posted on July 25, 2004 07:03:49 AM new
OK to make gays serve in a draft, but to serve afterward is not ok. More military intelligence for you.
Gays could face the draft
If the military draft returns, “don’t ask, don’t tell” seems like an easy out for anyone who doesn’t want to serve, gay or not. Forget about it: Military experts say that under a reinstated draft, able-bodied gay men and lesbians will likely be inducted into the U.S. military.
By Steven Harbaugh
An Advocate.com exclusive posted July 6, 2004
If the United States were to reenact the draft for the first time since the Vietnam War—in order to ease the strain on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—openly gay men and lesbians would likely be required to serve whether they wanted to or not, military experts tell Advocate.com.
The Defense Department is certainly feeling the burden of fighting two wars. This week it reassigned 5,700 additional soldiers to National Guard and Reserve units to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. And lawmakers, such as Republican senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, continue to call for the draft to be reinstated. New York Democratic representative Charles Rangel argues that it would produce a more demographically balanced force and introduced a bill last year that would require mandatory service for all draft-age American men and women. South Carolina Democratic senator Ernest Hollings has introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
A.J. Rogue, national president of American Veterans for Equal Rights, agrees. “The recalling of reservists and retirees is the first step in reinstating the draft. What makes it easy is the fact that young males and females are now required to register,” he says. “This makes it really easy to get the draft going again--it's just a simple matter of notifying everyone registered.”
If those efforts are successful, the Defense Department would have to determine how to mesh “don't ask, don't tell” with the draft for the first time in its history. Most likely, in 2004 gay men and lesbians would be bound for boot camp.
“If there's a draft and 'don't ask, don't tell' is left intact, that leaves an escape route for straights who want to claim to be gay and then escape military service,” says Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military. “It would be a logistical nightmare to have 'don't ask, don't tell' and the draft together.”
Defense Department spokesman Jim Turner disagrees. He told Advocate.com in a written statement that “the Department of Defense policy on homosexual conduct in the military implements a federal law enacted in 1993 following extensive hearings and debate. The law would need to be changed to affect the department's policy. The Defense Department position that at this time there is no need for a draft.”
Under “don't ask, don't tell,” gay and lesbian service members who disclose their sexuality by either word or deed are discharged. Since 1994, more than 10,000 service members have been forced out of the military due to the policy. According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which monitors the dismissals and provides legal advice to targeted personnel, 3,633 service members working in the same specialties as the troops involved in this week's call-up were discharged between 1998 and 2001 alone. If those discharges hadn't happened, the call-up would not have been necessary, adds SLDN spokesman Steve Ralls: “Those are people who were especially well-trained, and then the military turns around and fires them, even when they know there is a dire need for them.”
Meanwhile, the situation for closeted gays in the military remains dangerous. “Lesbian and gay service members continue to report daily incidents of harassment, death threats, and intimidation,” Ralls says, noting how frightening military service can be for gays and lesbians--not just on the battlefield. “A service member recently reported to us that he found a live grenade taped to his barracks door.” A recent Defense Department survey asked 72,000 troops if they had heard antigay statements or remarks in the past year, and 80% said yes. Thirty-seven percent said they had witnessed or experienced targeted incidents of antigay harassment. and 9% said they had witnessed or experienced antigay physical assaults. Pentagon officials reported Monday that they are not planning to take any additional steps to curb antigay harassment.
Jacob Levich, founding member of People Against the Draft, based in in New York City, says a draft is closer to reality than some might think--no matter what the Department of Defense says. “The U.S. military is stretched far too thin to fulfill its current commitments, let alone new ones that will inevitably arise under either a Kerry or Bush administration,” he says. “Reinstatement of the draft is a serious, and perhaps necessary, option for the U.S. so long as we remain in Iraq and are committed to a militarized, expansionist foreign policy--something both major-party candidates enthusiastically endorse. Our group thinks the GLBT community should demand that they be granted the full benefits of U.S. citizenship, including the rights and privileges enjoyed by heterosexual spouses, before they even consider putting their lives on the line for a government that oppresses them.”
