Will someone please tell me why gays can't serve openly in the military?

[IcePickFreak]

That doesn't make it right.

This is not the time for the military to cling and cave to old prejudices and the mental infancy of some who serve. Our military needs every highly skilled, trainable, and intelligent person it can recruit and retain, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or various preferences not related to their service.

If someone in the military has a problem sharing close quarters with a gay, bisexual, or transgendered person or cannot deal with other people's sexual and various other preferences, perhaps it's time we stop coddling them and insist, instead, that they grow up and get their sh!t together.

or get their sh!t packed. To leave I mean.. :whiste:

 

[manimal]

The question is, why are YOU a bigot? I said that I don't know. You would be better served to figure that out on your own.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigot

: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
— big·ot·ed\-gə-təd\ adjective
— big·ot·ed·ly adverb


I have copy-pasta'd the link for you....read the little part about members of a group with hatred and intolerance..

In one sense I do have hatred for a specific group...the intolerant and those who hide behind it...I know I should tolerate the likes of you a little more but seeing the damage that your dogmatic and partisan behavior creates I choose to stand against it...

Do you want to be on the side of tolerance or do you want to be on the side that oppresses people based on your arbitrary religious or societal more's?

Its pretty simple....

 

[PJABBER]

That doesn't make it right.

This is not the time for the military to cling and cave to old prejudices and the mental infancy of some who serve. Our military needs every highly skilled, trainable, and intelligent person it can recruit and retain, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or various preferences not related to their service.

If someone in the military has a problem sharing close quarters with a gay, bisexual, or transgendered person or cannot deal with other people's sexual and various other preferences, perhaps it's time we stop coddling them and insist, instead, that they grow up and get their sh!t together.

Sure, the military needs highly skilled, trainable, and intelligent people. The jobs have not gotten any easier and the operational tempo requires motivated manpower.

However, military service is not an ordinary job where you leave the workplace and go home to your little cozy refuge of privacy. You are warm bunking, sharing a communal shit, working 18 hours side by side, while in highly stressed situations. There is little to no guarantee of privacy and only unit discipline prevents incidents natural to such conditions.

This means that many jobs are psych screened. This means that those who volunteer are looking for teammates that are simpatico. This means that those who are selected for service abandon much of the individuality they so easily enjoyed as civilians. You are no longer white, black, brown, yellow but green, blue, tan.

One of the advantages of DADT is that sexual orientation is, for practical matters, off the table. You start making it an identifiable distinction and you are now adding an element of pink that is not in keeping with the valued and valuable homogeneity of the services.

The military population is a young one. People enter in their late teens and the bulk of service people are under thirty. That means testosterone and estrogen are pumping mighty high. Sexuality is both suppressed and exaggerated. Serving in combat operations heightens the tension. Command channels much of it, but not all of it. Whenever it gets out of control there is trouble that no one needs.

Add just one variant to the already heightened sexual tension - homosexuality. How do you deal with this in single sex units, like infantry or armor? (I was going to add subs, but I think they just started opening up slots to females on boats.) Infantry tends to get a lot of violence oriented types (hehehe,) youth means less control of emotion, less mature ways of expressing angst and hierarchical bullying is often a way of life.

We are talking a very small minority population here, three percent or less are identified as homosexual, but if they make a point of their "uniqueness" they will gain the attention they seek and not very pleasant things to follow.

Of course, a good command structure and a good NCO corps will maintain discipline. But why add to the burden by outing this aspect of individuality? Why make sexuality, of all things, the aspect that requires attention? I'd rather concentrate on physical fitness, marksmanship, tactical skill and leadership development.

I keep coming back to DADT as a pretty good interim solution, pending a significant change in how society views sexual orientation. I don't criticize anyone's homosexuality, I just want it out of the workplace. Same for heterosexual misbehavior.

Sexual orientation is irrelevant as to how well you can individually pull a trigger. But the military is not just a collection of individuals, it is only effective when you can field cohesive units. The jury is still out as to how well the working tip of the spear will function under conditions of enforced sexual political correctness.

Notwithstanding your singular focus on homosexual civil rights, you are generally articulate and thoughtful in your opinions here. I do offer the slippery slope argument, that allowing one variant from heterosexuality implies that other variants also have a claim. Do you see any line out there that should not be crossed, or should all the wide ranging expressions of human sexual impulse be equally protected?

