[natehale1971]

Rae, how hard is it to not understand where i stand?

Haven't I stated it repeatedly, that I had no problem with openly homosexual men and women in the armed forces. That "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Persue" took something that was an entirely PRIVATE matter and kept it Private. That when i was in the Navy I was part of the alternative sexuality community of every command that I was assigned too because I would get hit on by a homosexual servicemember who thought i was gay because of my sexual naivate due to my virginity.

While I didn't like the way that the military came up with DADTDP policy, i supported it and felt that it made us all equal. THe part I didnt like was because it was a policy that at the time it was created... a political ploy of a politician who was playing politics with a group of people's lives. Just because of a single facit of something in their lives. That kind of political action that is dividing us from each other.

And they are doing it today. I get called a bigoit, a racist, a homophobe an islamophobe and half a dozen other things because I disagree with some of the policies that current administration has been doing that has been hurting the American Republic that I love. That they are playing idenity politics to divide us against one another.

Now while DADTDP wasn't perfect, namely because there were narrow-minded people who were in positions of authority who had forced their beliefs on others, and did not live up to the Spirit or Letter of the Regulations that were suppose to make us all equal. Is that the fault of the policy or of the people who are not carrying out the policy?

Paul spoke of counseling junior personnel who were homosexual and didnt use it against them. That's how DADTDP was suppose to work. He didn't prosecute them, he treated them as equals and helped them iny way he could within his power as a senior service member. He was the exlempary example of how the policy was suppose to have worked.

Every modern military on Earth has prosecuted homosexuals in the service, that does not make it right. And it is going to take a while to get rid of the bad apples who didn't live up to the example that Paul set.

By allowing identity politics to get a foothold in the armed forces, we are opening the door for bad things to happen when people who put that one facit of their idenity above all others are able to get in and cause problems. And there is a history of people within our community who are doing this. And there are alot of members of our community who are worried about that very element getting into a position to do the kinds of things that will set EVERYTHING backwards.

Rae... i accept your appoligy. and please except mine as well. I've been attacked repeatedly over the past year and half by people calling me a racist, bigoit and homophobe because an entire political party in this country has made it their policy to keep people divided into little groups that they can control and exploit.

This past week i was stalked at an event by someone who was throwing insults and hate at me, all the while calling me the one who was full of hate and bigotry when all i did was give them a compliment. Saying that they were a beautiful woman, and that no one should ever make them feel any less a woman because of how they were born when she was introduced to me at the event that one of my brothers had been invovled in setting up. All because they saw one of the republican campaign buttons on my utility vest, and saw my pro-military buttons and patches.