In The News: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[rabid1st]

So, during the recent vote on DADT, Senators talked about how disruptive it might be to troops at war to suddenly learn that some members of the team were gay.

I assume these weak-kneed troops that our Senators are imagining have been so sheltered by their families and by life in the military that they never worked beside anyone who they knew was gay in the past. Or...if they did see a gay person...they immediately closed ranks with their equally delicate friends and bashed the person to show that they didn't approve of gayness. The Senators must also believe that now these men and women are adults and serving our country we can't expect that they will have grown or changed. No, they will be the same immature wankers they were in high school when they had a nervous snit because some gay person was touching their gym towel.

Okay, let's assume that our fighting men and women are this sheltered, this delicate, this out of touch with their nerve under fire. Because that is what we are assuming. Every Senator that voted away the basic human rights of gay men and women just now, did so because they assumed our men in uniform were a bunch of wilting flowers with no sense of proportion and no real discipline under fire. But if that is what we have in the military...then wouldn't it be more disruptive to their freakin' sensibilities for them to know that there were DEFINITELY gay people in the military and everyone from the commanding general on down was lying to cover it up?

I mean...what we are saying here is that if these spineless types learn that Bob is gay and OMG! Bob has been touching their stuff, then we have a breakdown in the ranks. But right now, these men and women could be suspecting that Bob and Ernie and Tyrell and Sheila are all gay. And all of those people have been touching their stuff...OMG! Is it really a comfort to the type of soldier our Senate is imagining, that nobody can tell who is gay and who isn't? I would think the lie would breed more suspicion and turmoil in the ranks than the truth. A lie in a group of people who must depend on one another in life and death situations is surely far more disruptive to the ranks than bunking too close to the gay. But then, I don't faint when I learn about another person's sexuality, so, I suppose I'm no judge.

Rae

Comments

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

One really pernicious aspect of DADT is that the threat of exposure is used against lesbian servicewomen by some of their male colleagues in order to extract sexual favors. Blackmail rape, I guess you'd call it. Or threat of exposure is made to stop a report of forceable rape. A disproportionate number of discharges under DADT have been of women (as compared to the proportion of women in the military).

Maybe lesbians and bisexual women are more likely to enlist than gay men... or maybe it serves the continuing sexism of many in the military to use their sexual orientations make them more vulnerable, and keep them from sticking up for themselves. It's not that nobody knows that gays and lesbians and bisexuals exist in the military -- people know, and often know who they are. It's just that it keeps queer servicepeople second class and vulnerable to any predator or homophobe who comes along.

Yet another facet -- a lot of gays and lesbians are discharged after their overseas deployments are over. Their commanders and colleagues may know and accept them right along, but feel they need them to complete their missions in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's only when they're stateside again that they reluctantly (or vindictively) put the DADT paperwork through. If there's anything that proves that the "unit cohesion" and "mission readiness" rationales are bunk, it's the fact that they're keeping a lot of these men and women around until their tours of combat are over!

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

You know, this exact idea occurred to me as I wrote the rant. I thought, what if what they are worried about isn't sensitivity but aggression. What if there is a fear that if a man with too much testosterone in his system is offered someone to sexually assault he won't be able to stop himself. And your remarks play right into this idea, because it layers on the victimization of women as part and parcel of the military experience.

How sad is that? We hear about African nations where rape is used as a form of military action and yet, these attitudes among our own military men show that it is simply hidden away in our own ranks. Women are exploited. Men are probably exploited as well. And in some ways it shows that...well...war isn't a natural state for people. Accepting diverse sexuality would head this lower life form tendency off at the pass. Bowing to prejudices simply gives them more power. Something I think Mr. Obama needs to have written on his shirt sleeve for easy reference during these political battles.

Rae

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

I can't find the article I read about this, but here's some news from today:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11721947

And last week or so, a judge ruled DADT unconstitutional. Why does it still exist, again?

Lady Gaga had a good point (and that's not a sentence I ever expected to type): if it's such a screaming problem for the homophobes that they can't work with gay people, kick the homophobes out. Because coddling them just gives their prejudices the sort of legitimacy they do not deserve.

[julesndairyland.livejournal.com]

The underlying assumption that all LGBT service people are sexual predators that the military establishment has to protect straight members of the armed forces from is preposterous.

Because the argument has to be linked to that (or it degrades into the cootie argument).

And both of these are simply ridiculous and without merit.