The Glade 4.0

So I'm making my assumptions from personal conversations with gay soldiers and articles that I've read from within the gay community and other media outlets by gay soldiers who are either still active duty and hiding or have been found out and discharged and are frustrated that they can't still serve. And my assumptions are towards the overall community, not specific individuals. I assumed that we all understood here that things that apply to the group don't necessarily apply to the individual.

Where are you making your assumptions from?

I am reading the context of the responses. The previous posters' examples aren't poor. All you're doing is saying that there's some sort of false equivalence in expecting gays to serve under DADT and expecting chaplains not to preach anti-gay messages because the gay can get in trouble just for saying he's gay while the Chaplain can't get in trouble jsut for saying he's Christian.

The problem is that religion and sexual orientation are not equivalent personal status. The Chaplain is in the military at least in part to minister to other Christians and their needs; the gay soldier is not there to do the same for gay soldiers (none of the obvious jokes here please folks).

In either case, the soldier is accepting the restrictions the military is putting on them. The fact that the DADT restriction on gays is more far-reaching is irrelevant; there's no right to be in the military in the first place and the restrictions are based on what is viewed as militarily necessary.

If DADT is no longer militarily necessary then that calls into question the need for a restriction on Chaplains (or anyone else) calling homosexuality immoral. If that restriction is necessary (which I think it is), then there also needs to be one on proclaiming its morality.

In other words, the goal is not to create a military free of either religious messages, religious messages some people object to, or of attitudes towards gays that the left doesn't like. The goal is to create an effective fighting force. That may include not allowing messages of intolerance that disrupt unit cohesion, but it means all messages of intolerance, not sneaking the kind ccertian people like in by calling it 'tolerance' and using it to antagonize people who are under a gag rule.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

From the same sources, and I guarantee you I've seen a lot more gay soldiers than you have. Contrary to the hysterics the gay community likes to invent about how gay soldiers suppress themselves and live in fear it's remarkably easy to be openly gay or bisexual in the military, especially in the reserves. Amazing as it may seem, most commanders don't like loosing competant soldiers when there's a war on and just turn a blind eye which the policy makes remarkably easy. The difference is that I also look at the actual behavior of gay soldiers and the gay community and that doesn't support the idea that it's just all about being able to serve honorably, because they really already could anyhow. For many of them, it is about that. For many others its about waving a banner and getting to make speeches about overcoming bigotry and whatnot and for a very very large number its about both.

If you're just taking the claims of gays at face value you're being led down a rosy path. Gays are no more about just being left alone to serve than evangelicals are. A large part of it is wanting to rub other people's nose in it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I believe the examples are poor.

Yes there are regulations on behavior in the military, which I'm fine with.

The key difference is that gays are not allowed in period. Well that is as long as you aren't found out. It would be the same as saying that Jews can't serve, or Christians can't serve. It's retarded.

I understand that the goal is to create an effective fighting force, and I'm completely in support of that. One of the issues is that the current DADT rules have actually HURT our ability to do that, as among other things apparently all the gay soldiers were the ones who were in linguistics. And that's beyond the whole equality thing. It's the same BS logic that was attempted to keep blacks from serving as well.

Eh, I'm not sure I buy this. First, you don't generally see gays trying to convert people from their wicked ways. Usually when the gay community gets riled it's because some jackass is trying to spout off about how evil and wicked they are.

Just for clarification on Diamondeye's position, Aizle ~

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Aizle,
Everyone has tried to tell you in many different ways but perhaps subtlety was the wrong approach.

The argument you're using: "If they don't like the rules, then they don't have to join or they can quit", is moronic.

The fact that you're using it in relation to chaplains, but don't want it used for homosexuals is hypocritical.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

You actually do frequently see gays telling bisexuals to "choose a side" and some gays do get a kick out of hitting on straights or trying to "break" them.

Second, getting riled because someone is telling you you're evil and wicked doesn't excuse it when you then turn around and call your opponent evil and wicked by phrasing it as bigoted and hateful. Someone feeling that what you're doing is wrong does not make them bigoted and hateful against you.

Third, the fact that gay bigotry does not take the same form as evangelical bigotry does not make it less prevalent. The fact is tht gays are just more used to dressing their bigotry up as tolerance. Evangelicals on the other hand generally don't even try.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, it would not be the same. If it were the same, the restriction wouldn't exist in the first place, or else we'd see the examples you mention in actual practice.