 

[PJABBER]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigot

: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
— big·ot·ed\-gə-təd\ adjective
— big·ot·ed·ly adverb


I have copy-pasta'd the link for you....read the little part about members of a group with hatred and intolerance..

In one sense I do have hatred for a specific group...the intolerant and those who hide behind it...I know I should tolerate the likes of you a little more but seeing the damage that your dogmatic and partisan behavior creates I choose to stand against it...

Do you want to be on the side of tolerance or do you want to be on the side that oppresses people based on your arbitrary religious or societal more's?

Its pretty simple....

Moi?

I am one of the most tolerant people posting here!

I tolerate the stupidity of personal attacks like the one you offer above.

I tolerate the lack of intellectual rigor that characterizes the "progressives" here (Craig is the only one that even makes an effort to intellectually defend his mistaken positions. :sneaky

I tolerate the rants and the rabid partisanship just to pick through the detritus to find that tiny nugget of insight which may be there.

I don't give a passing thought to anyone's race, creed, national origin (except those self-identified as being from the Land of Stupid,) sexual orientation (except predators, abusers and their enablers.)

I am declared against totalitarianism (yes, that does include political Islam!) and corruption. I come to those perspectives through long years of study and first hand experience. That is not bigoted, that is enlightened!

On the other hand, have you stopped beating your wife and/or partner of indeterminate sexual orientation?

:awe:

 

[fskimospy]

Sure, the military needs highly skilled, trainable, and intelligent people. The jobs have not gotten any easier and the operational tempo requires motivated manpower.

However, military service is not an ordinary job where you leave the workplace and go home to your little cozy refuge of privacy. You are warm bunking, sharing a communal shit, working 18 hours side by side, while in highly stressed situations. There is little to no guarantee of privacy and only unit discipline prevents incidents natural to such conditions.

This means that many jobs are psych screened. This means that those who volunteer are looking for teammates that are simpatico. This means that those who are selected for service abandon much of the individuality they so easily enjoyed as civilians. You are no longer white, black, brown, yellow but green, blue, tan.

One of the advantages of DADT is that sexual orientation is, for practical matters, off the table. You start making it an identifiable distinction and you are now adding an element of pink that is not in keeping with the valued and valuable homogeneity of the services.

The military population is a young one. People enter in their late teens and the bulk of service people are under thirty. That means testosterone and estrogen are pumping mighty high. Sexuality is both suppressed and exaggerated. Serving in combat operations heightens the tension. Command channels much of it, but not all of it. Whenever it gets out of control there is trouble that no one needs.

Add just one variant to the already heightened sexual tension - homosexuality. How do you deal with this in single sex units, like infantry or armor? (I was going to add subs, but I think they just started opening up slots to females on boats.) Infantry tends to get a lot of violence oriented types (hehehe,) youth means less control of emotion, less mature ways of expressing angst and hierarchical bullying is often a way of life.

We are talking a very small minority population here, three percent or less are identified as homosexual, but if they make a point of their "uniqueness" they will gain the attention they seek and not very pleasant things to follow.

Of course, a good command structure and a good NCO corps will maintain discipline. But why add to the burden by outing this aspect of individuality? Why make sexuality, of all things, the aspect that requires attention? I'd rather concentrate on physical fitness, marksmanship, tactical skill and leadership development.

I keep coming back to DADT as a pretty good interim solution, pending a significant change in how society views sexual orientation. I don't criticize anyone's homosexuality, I just want it out of the workplace. Same for heterosexual misbehavior.

Sexual orientation is irrelevant as to how well you can individually pull a trigger. But the military is not just a collection of individuals, it is only effective when you can field cohesive units. The jury is still out as to how well the working tip of the spear will function under conditions of enforced sexual political correctness.

Notwithstanding your singular focus on homosexual civil rights, you are generally articulate and thoughtful in your opinions here. I do offer the slippery slope argument, that allowing one variant from heterosexuality implies that other variants also have a claim. Do you see any line out there that should not be crossed, or should all the wide ranging expressions of human sexual impulse be equally protected?

Hey look, about half of your post is a carbon copy of the arguments against racial integration of the military. It's about as meritorious now as it was then.

Didn't you guys know? PJABBER is the epitome of tolerance, all he wants is to force extra rules on people solely based upon their sexual orientation.

