Homosexuals in the military

[natehale1971]

Wow Rae... that's classy. Call me a bigoit when I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT punishing all Openly Gay men and women. You didn't get a single thing I was talking about. Not. One. Bit.

I don't know how i can explain it any plainer so people can understand just what the hell I am saying.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell, DON'T PERSUE" was a policy that took a persons sexual orientation and made it a NON-ISSUE. It made us all EQUAL in the eyes of the law. It didn't not make protected classes of a single group of people who have something different about them.

It placed EVERYONE on the same footing. And if you can't understand that, it's your problem. Don't talk to me again. Because I have had enough of people calling me a bigiot, a racist or a homophobe. Especially when I have more friends, loved ones and family who span the spectrum of humanity than those who are calling me those horrible names.

[Jason]

The military has never been a forum for significant civil disobedience, for reasons that should be obvious. The military authorities come down like a ton of bricks on soldiers that try to subvert the military mission. I just do not see any significant numbers of gays joining the military and going through basic and advanced, just to stage a scene in the name of activism.

I suppose it is possible, as activists have gone to extremes in the past, but I do not see how this has to do with DA-DT. Gay activists could have done this at any time correct? What stopped this type of activism under DA-DT?

[Raellus]

Nate, you misunderstand. I'm not calling you a bigot. I did not mean to imply that and I am sorry that I offended you and I think I understand why you are reacting defensively to my post. Please accept my apology.

I guess I went about constructing my counterarguments in the wrong way. I was using similarly charged episodes in our history/issues in our society to point out the flaws in your position. I see now that this was the wrong way to go.

I'm not going to slink away and be silent, though, because you are mad at me. If you have the right to share your opinions here, then so do I.

Originally Posted by natehale1971

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell, DON'T PERSUE" was a policy that took a persons sexual orientation and made it a NON-ISSUE. It made us all EQUAL in the eyes of the law.

No, I don't get it. This doesn't make any sense at all. It's not even close to being true.

So, if back in the day a straight soldier was heard talking to his barracks-mates about his wild weekend with a female stripper, or domestic life with his wife, or relationship problems with his girlfriend, he would be kicked out of the military, just like the guy that talked about spending leave with his same-sex partner?

Straight soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines never openly/publicly talked about their heterosexual relationships during DA-DT? They were dishonorably discharged when they did?

I don't see any equality here.

[natehale1971]

No, you did. you insinuated that i'm a bigot for my simple expression of a fear that is held by many in the community, and tried to say that it's beause i was sexually asssulted by two men that i had a reason to be one.

You ignore the fact that I've repeatedly stated that i have friends AND family who span the specturm of humanity. What you did is just like so-called civil rights activists who call Herman Cain or Clerence Thomas racists or uncle tom's.

If someone abused their position of authority and threw soldiers out for being gay during DADTDP just because they were Gay, they should be ashamed of themselves andshould be thrown out of the military without any kind of benefits. Anyone who uses a position of athority (ANY position of authority) to force their own narrow-minded beliefs on others is something that should be punished and watched out for, and called to the carpet for it when found.

Those People in the barracks talking about their sextipades are BREAKING THE REGS. Even if it's hetrosexual sex they were talking about. They were the ones who SHOULD have been punished because they were creating a hostile working enviroment. We were not allowed to put up ANY pictures in our racks in the berthings, or on the walls because SOME men had been putting up nudie pictures that wouldn't have been seen by any one but themselves. That was a reg that effected everyone because of the actions of the few.

I keep having to mention the fact that I have two adopted brothers who are openily gay, and that they have been involved in local, state AND national gay rights groups for decades. Hell, I've taken part in and actually MARCHED at several equal rights events.

I have expressed a veiw point that wasn't just mine, but that of homosexuals who have witnessed the work they've done get unerminded by extremists who have forced perversity down others throats when they were doing the things like "up your ally" and "Folsum Street Fair" by perfroming ACTUAL homosexual sex acts and carrying out S&M acts on the street infront of everyone, incudling children. Oh, and they were especially doing it while standing beside these big signs that were saying that public nudity and violating basic public decency is against the law...

and the reason why they were doing it was the fact there were police standing by having to watch and not do anything because the mayor had ordered them not to enforce the decency laws.

DADTDP did make us all equal under the rules. In the policies own name spells it out. "Don't Ask. Don't Tell. Don't Persue." It's as simple as that. It's not the policies fault that there had been officers and senor NCOs who didn't live up to either the Letter OR Spirit of the regulations.

I've NEVER said that openly homosexual men and women shound't be in the armed forces. For God's sake I put in almost every post about the fact I was involved in the Gay Community of every command I was assigned too.

YOU made the insinuation that I'm a homophobe because i was sexually assaulted. Why the hell would i be one when it was the gays in the community who had got justice for me when it was the damn Clinton Administration who KILLED the homosexual rape investgations of not only my case but nearly a hundred others throughout the military?

THEY stood by me when a i was going through the third degree when i reported the assault, and they seethed in anger and hate when they couldn't even hold me when i was currled up in a ball crying because i couldn't handle ANY MALE touching me.