Even if gays and lesbians were exempt from serving because of their sexual orientation, they would have problems in going back to their lives after a draft, says Ralls. “Once a service member is discharged, his or her paperwork clearly indicates the reason the service member left service. Many employers will ask to see a former service member's military paperwork and will know that he or she was discharged based on sexual orientation,” he says. “Evading the draft by lying about one's sexual orientation could be a major setback to getting a job after being discharged from the service.”
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
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All Things Just Keep Getting Better
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We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on July 25, 2004 07:07:46 AM new
Here is what the American people think.
Poll: Big support for gays in the military
A new poll has found that 79% of all Americans believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, which was conducted December 5-7, surveyed 1,004 adults. Survey participants were asked "Do you think people who are openly gay or homosexual should--or should not--be allowed to serve in the U.S. military?" Among those in the 18-29 age range, 91% said gays should be allowed to serve openly. The percentage of "yes" respondents for those ages 30-49, 50-64, and 65 and over were 81%, 74%, and, 68%, respectively. Seventy-three percent of men and 85% of women were in support. An August Fox News poll found that 64% of the public believed that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. Previously, a 2001 survey published by MI Press found that 56% of civilian respondents believed that gays should be allowed to serve openly.
According to Geoffrey Bateman, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the shift in public opinion may reflect ongoing concern about the firing of nine gay Arabic language specialists during the war on terror. "After 10 years of 'don't ask, don't tell,' the public understands that discrimination undermines military effectiveness," Bateman said. CSSMM senior research fellow Nathaniel Frank broke the story of the Arabic linguists in a November 2002 New Republic story, but the issue resurfaced recently when The Washington Post reported on December 3 that the military has fired 37 linguists for being gay over the past two years.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on July 25, 2004 08:33:13 AM newFirst everyone is against the draft but now they want the draft?
I am still not in favor of the draft, but I found this story very ironic. The military does not want gays but then says people can not say they are gay to avoid a draft and gays that are drafted must serve.
Now how stupid is that. Either you want gays in the military or not.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
Gays are just as much Americans as you are and deserve the right to serve their country. Although I can't understand why they would want to. This country has done very little, if anything, for them.
Cheryl
. . .if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist- I really believe he is Antichrist- I will have nothing more to do with you and you are no longer my friend.. . - War and Peace, Tolstoy
posted on July 25, 2004 08:45:01 AM new
Research supports openly gay soldiers
According to top military analysts, there was no adverse impact on combat effectiveness when military forces with conflicting policies on openly gay troops fought together in Iraq. In interviews conducted by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara, military experts suggested that when U.S. units, which bar openly gay soldiers for fear of undermining unit cohesion, fought with British units, which allow openly gay soldiers, there were no apparent problems.
Personnel from both armies were exchanged in several instances, according to Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, a vice president at the Potomac Institute. And in preparation for the coalition fighting, the two forces trained together before going into combat. "If you're going to provide combat forces [for each other]," he explained, "you would absolutely want to train together, and generally we do that." He added that American and British forces "have trained together a great deal, so that relationship is a very easy one to carry into combat."
Glenn Truitt, a former U.S. submarine officer, said it was no surprise to him that American soldiers could work effectively with the gay-friendly British military. He knew of gay soldiers on his command, and he said their professionalism rose to even higher levels than that of straight soldiers. "The homosexual men I knew in the military were much more professional about their sexuality than the heterosexuals," he said, "if only because they had to be" to gain full acceptance.
Maj. Gen. Bill Nash (Ret.), a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, added that "most of the issues about women and gays take place when the bullets aren't flying. When you're fighting, you've got other things on your mind." He seemed to imply that problems with integrating gays and lesbians reflected more generalized social concerns, not performance ability. "There are a lot of disciplinary issues that, unless they are directly related to combat performance, are not addressed on the battlefield," he said.
Recently U.S. representative Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) argued that the success of coalition fighting in Iraq is further proof that the American military's antigay policy is unnecessary. "The adherents to the ban have never been able to produce any evidence that allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly and honorably would harm the effectiveness of our military," said Meehan, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and a leading critic of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "The Iraq war demonstrates that the morale and cohesion of our forces is simply not affected by the presence of openly gay soldiers."