And let's not have any more of this meanness towards PJABBER! He works VERY hard to cut and paste fact free opinion pieces and unfounded assumptions from ultra right wing websites. The least you could do to combat this staggering intellect is to find some equally worthless material to steal from a left wing website. That's how real debating is done!

 

[zsdersw]

Sure, the military needs highly skilled, trainable, and intelligent people. The jobs have not gotten any easier and the operational tempo requires motivated manpower.

However, military service is not an ordinary job where you leave the workplace and go home to your little cozy refuge of privacy. You are warm bunking, sharing a communal shit, working 18 hours side by side, while in highly stressed situations. There is little to no guarantee of privacy and only unit discipline prevents incidents natural to such conditions.

This means that many jobs are psych screened. This means that those who volunteer are looking for teammates that are simpatico. This means that those who are selected for service abandon much of the individuality they so easily enjoyed as civilians. You are no longer white, black, brown, yellow but green, blue, tan.

One of the advantages of DADT is that sexual orientation is, for practical matters, off the table. You start making it an identifiable distinction and you are now adding an element of pink that is not in keeping with the valued and valuable homogeneity of the services.

Sexual orientation doesn't have to be any more or less identifiable than a person's race or religious affiliation.

One of the big disadvantages of DADT is the number of otherwise qualified and skilled service members who have been discharged simply for being homosexual. This is unacceptable. Misconduct is one thing.. but being of a particular race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is another.

The military population is a young one. People enter in their late teens and the bulk of service people are under thirty. That means testosterone and estrogen are pumping mighty high. Sexuality is both suppressed and exaggerated. Serving in combat operations heightens the tension. Command channels much of it, but not all of it. Whenever it gets out of control there is trouble that no one needs.

Add just one variant to the already heightened sexual tension - homosexuality. How do you deal with this in single sex units, like infantry or armor? (I was going to add subs, but I think they just started opening up slots to females on boats.) Infantry tends to get a lot of violence oriented types (hehehe,) youth means less control of emotion, less mature ways of expressing angst and hierarchical bullying is often a way of life.

Your argument purports that the military is so fragile and its members so tense that knowing another soldier's homosexuality is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I find that laughable, at best. Our military is much stronger, adaptable, and more resilient than you appear to give them credit for.

We are talking a very small minority population here, three percent or less are identified as homosexual, but if they make a point of their "uniqueness" they will gain the attention they seek and not very pleasant things to follow.

Not very pleasant things? Like what? What sort of unpleasant things await openly homosexual service members that aren't related to the mental infancy and sexual immaturity of those who would inflict it?

Of course, a good command structure and a good NCO corps will maintain discipline. But why add to the burden by outing this aspect of individuality? Why make sexuality, of all things, the aspect that requires attention? I'd rather concentrate on physical fitness, marksmanship, tactical skill and leadership development.

Oh, the humanity!! Not such a terrible "burden" as homosexuality! Please... you can't have it both ways. If homosexuality in the armed services is a minority (the 3% figure you used earlier) it cannot also be such a terrible burden.

I keep coming back to DADT as a pretty good interim solution, pending a significant change in how society views sexual orientation. I don't criticize anyone's homosexuality, I just want it out of the workplace. Same for heterosexual misbehavior.

You make the mistake of equating "misbehavior", as in sexual activity, with the knowledge of someone's sexual orientation or with someone's admission to being homosexual. They are not even remotely similar.

Notwithstanding your singular focus on homosexual civil rights, you are generally articulate and thoughtful in your opinions here. I do offer the slippery slope argument, that allowing one variant from heterosexuality implies that other variants also have a claim. Do you see any line out there that should not be crossed, or should all the wide ranging expressions of human sexual impulse, be equally protected?

I'm articulate and thoughtful in all of my opinions, including those on homosexual civil rights. I do not see a line of distinction between variations in sexuality.

Repression and suppression of sexuality, almost invariably the result of religious indoctrination, is wrong in my opinion. We are rational beings who can look at our sexuality with more than just a purely instinctual gaze. Why is sexuality such a taboo subject?

Nosce te ipsum. Knowing yourself, including your sexuality, is probably the single best thing you can do to ensure that you're in control of your actions. It is for that and other similar reasons that I do not believe our military is best when it enforces suppression of the knowledge that so very well allows for more trainable and disciplined soldiers.

 

[nageov3t]

gay men are already serving in the military. to the best of my knowledge, there's no epidemic of rapes and conversions.

repealing DA/DT would simply allow them to talk about their personal lives like any other soldier, remove the possibility of blackmail, and end outings by third parties (like the case last year where a police officer spied through a kitchen window of a female soldier, saw her marriage license with her wife on the table, and reported it to her superior officer)

 

[jhu]

Sure, the military needs highly skilled, trainable, and intelligent people. The jobs have not gotten any easier and the operational tempo requires motivated manpower.

However, military service is not an ordinary job where you leave the workplace and go home to your little cozy refuge of privacy. You are warm bunking, sharing a communal shit, working 18 hours side by side, while in highly stressed situations. There is little to no guarantee of privacy and only unit discipline prevents incidents natural to such conditions.

This means that many jobs are psych screened. This means that those who volunteer are looking for teammates that are simpatico. This means that those who are selected for service abandon much of the individuality they so easily enjoyed as civilians. You are no longer white, black, brown, yellow but green, blue, tan.

One of the advantages of DADT is that sexual orientation is, for practical matters, off the table. You start making it an identifiable distinction and you are now adding an element of pink that is not in keeping with the valued and valuable homogeneity of the services.

The military population is a young one. People enter in their late teens and the bulk of service people are under thirty. That means testosterone and estrogen are pumping mighty high. Sexuality is both suppressed and exaggerated. Serving in combat operations heightens the tension. Command channels much of it, but not all of it. Whenever it gets out of control there is trouble that no one needs.

Add just one variant to the already heightened sexual tension - homosexuality. How do you deal with this in single sex units, like infantry or armor? (I was going to add subs, but I think they just started opening up slots to females on boats.) Infantry tends to get a lot of violence oriented types (hehehe,) youth means less control of emotion, less mature ways of expressing angst and hierarchical bullying is often a way of life.

We are talking a very small minority population here, three percent or less are identified as homosexual, but if they make a point of their "uniqueness" they will gain the attention they seek and not very pleasant things to follow.

Of course, a good command structure and a good NCO corps will maintain discipline. But why add to the burden by outing this aspect of individuality? Why make sexuality, of all things, the aspect that requires attention? I'd rather concentrate on physical fitness, marksmanship, tactical skill and leadership development.

I keep coming back to DADT as a pretty good interim solution, pending a significant change in how society views sexual orientation. I don't criticize anyone's homosexuality, I just want it out of the workplace. Same for heterosexual misbehavior.

Sexual orientation is irrelevant as to how well you can individually pull a trigger. But the military is not just a collection of individuals, it is only effective when you can field cohesive units. The jury is still out as to how well the working tip of the spear will function under conditions of enforced sexual political correctness.

Notwithstanding your singular focus on homosexual civil rights, you are generally articulate and thoughtful in your opinions here. I do offer the slippery slope argument, that allowing one variant from heterosexuality implies that other variants also have a claim. Do you see any line out there that should not be crossed, or should all the wide ranging expressions of human sexual impulse be equally protected?

The problem with your post is that countries allied to the USA have armies that have openly gay people serving in the military (including Canada and Israel). They have none of the cohesion problems you say may occur. The other problem DADT is that if someone finds out you're gay, even though you've told no one you work with, they can kick you out (like this nurse who had served 18 years as a flight nurse).

 

[trenchfoot]

I wonder how repealing DADT is going to affect rules/regs in regards to what "openly gay" actually means, how it's defined and how it physically manifests itself among gay military members wrt proper physical appearance nad behavior; ie - men wearing lipstick on duty, women having crew-cuts, gays holding hands/other showing of affection while on-base but off-duty in civvies, etc.

Should be interesting for those who have to flesh all of that out while creating policy, especially in the area of discrimination and civil rights.

 

[fskimospy]

I wonder how repealing DADT is going to affect rules/regs in regards to what "openly gay" actually means, how it's defined and how it physically manifests itself among gay military members wrt proper physical appearance nad behavior; ie - men wearing lipstick on duty, women having crew-cuts, gays holding hands/other showing of affection while on-base but off-duty in civvies, etc.

Should be interesting for those who have to flesh all of that out while creating policy, especially in the area of discrimination and civil rights.

I imagine very little will change. First of all, very few gay men wear lipstick, and women can already have crew cuts.

The rules for public displays of affection will also probably remain the same.

I imagine almost no rules like these will be altered in any way.

 

[zsdersw]

I imagine very little will change. First of all, very few gay men wear lipstick, and women can already have crew cuts.

The rules for public displays of affection will also probably remain the same.

I imagine almost no rules like these will be altered in any way.

Exactly.

 

[shira]

I imagine very little will change. First of all, very few gay men wear lipstick, and women can already have crew cuts.

The rules for public displays of affection will also probably remain the same.

I imagine almost no rules like these will be altered in any way.

But what of the photos of sheep and dogs and underage boys and girls that a few farm types and pedo's will lovingly stick above their bunks? Surely the repeal of DADT will lead to a groundswell of public support for public displays of every possible sexual deviancy. Hasn't sexual deviancy completely overtaken the militaries of Australia and Austria and Belgium and Canada and Denmark and France and Germany and Ireland and Israel and Italy and New Zealand and Norway and Russia and England ever since openly gay soldiers started to be accepted in their ranks?

PJABBER has warned us of the coming (ha ha ha) ickiness when DADT is repealed. We disregard the sage advice of this self-proclaimed most-tolerant-of-all-ATPN-posters-and-amazingly-objective-thinker at our peril.

 

[JD50]

eskimospy, I understand the points your making and pretty much agree with you. My problem with your posts is that they all seem directed towards the anti-gay folks when there's plenty of liberals that are also claiming that the military is full of homo-phobes and bigots.

 

[xj0hnx]

Yup, and all of those things are likely in the military between soldiers.



Yes, EMTs, surgeons, etc are all exposed to blood and other bodily fluids on a much more regular basis than the average soldier in the armed forces.

Actually, contact with blood isn't all that uncommon in the military. In Combat Lifesaver classes I have seen pools of blood on desk and floors when training soldiers how to use an IV, and had blood on me from wounded soldiers during cas-evac during Fallujah.

 

[manimal]

Moi?

I am one of the most tolerant people posting here!

I tolerate the stupidity of personal attacks like the one you offer above.

I tolerate the lack of intellectual rigor that characterizes the "progressives" here (Craig is the only one that even makes an effort to intellectually defend his mistaken positions. :sneaky

I tolerate the rants and the rabid partisanship just to pick through the detritus to find that tiny nugget of insight which may be there.

I don't give a passing thought to anyone's race, creed, national origin (except those self-identified as being from the Land of Stupid,) sexual orientation (except predators, abusers and their enablers.)

I am declared against totalitarianism (yes, that does include political Islam!) and corruption. I come to those perspectives through long years of study and first hand experience. That is not bigoted, that is enlightened!

On the other hand, have you stopped beating your wife and/or partner of indeterminate sexual orientation?

:awe:

You talk about tolerance and immediately dismiss everyone elses opinion as wrong because it does fall into your neat little patisan echo chamber. You are the definition of a partisan shill. You profess to be one thing but time and time again you fall into lock step with the official party line.

If you truly believe your own comment about not thinking about race creed or national origin then how does that jibe with your stance on DADT? How about lgbt marriage? Enlighten us? I love to see cognitive dissonance at work...

I am a minority, I have lived through racism and the sublte effects of bigotry and hate. I have also lived trough the not so subtle things like being beaten for dating a white girl.....
I have seen first hand what it means to not be accepted for who you are, a close friend commited suicide because his radically fundamental parents sent him to reeducation camp after reeducation camp to rid him of the gay.... he was a sweet kind soul who just wanted to be loved.....

We live in dangerous times, we are at a precipice..if we go off that ledge and commit to another generation of intolerance and hate we are no better than those people who wore white cloaks...we just wear the hats of partisan shillery....


I am also reminded of a girl that I knew in college...she got pregnant and ultimately had an abortion because she wasnt ready and was date raped at a party...guess what? her parents disavowed her because their church labeled her as a murderer....

Issues like DADT and LGBT marriage are generational issues that require us to rethink how we view the world and how we want our children to view the world. Do you want to be on the right side of history?

BTW your loose insult to progressives just proves my point...partisan shill....

Go ahead and copy paste some drudge report talking points or link to blog telling us how you really feel..

 

[xj0hnx]

I wonder how repealing DADT is going to affect rules/regs in regards to what "openly gay" actually means, how it's defined and how it physically manifests itself among gay military members wrt proper physical appearance nad behavior; ie - men wearing lipstick on duty, women having crew-cuts, gays holding hands/other showing of affection while on-base but off-duty in civvies, etc.

Should be interesting for those who have to flesh all of that out while creating policy, especially in the area of discrimination and civil rights.

Women can already have "crew cuts" if they want, and men, gay or otherwise are not permitted to wear make-up, at least in formation, or on duty. So ...nothing will change.

 

[nageov3t]

Actually, contact with blood isn't all that uncommon in the military. In Combat Lifesaver classes I have seen pools of blood on desk and floors when training soldiers how to use an IV, and had blood on me from wounded soldiers during cas-evac during Fallujah.

it's kind of a moot point, though. having HIV disqualifies you for military service.

 

[xj0hnx]

it's kind of a moot point, though. having HIV disqualifies you for military service.

I know, I was just addressing a comment.

 

[zsdersw]

Actually, contact with blood isn't all that uncommon in the military. In Combat Lifesaver classes I have seen pools of blood on desk and floors when training soldiers how to use an IV, and had blood on me from wounded soldiers during cas-evac during Fallujah.

I'm sure, but none of those types of contact put anyone at risk for HIV. HIV dies outside of the human body within minutes.

 

[fskimospy]

eskimospy, I understand the points your making and pretty much agree with you. My problem with your posts is that they all seem directed towards the anti-gay folks when there's plenty of liberals that are also claiming that the military is full of homo-phobes and bigots.

I have to say that I just read through the whole thread and I only saw one straight out claim that people in the military are homophobic. I didn't really notice it, but they're full of shit too. Again, my whole argument is basically that people in the military are a lot better than people here are giving them credit for, what's funny is that both people making those arguments are assuming people in the military are bigoted simpletons, they just reach opposite conclusions.

Of that, I admit I find those who desire to punish gay people for the sins of the invented homophobes far more repellent than those who wish to try and force the same imagined homophobes into the 21st century.

 

[xj0hnx]

I'm sure, but none of those types of contact put anyone at risk for HIV. HIV dies outside of the human body within minutes.

No? So if I have to lift a guy that's been shot, and is bleeding all over and carry him to cover there's no risk? You think we don level 3 bio suits to pull someone to cover?

 

[xj0hnx]

I have to say that I just read through the whole thread and I only saw one straight out claim that people in the military are homophobic. I didn't really notice it, but they're full of shit too. Again, my whole argument is basically that people in the military are a lot better than people here are giving them credit for, what's funny is that both people making those arguments are assuming people in the military are bigoted simpletons, they just reach opposite conclusions.

Of that, I admit I find those who desire to punish gay people for the sins of the invented homophobes far more repellent than those who wish to try and force the same imagined homophobes into the 21st century.

I'd have to agree, even in combat arms MOS's I never really ran into any real homophobia, I mean kidding and joking aside anyone that really hated gays, most people seemed to just have a "whatever" attitude about it.

 

[zsdersw]

No? So if I have to lift a guy that's been shot, and is bleeding all over and carry him to cover there's no risk? You think we don level 3 bio suits to pull someone to cover?

No significant risk, no. When blood is exposed to air HIV dies very rapidly.

 

[xj0hnx]

No significant risk, no. When blood is exposed to air HIV dies very rapidly.

Not fast enough. If you're dressing a wound in the field, and have a cut, which I can pull just about any soldier in the field out and find one, or wipe you eyes, wipe away sweat, and have blood spurting from a femoral artery, I'd say ...theoretically there is a risk. Of course since I took more blood test in the Army than my civilian life combined, and anyone with HIV is going to be discharged, or not let in n the first place than it's all moot.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I have to say that I just read through the whole thread and I only saw one straight out claim that people in the military are homophobic. I didn't really notice it, but they're full of shit too. Again, my whole argument is basically that people in the military are a lot better than people here are giving them credit for, what's funny is that both people making those arguments are assuming people in the military are bigoted simpletons, they just reach opposite conclusions.

Of that, I admit I find those who desire to punish gay people for the sins of the invented homophobes far more repellent than those who wish to try and force the same imagined homophobes into the 21st century.

There ARE bigoted simpletons in the armed forces, that's why there are officers to explain the rules to their dumb arses.

They can follow them or get out, there is no in between in any well kept unit.