Don't Ask, Don't Tell is officially history!!

[bobakanoosh]

******* should not be aloud to openly talk about their sexual relation around straight people. The bill that should have been passed should have been that NOBODY can talk about that AT ALL! That would fit everyone's beliefs because it DOESN'T go against any beliefs at all! The moral of the story is poop comes out of your butt an NOTHING should go in!!! (except if a doctor prescribes)

 

[bigb]

If part of this job is to actually read all 21 pages of this, I'm not sure I want it anymore

Thank all that is Holy that it's not a requirement. At least Hopper and Clutch aren't around any more. You missed the really good (if by good, I mean ******) things they do to us.

 

[moevillini]

Holy cow! and I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion of the Hindu religion either.

The fears you describe seem pretty outlandish. If random sexual attacks were truly such a realistic occurrence how the heck do you think so many college can have co-ed dorms? I mean, that's the ****ing horniest demographic of all.

Anyhow, I've sidetracked. Your statement seems to indicate that you think homosexuals are perverted and can't control their behavior. I disagree completely.

alright, I can feel your pain.

huh? but whatever...

No, I don't think "homosexuals are perverted and can't control their behavior" necessarily. Maybe some. Let's discuss the coed college dorm scene in comparison to what it's like for women in the military:

Yet the military—from Pentagon to the troops on the ground—has been slow to recognize the service these women perform, or even to see them as real soldiers. Rather, it is permeated with age-old stereotypes of women as passive sex objects who have no business fighting and cannot be relied upon in battle. As Montoya said about her time as a soldier, "The only thing the guys let you be if you're a girl in the military is a bitch, a ho, or a ****. You're a bitch if you won't sleep with them, a ho if you even have one boyfriend, and a **** if they don't like you. So you can't win."

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103844570

I think the military brass might be reluctant to let the situation get any more complicated. . . . . might be part of their concerns about changing the DADT rule.

and the way to combat (pun intended) the stereotype is to keep women out of the armed forces, eh babe? Some real "pearls" of wisdom there, thanks...

 

[babe]

huh? but whatever...



and the way to combat (pun intended) the stereotype is to keep women out of the armed forces, eh babe? Some real "pearls" of wisdom there, thanks...

I see your point, and perhaps you have the better way. People can change. Maybe I chaff at the "Hall Monitor" theory of Education too much. Maybe just teaching the willing, and setting a good example doesn't do the job thoroughly enough.

However, I think you don't understand the problem the military is dealing with in practical terms. The problem which our college coed folks seem to have minimized somewhat is not being dealt with so successfully in the military. There is such a crush of heterosexual rape going on, the military can't even process the reported incidents. They are doing triage trying to just spend their limited resources on the most egregious offenses. Others get some pay docked as a sort of signal to think twice before doing it again.

https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968110,00.html

I agree with treating all our people equally, in whatever we do as a nation. Ideally, I hope we could do better with our fundamental concepts of constitutional guarantees of civil liberties. I'm just trying to comprehend the difficulties we face in actually implementing our ideals.

 

[PearlWatson]

Millspa, do you think our armed forces are now ruined as a result of the recent decision?

I'm mostly playing devils advocate in this thread. I took on the "weak minded" theory just because someone challenged dutch to "prove homosexuals are weak minded."

I can only guess at the consequences of this decision since I'm not in the military.

Will more homosexuals join the military now? I think some homosexuals used the policy to their advantage by getting honorably discharged when they were ready to leave...possibly after school was paid for.

Will they be relieved to be able to talk about their partners at home with their fellow service members as the OP suggests? A pentagon poll suggests only 15% of homosexuals want to be open about it (although how they conducted a poll that requires them to ask homosexuals in the military this question, with the policy still in place, I don't know)

Will heterosexuals abandon the military in droves?

I only hope it isn't a destructive reversal.

 

[PearlWatson]

Holy cow! and I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion of the Hindu religion either.

The fears you describe seem pretty outlandish. If random sexual attacks were truly such a realistic occurrence how the heck do you think so many college can have co-ed dorms? I mean, that's the ****ing horniest demographic of all.

Anyhow, I've sidetracked. Your statement seems to indicate that you think homosexuals are perverted and can't control their behavior. I disagree completely.

