Gays and generals / Top brass torpedo 'don't ask, don't tell'

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Tuesday, December 16, 2003 | editorial

[Willie Green]

It should come as a shock to no one that three retired military officers, two generals and one admiral, revealed last week that they are gay. What should be surprising is that, despite these and other stellar records, the Pentagon adheres to a policy that prevents known homosexuals from staying in the service.

[JCEccles]

You're suggesting there is no difference between a passive characteristic such as skin color and a behavioral trait such as homosexuality? I have never bought that equivalence.

The military lawfully and properly discriminates against all sorts of people on the basis of behavioral traits. You can be discharged or denied entry if you have a nervous tick, if you sleepwalk, if you have poor impulse control, if you habitually overeat and underexercise resulting in overweight or lack of fitness etc.

The military is not a place to celebrate one's diversity and flamboyant uniqueness. The military is about group action and discipline. Outliers and oddballs cause friction and compromise group cohesion. A 20 year-old soldier has too much to worry about in fitting in and contributing to the team to waste time and energy wondering whether his gay roommate is going to fondle him when he is asleep.

And yes, it does happen.

[Thud]

So the bigots' fear that they might become the victims of misconduct justifies official discrimination? Your hidden assumption is that military discipline is ineffective at curbing misconduct.

[JCEccles]

Men and women who exhibit behavioral characteristics that compromise group cohesion and effectiveness place themselves and the lives of others at risk. It is foolish, counterproductive, and dangerous to force these oddballs on everyone else. That is fundamental common sense. Generally, only liberals equate common sense with bigotry.

Again, the military is not a place for celebrating one's diversity and flamboyant uniqueness.

[JCEccles]

Your hidden assumption is that military discipline is ineffective at curbing misconduct.

Military discipline is not merely the prosecution of offenses under the UCMJ. It is far broader than that. Military discipline includes command responsibility of identifying threats to unit cohesion and preventing or eliminating these threats insofar as it is possible. The adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" has special relevance within the life and death context of the military mission.

By not allowing homosexuality to be openly expressed or practiced in the military, the rules encourage discipline at its most effective and vital level--at the level of the soldier him or herself. A soldier who has a behavioral characteristic of any kind that would compromise or disrupt unit cohesion has considerable incentive to practice self-discipline to keep the characterstic quiescent and non-apparent. That is how it should be.

If he or she desires to openly express the oddball behavioral chacateristic, he or she may do so as a civilian, where it does not matter.

The libertarian notion that one must first suffer harm before one takes action is nonsense as it relates to the military environment.

[xzins]

There are a variety of reasons for not permitting gays in the military.

1. Good order and discipline. Sexual relationships among troops cause unforeseen deviations from normal patterns of unit support and cohesions. We don't want our fighting men and supporting women housed with those who sexually desire them.

2. The medical consequences of homosexual behavior. Homosexuals are extremely highly more likely to suffer deleterious medical problems. They also pass these along to others.

3. The walking blood supply is contaminated by blood borne pathogens which appear at a much higher frequency among active homosexuals.

[FormerLib]

Of course, these men served in a military where homosexuals were forbidden to serve so they would been even more restrained in their behavior than is currently required.

Considering the millions of men that have served in the US military, the fact that they are only able to find a few such examples of homosexuals being able to serve honorably speaks loudly against allowing proclaimed sexual deviants in the military.

[FormerLib]

Don't try using facts and logic, xzins, they clash with the curtains.

[Thud]

I completely agree. Discharge the bigots.

"Men and women who exhibit behavioral characteristics that compromise group cohesion and effectiveness place themselves and the lives of others at risk."

[IGOTMINE]

"The British, Israelis and virtually every other NATO ally has revoked their ban on gays, BTW, all reportedly with little or no adverse consequences."

Just like our military doesn't report the problems we've had with gender integration.

[xzins]

Sorry.

One other thing of note. There has not been time for an officer to have made Brigadier General from 2LT to BG since 1992, when the Clinton era began and "don't ask, don't tell" was ushered in.

That means that these officers lied on their entry applications.

It calls into question the veracity of their oaths: when they raised their hands and swore their allegiance without mental reservation. In a court of law, it is acceptable to consider one lie to indicate a pattern of lying. These officers practiced duplicity of mind, i.e., mental reservation.

[FormerLib]

Discharge the folks who think homosexuality is sick and you'll have an military force that is only capable of redecorating and spreading infected bodily fluids among themselves!

[FormerLib]

By the way, how many, if any, of those nations have won an engagement without our support?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Said Admiral Steinman: "I was denied the opportunity to share my life with a loved one, to have a family...

They don't teach men and women in the Navy that males can't get males pregnant and have babies (families) with them?!? Some REALLY ignorant people in the Navy. Admiral Steinman is proof.

[itsahoot]

No, I'm not pro-homosexual

Sure could have fooled me.

[JCEccles]

Name-calling is no substitute for rational argument. If it were, DU would have won the culture wars on behalf of the liberals within its first 20 posts.

How do you equate a passive characteristic such as skin color, the expression of which is benign and beyond the person's control, with a behavioral characteristic such as homosexuality, the expression of which is within the person's control?

[skeeter]

Marc Mitscher was a four-star admiral.

Marc Mitscher, the scourge of the Combined Fleet?

Care to elaborate?

[Thud]

My best friend, and my sons' godfather, was for years the highest ranking homosexual who was out of the closet and still in the service. He came out in Newsweek in 1994 - there was a photo. He was the tall, seriously ugly (face like a head-on collision between Alfred E. Neuman and Adolf Hitler) field grade reserve MP. He specialized in emergency management and was then on active duty assigned to FEMA. His final assignment was to write the major earthquake emergency signals plan interfacing the various reserve units in the San Francisco Bay Area with its many emergency service agencies. Bob was eventually riffed in 1998 along with thousands of other reserve MP's whom the Army now desperately needs, which had nothing to do with sexual orientation. We speculated that the Army left him alone after he came out because he was on FEMA's budget, not the Army's.

Bob has since gone to law school. He has a published review article on the Yamashita trial, which his mother witnessed as a WAC clerk on MacArthur's staff in Manila - her stories are fascinating. Another of Bob's articles should be published soon - on UCMJ revisions following the Air Force Academy scandal. It focuses on how the Don't Ask - Don't Tell statute is constantly misused as a vehicle for sexual extortion of female personnel - put out under threat of being reported as a lesbian for refusing unwanted male demands for sex.

I know a great deal about gays in the military, including the law on the subject. You don't. And, just from an analytical perspective, official discrimination dies with Lawrence's decriminalization of homosexual conduct. Reread Brown v. Board of Education. Judicial deference ends once the conduct is decriminalized. That was my original point.

[Thud]

Because mere orientation is grounds for discharge, regardless of conduct.

"How do you equate a passive characteristic such as skin color, the expression of which is benign and beyond the person's control, with a behavioral characteristic such as homosexuality, the expression of which is within the person's control"

[FormerLib]

Our military needs fewer moral and sexual degenerates, not more.

In that regard, the military is no different from the rest of our society.

You claim to know "a great deal" about homosexuals in the military. That reminds me of the old adage that some ideas are so stupid, only an intellectual can believe them. Expecting sexual deviants to serve honorably is one such idea.

The harder the supporters of the Homosexual Agenda attempt to tear at the fabric of our society, the more clear the threat they represent to the rest of us becomes.

[JCEccles]

"Orientation" is meaningless unless it is seen as a tendency to act. No such "act" is predicate to having a particular skin color. Do you contend otherwise?