Sexuality is a totally different behavioral motivator than religion. No one worries about taking a shower with a Jew (well someone may not because of the nudity, because they just don't like Jews and wouldn't want to do anything else with them anyhow) and has totally different implications for the effectiveness of the unit.

Those implications were, in years past, a real problem and a reason to keep gays out just as there was once good reason to segregate black units; societal thinking takes time to evolve and we simply weren't going to go from slavery to full integration overnight. Just as black segregation disappeared when its military liabilites outweighed its usefulness, so DADT is disappearing.

Keeping Christians out never would ahve served any useful purpose because so much of the country is Christian; it would be totally absurd. There is no particular reason that the military needs to have the same restrictions for every group out there, especially not just because that group is a favorite of the left.



It wasn't even close to all; those wee just very prominent cases because of how significant the loss of Arabic linguists was. Moreover, it was not BS logic at all 20 or 30 years ago to keep gays out; society wasn't ready. It wsn't BS logic to segregate blacks until after WWII; WWII was where blacks demonstrated they were just as good soldiers as whites. Integrating hem wholesale before prevailing societal attitudes were ready WOULD hurt military effectiveness greatly. Right after PEarl Harbor was not the time for a massive wave of top-down racial integration.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm going to try again.

Regulations on what Chaplains can preach while on duty and in the service of their job is very different than excluding an entire group of the population for their sexual preference. It's really just that simple. And there is no hippocracy. No one is preventing someone from joining the military because of their religious affiliation. Yet people are prevented because of their sexual orientation. Once in, both sides have regulations they have to follow. And there have been for all of DE's comments of it being overblown, many cases of gay soldiers keeping everything completely underwraps while on duty and in, having someone tip off a commander and getting booted out of the military because of it.

Further, to clarify my argument is not "if they don't like the rules, then they don't have to join or they can quit". My argument is that rules around what can or can't say while at work does not constitute an infringement on someone's right to freely practice their religion. People don't have a right to serve in the military.

Thanks Talya, I am aware of DE's position. It's also of some humor to me that apparently one of the reasons why we're so short on linguists in the military these days is due to many of them being gay and being booted out. I wish I could find the article where I read that but I can't recall where that was. But regardless, it backs up DE's argument that we're actually hurting our military effectiveness by this policy.

Gay men generally aren't Cunning Linguists.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Ok, first of all, no it is not just that simple because it is not different. Both are simply regulations stating what kind of behavior is acceptable for military service. The fact that one behavioral standard excluded an entire group is irrelevant, just as the fact that medical standards exclude the entire group of people in wheelchairs is irrelevant. For a long time, it was necessary to keep gays out because society simply wasn't ready for them to be in. There is nothing inherently wrong with people getting kicked out or stopped from entering the military based on their sexual orientation. It is a good thing if it enhances combat effectiveness, it is a bad thing if it does not. In the last 20 years it has moved from the former to the latter and thus has gone from "good" to "bad".

Second, there have not been "many cases of gay soldiers keeping things completely under wraps and then getting booted on a tip". The DADT policy does not permit that; the information must be credible from a trustworthy source; a "tip" is not good enough, and if the soldier was truly keeping things under wraps then credible information would be very hard to come by. "On duty" is irrelevant, the miltiary policy is that you cannot be in the military if you have a propensity for homosexual behavior on or off duty, so if you're doing it off duty you need to do that discretely as well.

Any soldier claiming he "kept it under wraps on duty" and still got kicked out either A) wasn't keeping it under wraps in accordance with the policy or B) the policy was violated in chaptering him out in which case you cannot use that as evidence of anything since violations of policy are not an indictment of the policy. Believe it or not Aizle, people lie all the time about why they had problems in the military. I have conducted summary courts-martial before as the presiding officer; I'm quite familiar with the phenomenon.



Exxcept that it does, in fac, constitute that. It is an acceptable infringement that they have consented to by joining because it is necessary to maintain cohesion but it is an infringement nonetheless. If it isn't then telling gays they have to keep it under wraps also isn't an infringement of their right to free speech. You can't have it both ways.



You don't need to back that up, it's common public knowledge now and has been published in several places. I don't think anyone here is questioning the truth of that assertion.

