The deceit of the DADT study
We all heard Secretary Gates tell us that most of the troops don’t think that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell won’t affect the military’s readiness. So Organizing For America couldn’t wait to jump on that tiny fact;
The Washington Times however sees it differently;
The Pentagon survey of all troops, be they in desk jobs or in the field, found about 70 percent said open gays would have positive, mixed or no effect on unit cohesion.
By contrast, combat troops, who live in intimate surroundings while deployed, overwhelming reported that open gays would undermine military readiness, or preparedness for combat.
60% of the Army and Marines think that gays would have an effect on readiness. I wonder why factoring in the Air Force and Navy would dilute the opposition to repealing the policy. Hey! I’m just wondering. Don’t get your nose bent out of shape, there, fella.
The Army is further diluted by it’s large number of REMFs – I heard the ratio of combat arms soldiers to REMFs is 1:7. I have no reference, but it sounds right.
But this goes to my post yesterday – why do it now if it effects readiness and while we’re engaged in a war? The people who actually pull triggers disagree with the desk jockeys. In fact that’s what the whole study boils down to; people who don’t care about the military (OFA, Congress, the White House, VoteVets) and REMFs against the people who actually face the enemy.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s only a matter of time that punk-asses like Dan Choi (who I would throat punch even if he was a breeder) get their way. I’m just questioning the timing.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Liberals suck, Military issues
It’s the Support Units that have females and REMS’s on nice Posts with Pizza Joints and hot showers that don’t see it as detrimental to Unit Cohesion,not the guys on the Line who have to have their drinking water brought in by chopper or wash their only other clean uniform and socks in a creek. who cares if the guy next to you filling out a form,or tapping on a computer is gay or a lesbian singing Show Tunes. It’s a different story in the field though.
I still say if/when DADT is repealed, all 13,000 critical (or so were told) individuals discharged under DADT get a nice registered letter telling them to have their asses back in uniform the following Monday morning. Then we’ll find out how much they “want nothing more than to serve our country”.
What Stacy0311 said.
It’s happening and they’ll get over it. A lot of guys in combat arms and in the Marines simply don’t have a lot of experience with gays. We’re talking about first and second generation hispanic immigrants, blacks, rural and suburban whites. Once they figure out it’s not going to be an invasion of flaming queens and that the parade deck won’t become a gay pride parade they’ll saddle back up and get back to kicking the shit out of bad guys. Because they’re professionals.
Stacy,
I’m guessing 12,995 of them will shit themselves….or whatever they do…
>It’s happening and they’ll get over it.
I love this line of thinking..and what if they don’t? 30% of the 115,000(33,000) had a big problem with this. 33,000 just in the survey; twice the number we have lost in 17 years from DADT.. If 10% of combat troops don’t reenlist- we are in trouble. Homosexuals who are at most 6% of the population are not going to make up the difference. WTF do people need to get over it? Why are we pissing people off so that someone can admit that they have sex(behavior) with the same sex?
melle,
They said the same thing about integration of blacks when 80% of people were opposed to it. There was no exodus then and there won’t be now. Can you imagine a person so homophobic that they refuse to continue their career in the military because the same gay dude that was in their unit yesterday is still there but can now bring his boyfriend/girlfriend to the Ball? That people would endure 5 or 6 deployments, years away from their families, living out of a sea bag for years on end, getting wounded, watching friends die would then turn around and leave the military because their fellow service members were now authorized to be honest about their sexual orientation? I mean, really? Does that make sense to you?
Don’t be fooled, there are gay people in military right now. Everyone knows who there are. Maybe there were a few in my units I didn’t know about but it was never a big secret that the gay ones were gay. Some people disproved, some even felt uncomfortable around them but they never negatively impacted our mission and the overwhelming majority of their fellow Marines thought they were good to go (as reflected in the survey). I never had a gay person prevent me from doing my job and I never met anyone who was able to intelligently articulate a way that they were prevented to either.
>They said the same thing about integration of blacks when 80% of people were opposed to it. There was no exodus then and there won’t be now.
I am so sick of this line. Being black is genetic and immutable unlike sexuality. Sex is a behavior whether you are hetero or homo. Being black is not behavioral and thus should not create problems, and people generally know you are black when you walk in the room. Having sex with the same sex is behavioral, and people only know about it- if you tell them. Also being black is an immutable and veriable trait.
>Can you imagine a person so homophobic that they refuse to continue their career in the military because the same gay dude that was in their unit yesterday is still there but can now bring his boyfriend/girlfriend to the Ball?
No, I can imagine those of us who don’t want to sit through 100’s of lawsuits, eo classes, & sensitivity training pushing a behavior on us that we may or may not agree with.
>Don’t be fooled, there are gay people in military right now. Everyone knows who there are.
