“they can now charge others with hate crimes, hate speech, so troops taking matters into their own hands would be severely disciplined”
Well.....as a retired Army legal administrator (not a JAG, more a senior paralegal) I can say that the wheels of UCMJ turn as slowly as on the civilian side. A soldier facing Article 15 can always request trial by court-martial. The stakes go up as far as potential punishment but the burden of proof becomes more difficult as well. And the supporting paperwork on both sides increases exponentially.
IIRC, the current Manual for Court Martial does not list “hate crime” as a separate article of UCMJ. That sort of charge usually gets subsumed under a catchall like Article 134 (actions prejudicial to good order & discipline) and proving “hate filled” intent is like the proverbial nailing of Jello to the wall.
The majority of soldiers accept the military justice system as the means to accomplish the mission and for the fact that it protects as much as it is used to prosecute.
Now..... implicating the chain of command is another matter and a whole different legal universe in itself. Look at how long it has been since the Fort Hood jihadi Hasan killed all of our people. Three years this November. I’m digressing but the delays impeding that case going to trial have as much to do with official interference by the chain as those used by the defense team.
Anyway, mandated fundamental change in attitudes toward homosexuality within the close confines of military service may be a top political goal, but it’s not filtering down to the enlisted ranks very well at all. Just my opinion.
Well, this is certainly your area of expertise, sir! Thanks muchly for such enlightening information.
In any case, you are also very probably correct that a political agenda cannot change a basic fact of human nature (i.e., young males entering military service will respond to homosexuals in their midst from the gut, not according to a political correctness teaching manual).
In that case, there will be trouble on the horizon, perhaps (hopefully) leading to a re-thinking of the wisdom of this decision. (repeal of DADT and all which has followed).