It took almost 15 years for me to get back to the point I could give EVERYONE I knew the same kind of hugs that I did when I would meet and leave them. Be they male or female, straight or gay. I didn't care. I treated everyone with the same love and respect that they deserved for being the Children of God.

I do not hold hate in my heart. Not for the men who raped me. Not for closed minded idoits who are running the country that I love into the ground with so-called 'progressive' policies that we can planly see with the example of Greece do not work.

I do not even have hate in my heart for my so-called wife who took my sons who are everything to me. An act that hurts so damn bad that I cry at just the memory of my sons. I spent Two hours in tears because of a damn mickey mouse commerical that reminded me of my infant son doing the mickey mouse club house dance.

If I can't find any hate in my heart for the woman who has hurt me that damn bad, how the hell can i be a bigiot?

I'm sick of people who call themselves open-minded who are anything but, who are getting away with labeling other people bigoits, racists or homophobes because they don't share the same narrow views.

Who you sleep with is NO ONES business.

What color your skin doesn't amount to NOTHING. It's only skin deep. Their blood and DNA is just like everyone elses. it does not make anyone better than anyone else, nor does it make them worth more or less than anyone else.

Who you pray to (or not) is not anyone elses business as long as you are not trying to kill others just because they don't share your beliefs.

I'm sick of people attacking me because of THEIR closed-minded hatefulnes. An the entire time they are attacking me with that hate, accusing me of being the one who is full of hate.

NO where in this thread (or anywhere else in the world) did i say that Gays shouldn't be in the military. NOT ONCE. I only expressed the concerns of many people in the community who are worried that the worse radical elements are going to now be able to do something so damn stupid it will put the entire community who only want to be excepted for WHO they are, and not WHAT they are back.

That we remember the the statements that all of us really want, is a world were EVERYONE is judged by the Content of their Character and not the color of their skin, not by their sexual orientation, not by their religious (or lack their of) beliefs. That it is not the government's job to provide equal outcomes, but to ensure that we all can start out with the equal opurtunities to achieve life, liberty and the persuit of private property & happiness without a fear that someone is going to kill us because we're different in some percieved way.

[Targan]

Wow. I wake up this morning, log on to check the forum and this conversation is not only still running, it's getting MORE heated? Maybe I shouldn't have moved this to a new thread, I probably should have locked it like I threatened to.

Nate, I understand you're upset and I sympathise with your personal experiences. Matter of fact pretty much everyone who has responded to your posts in this thread seems to empathise with you. You're among friends here. If this thread is just going to continue to upset you shall I lock it for your sake?

For the record (and this is directed generally, not to one specific person) I like to moderate with the lightest hand possible. I'm totally against censorship and the stifling of free expression. But I'm worried that this thread is generating bad blood and I'm not sure if it's continuation will bring more good than bad.

Ball's in your court, gentlemen. If things are still going south a couple of hours from now, this thread will be closed.

[Raellus]

Nate, you're right, I have no idea what's going on here. I'm still very confused as to what your position on DA-DT and gays in the military (then and now) is.

Once again, I am sorry for offending you. That was not my intention.

I guess I will opt out of this discussion. It was never meant to be personal but that is what you are making it. I'm not sure how to respond to accusations of close-mindedness, and hatefulness. I've apologized to you; I meant it (and still do). I should have left it at that.

At this point, I believe that too much damage has been done. I regret participating in this thread.

[pmulcahy11b]

I think that with this thread, we took a grenade to the face.

[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.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

All because they saw one of the republican campaign buttons on my utility vest, and saw my pro-military buttons and patches.

Hell, I'd give you a razzing for wearing pro-Republican campaign buttons -- but we'd have similar pro-military buttons and patches.

I can really confuse a lot of people, especially fellow Democrats, with my views. "How can you be against both the anti-gun lobby and the pro-gun lobby? How can you believe in personal gun ownership rights and believe the Second Amendment never had anything to do with personal gun ownership? How can you be a Democrat and still think that US prisons should be the worst shitholes imaginable?" Nit, nit, nit...

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Hell, I'd give you a razzing for wearing pro-Republican campaign buttons -- but we'd have similar pro-military buttons and patches.

I can really confuse a lot of people, especially fellow Democrats, with my views. "How can you be against both the anti-gun lobby and the pro-gun lobby? How can you believe in personal gun ownership rights and believe the Second Amendment never had anything to do with personal gun ownership? How can you be a Democrat and still think that US prisons should be the worst shitholes imaginable?" Nit, nit, nit...

Do you really believe that the second amendment didn't have anything to do with personal gun ownership, when the founding fathers who wrote the documents actually stressed that was the case? my ancestor was Richard Dobbs Spaight SR, the rep from NC who had been adment about no bill of rights, no signing of the constitution.

Me i have problems with democrats who like to say Republicans have done nothing for civil rights, when it was the democrats who had segreated the armed forces and who fillibustered civil rights laws among other things.

Neither party is as pure as the wind-driven snow and have their problems. Neither the Conservative or Constutionalist Party are nationwide so I have to work with the Republicans until we can get a national conservative or constutional party when the other party is engaging in devisive political gamesmanship.

And it wasn't razzing that this person was doing. it was histerical verbal and physical assaults.