The entire issue here is the entirely wrong attitude towards the matter that many gays have espoused. It isn't about them and what's good for them; it's about what's good for the military. If there were as much dedication to honorable service, that would be the argument, and they'd be making it to Congress instead of the courts. Ironically one of the Seven Army Values is Selfless Service; a fact evidently lost on those pursuing the lawsuit.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Black soldiers proved themselves in the American Revolutionary War fighting amongst the militias. They proved themselves again in the American Civil War fighting for the North. Saying that is wasn't until WWII that they "proved themselves" is, in my opinion, historically incorrect.

Beyond that statement, I have no horse in this race.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I can agree with that. What I mean by that statement was that society had opened up to the point that proving themselves was meaningful; people beyond a token few forward thinkers were actually looking and giving them a fair shake in WWII. In other words, while they'd proved themselves by our standards well before WWII, they didn't to society because it wasn't ready.. no performance, however good, could have overcome the more primitive ideas of those earlier eras.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Fair enough.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

When I was 19 or 20 I worked at a Mexican restaurant. A gay guy used to hit on me continually. Right in front of the manager he asks me: "So... When are we going to F?"

Me: "Dude, there isn't enough KY in the world to make me consider that proposition"

Him: "KY's for pansies."

It seems the restaurant industry is the only industry where sexual harassment is not just overlooked, but encouraged.

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The Dude abides.

"Don't ask don't tell ruled unicorn in Federal Court"

I can't be the only one consistently reading the thread title as such.

This is why everybody says you're gay.

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The Dude abides.

Or possibly Canadian.

It's long been observed within my generation of my immediate familial unit that, with regards to Penny Arcade, I am remarkably analogous, in attitude and opinion, to Tycho (the semi-autobiographical character who embodies the spirit of the Jerry Holkins half of the Mike Krahulik/Jerry Holkins creative duo).

It has also been readily observed, historically, within this community that Farskee and I share some strange bond or link. This kinship was originally characterized by comments such as "Get Out Of My Head," but over time, it was realized that it was not a perfect superposition. Farskee's unwittingly self-professed obsession with unicorns, of which even he may have not been fully conscious, has lead me to this startling illumination of the nature of the relationship which we share: He is, in a corresponding fashion by which I am similar to Tycho, the close analogue of Gabe.

I present evidence pertinent to this thread:



And the final blow, which even he cannot deny:

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Look, just because I'm more visual in nature, care little for the numerical tedium of RPG stat-building, and am generally less verbose in arguments despite holding strong opinions doesn't mean that I'm...

Ah, hell.

Truth. It is human nature that various minority groups end up bigoted against those not in the same minority. It's a defensive mechanism, no doubt, but it's there. And since they end up with a rather "You're either with us or against us" attitude, gays tend to treat bisexual people like crap. Evidently, we're unnatural! or something.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's the thing tho, I haven't seen any gay in the military espousing a selfish position. I'm sure they are out there, but I haven't seen any in any media outlet or in personal conversation. All of them have just expressed frustration at not being able to serve, and a feeling that the military is poorer for their inability to serve.

I also think you're ignoring some of the witch hunts that have happened in the past as well. It's pretty much impossible to keep things completely hidden, unless you are actually not going to engage in any homosexual activities at all. So while folks may very well have been discrete, if someone has an axe to grind to get them booted, a little amateur PI work probably goes a long way. That said, I'm sure that there have been gays who haven't been as discrete as called for by the regs. But as should be apparent by now, I think the DADT policy is bullshit anyway.

And yet almost any discussion of the policy in the media includes someone referring to it as discriminatory. While it is a discriminatory policy in the strictest sense of the word, this is not why it's a problem. The policy requiring that you not be in a wheelchair is also discriminatory in that sense.

Look at your own sentence: Frusteration at not being able to serve and the military being poorer because of it. Only the second part is an issue. Them being frusterated is not, any more than my frusteration at never having had the eyesight to be a fighter pilot is.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

"Us field niggas' don't like Uncle Tom. He be a house nigga'. Meanwhile we's be up in tha fields workin' all day, Tom be in da' house pourin' tee and playin' wit' da' chirruns."

That type of intra-minority discrimination?



I ask just to help illustrate that: yes, it most certainly exists.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine