Don’t ask, Don’t tell to be overturned.
By Peter | Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 | Catch-AllThanks for validating the stereotype, Admiral Mullen. It’s nice to see you become the puppet of the administration.
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Thanks for validating the stereotype, Admiral Mullen. It’s nice to see you become the puppet of the administration.
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24 Responses to "Don’t ask, Don’t tell to be overturned."
are you really worried this is going to harm the military? Even when both Britain and Israel both allow openly gay people to serve in theior militaries?
I am going to explain why I support the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell with a joke.
First let me explain that I am in opposition to same sex marriage, but when it comes to tolerance, my joke which I believe I was the first to tell helps explain my position:
Two heterosexual buddies, in a spit of patriotism, decide to join the military. After completing basic training they are assigned to a unit and complete predeployment training. But they have been exposed to some of the real veterans who have continued to serve after serving overseas in combat. After hearing the horror stories they have decided they no longer want to risk their lives for their country.
So these two heterosexual buddies march into their superior’s office and announce: “We’re gay, you have to give us a discharge.” Now the superior knows what’s up and says: “I do not believe you.”
So one guy drops his trousers and the other drops to his knees.
Nice to see the administration distracting from the disastrous budget it submitted by trying to implement a policy – rightly or wrongly – that is going to generate some social controversy.
Quite frankly, there’s nothing to see here. Let’s head back to the budget, thank you.
This is a another head fake by Obama and his minions. How come when this comes up, everyone who supports it always compares our military to Britain, Israel, and a bunch of other 3rd rate militaries in other countries? Our military is doing the heavy lifting in the world right now, not them, so why add stress to our soldiers, airmen and Marines, Navy and their families by engaging in a social experiment about sexual preference? J.R. is right, there is a lot of other social and economic ideological experimentation with our way of life going on in the budget that was just proposed by the Administration.
Hello: The military is going to review it for a year.. Isn’t happening today. Distraction? Hardly…
BTW: Gays & lesbians have served in every job and the military forever. Its time to move on with more important issues. I don’t see the need to throw well trained military members out of the service just because they are not straight. If folks are worried about appearance, dress or out landish activity by members, there are plenty of uniform and UCMJ requiments to continue to maintain uniform appearance and behavior standards in the military.
IMO: Frankly anyone who is willing to join up and serve honorably is welcome to join the service. It is hard enough to get and retain qualified service members in all branches of the military.
Even though it isn’t due to be repealed for another year, it should have been repealed 16 years ago. I spent 20 years in the Navy, and served with many gay and lesbian Seabees and sailors, as has every other soldier or sailor in the last 200+ years. DADT forces people to lie, both the gay and lesbians members and those who serve with them to keep good servicemen and servicewomen in their units. There is already enough stress being in the military. Why not reduce some of it by getting rid of this ineffective policy that gets rid of qualified soldiers and sailors at a time when we need all the good men and women we can get?
The GOP has made a mountain out of a molehill on this issue. Admiral Mullen was absolutely correct in saying that this is about personal and institutional integrity, and that “everybody counts.”
Overturning DADT will mean little except keep some qualified individuals serving our country. As mentioned, the UCMJ will take care of most issues.
Our debt is reaching the point where our credit worthiness as a nation is being questioned. We have far more important things to worry about. When people are having a hard time getting the basics for their families, whether or not gay people might be in the military, is the least of all worries.
First, as a 31 year active duty veteran I can say that I hate the DADT policy. It makes people on both sides lie. But DADT is NOT THE LAW! Obama could repeal DADT himself, today if he wanted to. It is an executive branch policy of Bill Clinton, continued under Bush, that basically says the Pentagon just won’t obey the law by not asking (Reminds one of the see no evil, hear no evil monkeys). I like the 1993 law. It says quite clearly that homosexuality is incompatible with military service and they will not be admitted and if they break the law, they will be discharged. That is where we should be as it is honorable for all. The Clinton DADT policy forces people to lie about what they do. It is not good but could be rescinded immediately by the president w/o Congressional action. That won’t happen because what they really want is not to end DADT but to change the law and that requires Congress to change it. Remember they will say it is discriminatory, and it is. Most of our enlistment qualifications, education, moral, and physical are discriminatory, they are supposed to be. That is the point. Further,there are many sexual orientations that we should discriminate against, like pedophilia (despite Democratic support for NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association), bestiality, polygamy and of course, homosexuality.
That said, I fear that we have lost this one. A total disaster. I heard the testimony of the military brass (chairman and secretary) today in Washington and it was terrible. If they are for it, then it gives cover to all the republican politicians to vote for repeal. The liberal ones are already in favor of it. Worse yet was that the panel on FOX News last night was all in favor of it. Look, if we have lost the conservative commentators on Fox we have lost this. We won’t find anyone on MSNBC supporting this law and if Fox doesn’t. . .
Even those few organizations who talk of this issue won’t say homosexuality is wrong but speak only of the effect homosexuals will have on good order and discipline. If that is the strategy, we will lose that as the Brits and Aussies have homosexuals and haven’t lost good order and discipline and still can fight, not so sure the Canadians can fight, but they have homos too just like our European “allies” and I know they can’t fight. The good order and discipline argument won’t work and you are putting all your trust in it. Bottom line is: can we have homosexuals and still maintain order? YES, if still on active duty I too would have to keep order and I would discharge my duty on that. That approach is how we lost the women in combat fight: People began only discussing what women COULD do instead of what they SHOULD do. At that point the fight was over and now we have women in combat, even in infantry divisions; although not yet at the company level, but they are fighter pilots so that too is coming. We can’t even tell them not to get pregnant in a war zone like Iraq.
We are at that same point in this issue unless someone stands up and is really willing to turn this around. Even Pete Pace who lost his second term as chairman over this issue wouldn’t come out and say it was WRONG, just that he wasn’t raised that way. Even when he was being canned for non support of homosexuality, he came off trying to be politically correct, didn’t help him a bit. Hope he enjoys his retirement as they replaced him with a pro-homosexual officer. Mullen was a disgrace today in keeping with the same Navy leadership we saw Borda display in the women issue (Stan Arthur case) which many realize was the real reason he committed suicide, not his questionable NAM. No one in authority is courageous enough to say that homosexuality is morally wrong and that is the reason we should oppose mainstreaming this behavior, they only talk about the effect it will have on discipline. Again, we can’t win that because in that case the ones who oppose it are wrong legally and they are responsible for the discipline problem, not the homosexuals. We already have that political correctness for Muslims and women in the military, now we will have it for homosexuals too. The good officers will have to go along once it is law or get out. And there is the rub.
The sad part is that no one is talking about the fact that a poll last summer showed that if the law is changed 10-12% will not reenlist or join the gay military. That is much bigger than the small percentage discharged by the policy. So this will hurt recruiting and retention not help it. Which is a much better argument to campaign on than discipline. But the most important part is that loss will change the complexion of the military. Who will get out or not join? The MORAL people will get out or not join! So we will have a military without the moral leaders it needs but instead led by immoral ones. Looks like we turn it over to the William Calley and Sepp Dietrich types. Getting rid of the Christian officers is how the old Prussian Army whose uniform belt buckles were inscribed with “Gott mit uns” (God with Us) in a few years became the Nazi Wehrmacht after Hitler purged it of moral Christian leaders. We repeat the history of Germany in the 1930′s in many ways lately.
Wow, Dry Viking is so outlandishly verbose I can’t begin to comment on his obfuscation (did he seem to draw a parallel between our military allowing openly homosexual servicemembers to serve and ultimately… Naziism?). However, I can say to Tim J that he hasn’t seen social experimentation until we have co-ed submarines.
Now, along with Britt, Joel, JeffConn, William, J.R., LittleDavid, and EJ, I plead with you, Mr. President- back to the FINANCES.
SuperChicken, you know not of what you speak about my experience with social experimentation in the military. I was assigned to the USS Voge (FF 1047) in 1976 where a race riot broke out on the mess decks during the changing of the watch at midrats. The riot spread to the helo deck and was finally responded to by the bridge initiating a “security alert”. We then had black and white sailors facing each other with shotguns, M-14s and .45 pistols, buck knives, dogging wrenches and fists. There was shipmate blood running across the decks of that ship that night, both whites and blacks were injured, and when the situation was finally brought under control, the ships officers segregated the combatants by race until some semblance of order was regained.
This was the culmination of mandatory “race sensitivity training” which the whites had to attend. The Navy knew it had a race problem and had brought in academics to “study” the problem and then “formulate a solution”. This training was supposed to make us “sensitive” to the plight of our black shipmates, and make us understand something that whites weren’t capable of understanding. The “sensitivity training” bred resentment, mistrust and anger because all it did was separate and define us by race, not unify us as shipmates.
There were many other racial incidents in the late 60s and 70s as a result of a mismanaged social experiments in Adm. Zumwalt’s Navy. Now the military embarks on another social experiment where we are now going to define people in terms of their sexual preference, not as soldiers. The next step will be “sensitivity training” for heterosexuals and nothing good will come from this based on a history which so many have conveniently forgotten. And again, the same negative emotions are going to surface which will compromise military missions and lives.
Message to our Leaders: Step back from this, look back at our sorted history and failures when you start tinkering with how members of our military of the same sex should view and accept one-another. Don’t use females as an example of a success in “social engineering” because to do so detracts from their successes and their contributions as soldiers.
What I love is how the GOP whines about how we “need to follow the military” – unless we disagree with them! GOP: we’ll do what you want!
GEN. Shinsheki – we need 500,000 troops to invade Iraq, GOP: no!
DoD in April of 2008: we want to surge in Afghanistan!, GOP/ W: no! you’ll have to wait for the next President!
DoD with the current budget: we don’t want any more C-17s, it’s diverting resources we need elsehwere. GOP: no! you’ll take em because we want the $$ in our districts!
SECDEF, ADM Mullen and the Joint Chiefs: we want to overturn don’t ask, it’s costing us money and making America less safe, GOP: no! we don’t like the gays!
Why does the GOP distrust the military so much?
Mark,
What an incredible oversimplification of these complex issues, and an insult to those who support the military as Republicans but don’t rush head-long into everything the military recommends. But, if this is how you want to look at it, I guess perception is reality for some.
Basically, you’re no better in this comment then the arguments you hurl at Brian for oversimplifying at times.
Effectively, all you’ve done here is confirm that you’re a partisan.
DADT has never made sense as a policy.
On a larger note, the GOP is on the wrong side of history in its approach to gay rights issues just as Democrats in the 1950s (particularly in the South) found themselves on the wrong side of history on the race issue.
Jim – ouch, true I authored a passionate bit, but comparing me to Brian is too much. Everything I wrote was true.
Regardless, I don’t know what the possible defense of this policy is other than just the GOP just doesn’t like gays.
I’ve served with homosexuals, and you have too. They joined for the right reasons and they did their jobs. The only thing this policy does is: 1) force homosexuals to lie about who they are, 2) denies homosexuals the right to be in a committed relationship, 3) cost the government money – becuase we are kicking out people who are trained and we have to train new folks, 4) make America less safe as we are kicking out people who are trained – including Arabic and Farsi linguists, 5) bring big-government morality into the lives of individual Americans – but, I guess that is also the GOP’s strongest argument for keeping the policy, right? There’s just nothing like big government legislating morality.
That said, we will need to change/ strengthen the fraternization policies.
Please tell me what exactly is the defense for this?
Simple Mark. Recruiting and retention. Many more will get out or not join as a result than are thrown out now. That is what last August’s polling showed. Plus, very few are actually discharged for this. Less than 10K since Clinton’s time.
And trust me, don’t buy the myth of hundreds of farsi or arabic speaking muslims being thrown out who desparately wanted to help with the war on terror. There aren’t very many homosexual muslims and the few that are are not trying to join the US Army. That is left wing propaganda.
Mark, try reading a little. Some of us indicated that overturning DADT might be a good idea. Yes, I do still think its a BS attempt at distraction.
If he’s gonna do it, just do it, shut up about it & cut our freakin’ debt already!
Mark – where are you getting that the GOP is against this? Peter is making a statement about Mullen being a pawn of the administration and distracting from bigger issues. I certainly haven’t been critical of the change, but I’m hardly a GOP operative.
So, I’m curious why YOU are bringing partisanship into the discussion.
JR, you should know about Mark. Don’t ask. He won’t tell.
“You don’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.” -Barry Goldwater
not only that but many of the linguists in the military are gay which is an extremely precious resource that are unnecessarily lost due to this outdated policy. remember when blacks were segregated in the military?
Hogwash. I attended DLI and am a linguist. Never met a single homosexual one, in fact that (sex) was a major area of concern as the KGB would look to get the linguists in sexual trouble while in training so they could blackmail them later when they began work in country. Seldom to never happened except in heterosexual encounters. What FACTS do you have to support that rubbish?
@Dry Viking, well for starters my VA Delegate Bob Brink was a gay military linguist. also, I spend most of my time at NSA where I spend a decent amount of time with linguists. it surprises me that you attended DLI and never met one gay person
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6824206
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A29683-2003Dec2
In fact, I spent 31 years on active duty and never met one. Not one.
but this doesn’t change the facts, that getting rid of DADT is a good idea, but keeping the law passed by Congress. That way we don’t get rid of 10-12% of the military to gain the less than 1% being discharged today.
@Dry, just out of curiosity, if a fellow soldier had told you he was gay during your time on active duty, would you have turned him in? perhaps there are more than admit it while wearing the uniform.
while I understand your concern of losing 10% for 1%, I actually think that would be a temporary situation and the recruiting would rebound.
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