upon which it can continue to be enforced.

In the circumstance in which a law is found to be unconstitutional, the onus is upon the government to demonstrate that there is a compelling reason to stay the judgement pending an appeal. The government was afforded this opportunity and it failed to discharge that onus.

As far as I am concerned, this is a clear case of a judge taking a careful and rational approach to discharging her constitutional obligation. You might not like the result, but that does not invalidate the process.