It is stupid that so many colleges have coed dorms. They are just asking for trouble. With that said the ratio of chicks to guys at college are very different than the military within the same horny age group, and under vastly different "cultures" for lack of a better word.

 

[Gameface]

It is stupid that so many colleges have coed dorms. They are just asking for trouble. With that said the ratio of chicks to guys at college are very different than the military within the same horny age group, and under vastly different "cultures" for lack of a better word.

You bring up a good point here in regard to the ratio of men to women in the military. On my ship, an aircraft carrier, there were ~600 women and ~5000 men. My division had 25 people, at any one time 3-5 of them were women. Consequently one of those women was gay. There was a guy, he was married, but I was fairly certain he was gay. For us there was never an issue or incident related to male-female or straight-gay or gay-gay relationships.

For all this talk about what the military is like, for me it was like working in an office/industrial environment. I had no problems trusting anyone based on their sex or sexual orientation. The lesbian woman was one of my better friends, one of the hardest workers and had the most positive attitude/morale of anyone else in the division. She re-enlisted and was assigned as a Recruit Division Commander (RDC) which is what most people know as a drill instructor. She is a highly valuable part of the U.S. Navy. It was no secret that she was gay. No one cared.

I've heard plenty of stories about people "coming out of the closet" to avoid going on deployment. They all end with the person being laughed out of the office and told to get back to work. As far as I could tell there was no such thing as DADT. The sky never fell and my ship never sank.

 

[VINYLONE]

Great insight. Could you touch on some of the rape situations when you were in the Navy...if any?

 

[PearlWatson]

You bring up a good point here in regard to the ratio of men to women in the military. On my ship, an aircraft carrier, there were ~600 women and ~5000 men. My division had 25 people, at any one time 3-5 of them were women. Consequently one of those women was gay. There was a guy, he was married, but I was fairly certain he was gay. For us there was never an issue or incident related to male-female or straight-gay or gay-gay relationships.

For all this talk about what the military is like, for me it was like working in an office/industrial environment. I had no problems trusting anyone based on their sex or sexual orientation. The lesbian woman was one of my better friends, one of the hardest workers and had the most positive attitude/morale of anyone else in the division. She re-enlisted and was assigned as a Recruit Division Commander (RDC) which is what most people know as a drill instructor. She is a highly valuable part of the U.S. Navy. It was no secret that she was gay. No one cared.

I've heard plenty of stories about people "coming out of the closet" to avoid going on deployment. They all end with the person being laughed out of the office and told to get back to work. As far as I could tell there was no such thing as DADT. The sky never fell and my ship never sank.

I can see how a lesbian would be more excepted in that environment than a homosexual male. I think the same thing is true in the overall population.

 

[Gameface]

Great insight. Could you touch on some of the rape situations when you were in the Navy...if any?

I was temporary duty to security during my first deployment and there was a case that took place in port overseas where a male and female were drinking quite a bit, went back to a hotel and had sex. The next morning the female (who was married, to someone else) woke up, gathered her things and went back to the ship and reported that she had been raped. Their stories matched up really well except that she denied consenting and he had a more clear account of their conversation in the hotel room, which he claimed included her saying things like "I'm so horny right now." She dropped charges against him for the rape and they both were punished for fraternization and violation of the ships liberty (liberty=time off overseas) policy which forbade males and females from sharing a hotel room and requires that you remain with the same liberty-buddy you checked off the ship with. In this case a person reporting a rape was punished as a result. The person being reported as having raped someone was lightly interrogated and faced the exact same punishment as the person reporting him. I didn't interview either of them but I read all the interview logs, including from the people they were with before they went back to the hotel. My impression was that she very much regretted having slept with him and cheating on her husband, but at the time she didn't object and most likely encouraged the sexual encounter, although I believe her recollection of events that took place after they got to the hotel room was pretty spotty.

 

[LogGrad98]

I can see how a lesbian would be more excepted in that environment than a homosexual male. I think the same thing is true in the overall population.

I am sure you meant "accept" which means to include, whereas "except" means to leave out.

 

[Gameface]

I can see how a lesbian would be more excepted in that environment than a homosexual male. I think the same thing is true in the overall population.

I can see your point, but she was accepted more because she was a good person and a good worker than for any other reason.