Twenty four nations, including the United Kingdom, allow gays to serve openly.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on July 25, 2004 10:31:20 AM new
Sure logansdad
A recent Defense Department survey asked 72,000 troops if they had heard antigay statements or remarks in the past year, and 80% said yes. Thirty-seven percent said they had witnessed or experienced targeted incidents of antigay harassment. and 9% said they had witnessed or experienced antigay physical assaults. Pentagon officials reported Monday that they are not planning to take any additional steps to curb antigay harassment.
Yeah they are wanted in the US Military... guns and anti-homosexuals... makes sense to me...
oooops he just jumped in front as I was firing...
AIN'T LIFE GRAND...
Homosexuality is a choice that can be corrected...
posted on July 25, 2004 11:03:03 AM new
A recent Defense Department survey asked 72,000 troops if they had heard antigay statements or remarks in the past year, and 80% said yes. Thirty-seven percent said they had witnessed or experienced targeted incidents of antigay harassment. and 9% said they had witnessed or experienced antigay physical assaults. Pentagon officials reported Monday that they are not planning to take any additional steps to curb antigay harassment.
Just shows more proof how the Bush administration continues to lie...
the Bush administration had made promise to combat antigay harassment in the military.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on July 25, 2004 11:12:48 AM new
logans: I will be very frank with you. k?
From what I saw gay men are picked on highly in the military. (I wont tell you about this one guy in my husbands unit what they did to him. Not so much physical harm...just everything else. It was very sad and I dont know why he put up with it, except maybe he wanted to be accepted.)
But the women and I hate to say this, but its true in my pov, the butc**?ones?, they aren't liked very much by the men (as far as the talk goes) but they do well in the military specialties *I think. Alot of them are MP's...and scary as helz when they act all tough....
I appreciate your input. I have read stories of how the government has looked the other way when some gays have come out of the closet. The military says one thing and does another. It all depends on your rank and how powerful you are just like any other business.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
In short, I petitioned the U.S. Army for clarification of the oath and asked if the oath was requiring us to "support, champion, shield and protect": abortion, atheism, pornography, Satanism, homosexuality, hate group rights, etc.
The answer to my inquiry was "Yes, you are required to support and defend these things.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on July 25, 2004 11:22:36 AM newLaziest Soldier
A sergeant was addressing a squad of 20 and said: "I have a nice easy job for the laziest man here. Put up your hand if you are the laziest." 19 men raised their hands, and the sergeant asked the other man "why didn't you raise your hand?" The man replied: "Too much trouble, sarge."
Military Common Sense Rules
A lot of life's problems can be explained by the U.S. Military and its applications of common sense ...
1. "Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography."
(Paul Rodriguez)
2. "A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit."
(Army's magazine of preventive maintenance ).
3. "Aim towards the Enemy."
(Instruction printed on US M79 Rocket Launcher)
4. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
(U.S. Marine Corps)
5. Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs always hit the ground.
(U.S. Air Force)
6. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
(Infantry Journal)
7. It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.
(US Air Force Manual)
8. Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.
(Gen. MacArthur)
9. Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo.
(Infantry Journal)
10. You, you, and you . . . Panic. The rest of you, come with me.
(Marine Gunnery Sergeant)
11. Tracers work both ways.
(US Army Ordnance)
12. Five second fuses only last three seconds.
(Infantry Journal)
13. Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything.
(US Navy Seaman)
14. Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.
(David Hackworth)
15. If your attack is going too well, you have walked into an ambush.
(Infantry Journal)
16. No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection.
(Joe Gay)
17. Any ship can be a minesweeper... once.
(Admiral Hornblower)
18. Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.
(Unknown Marine Recruit)
19. Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you.
(Your Buddies)
20. Mines are equal opportunity weapons.
(Army Platoon Sergeant)
21. If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.
(David Hackworth)
22. Your job is to kill the other person before they kill you so that your national leaders can negotiate a peace that will last as long as it takes the ink to dry.
(Drill Instructor)
23. In the Navy, the Chief is always right.
(Written on the door into the Chiefs quarters)
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
All Things Just Keep Getting Better
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on July 25, 2004 12:35:02 PM new
Very informative thread. I support gays in the military. They do their job, and when you hit the beach with them you aren't competing for the same resources. They also know how to cover their ass, or uncover it depending on the situation.