And they are largely contained by DADT. By repealing DADT, the military takes a positive position on a BEHAVIOR..
>Can you imagine a person so homophobic
BTW, nice use of the word to try to shut up the debate… and how predictable to use the “homophobe must be racists line.”
>That people would endure 5 or 6 deployments, years away from their families, living out of a sea bag for years on end, getting wounded, watching friends die would then turn around and leave the military
So again tell me how this right now in the midst of two wars is going to help? Tell me how it is going to make us safer when even the Palm Center/Aaron Belkin acknowledges that most DADT cases involve the servicemember telling themselves, and at least half of these people were due to the fact that they didn’t want to be in the military any longer? Or you have DADT cases that involve some other infraction that the servicemember would have been slammed with i.e., Margaret Witt. The fact that we are willing to piss off our combat troops for less than 6% of the population(and even less than that sign up) right now is ridiculous.
melle, >I am so sick of this line. Being black is genetic and immutable unlike sexuality. Sex is a behavior whether you are hetero or homo. Being black is not behavioral and thus should not create problems, and people generally know you are black when you walk in the room. Having sex with the same sex is behavioral, and people only know about it- if you tell them. Also being black is an immutable and veriable trait. Let me get this straight. Being gay is a behavioral issue like being rude or being hyperactive? Like it’s something someone can be scolded over? If you think being homosexual is some sort of choice then wow. I guess you’re of the opinion that you could be convinced or conditioned to become homosexual but I find the idea that I can be conditioned to put a dick in my mouth to be pretty remote. The greater point is that people were vehemently opposed to blacks being in the military. Many people, as a matter of social conditioning, were racist in the 50’s, some still all. Yet there was no exodus despite that fact that the negative feelings toward blacks in Jim Crow era far outstripped the negative feelings toward gays in 21st century. >No, I can imagine those of us who don’t want to sit through lawsuits, eo classes, and sensitivity training pushing a behavior on us that we may or may not agree with. What? You forsee people leaving the military because along with the million of death by powerpoint briefs we all got they might add in a “don’t be an asshole to the gays” in between the “dont be an asshole to the muslims” breif and the “don’t be an asshole to women” brief we all already get? Really? This makes sense to you? Or are you of the conspiratorial and irrational camp of thought that we’re going to be marching off our troops to gay indoctrination camps? Get real. >And they are largely contained by DADT. By repealing DADT, the military takes a positive position on a BEHAVIOR. Contained?… Read more »
>Let me get this straight. Being gay is a behavioral issue like being rude or being hyperactive? Like it’s something someone can be scolded over? If you think being homosexual is some sort of choice then wow Learn to read- I said sex is a behavior. Orientation is more complicated, but homosexual orientation is an ALTERNATIVE sexuality much like people who are into BDSM. >Or are you of the conspiratorial and irrational camp of thought that we’re going to be marching off our troops to gay indoctrination camps? Yes that is me/s. It has nothing to do with the litigious gay lobby or the sensitivity training they are proposing in the military. As soon as you single out a group for “protection” you cause a crack in the team. This is not irrational. Look how women have been treated, and tell me that they do not get preferential treatment. >ever have someone give me a real, honest and intelligent example of how having a gay person in their unit kept them from doing their job IDK, how does someone adulterous keep you from doing your job, and yet the military barrs that. How does someone who recreationally takes drugs on the weekend. How does someone who is 5lbs overweight? >If people are on their way out the door for being shitbags then that’s what they’ll get thrown out for. Losing one good Marine (or any other service member) to DADT is one too many. It’s wrong. And yet you are willing to lose MANY good marines for the repeal of DADT. Your opinion is that these people are shitbags, but they are also our combat troops. >Finally I find the idea that you’re willing to throw any percentage of Americans wanting to serve their country under the bus simply because it might make some people unhappy to be offensive and unamerican. Really the overweight? People with a criminal record? People over a certain age? Single mothers? Who says that these people can’t do the job or is the military just taking a standard and applying it to everyone in these… Read more »
The second logical fallacy when comparing the integration of blacks in the military with allowing openly gay behaviour in the military is ignoring recruitment policy.
We have an all volunteer service now, where Americans can make the choice to NOT join and not shower and share quarters with homosexuals. During integration any white person who decided not to join could be easily replaced by forcing other white people (or that white person) to join. Despite Democrat efforts we still can’t force people to join up if they are uncomfortable showering with homosexuals.
The first of course is that being a racial minority is anything like being gay. I don’t choose to have brown skin and perhaps homosexuals don’t choose to be gay (there is actually NO definitive scientific evidence that it is genetic, only promising studies that aren’t conclusive), but if a homosexual commits a homosexual act they have made that concious decision.
Though I guess I could choose to stay out of the sun and be a bit less brown.
I do wonder whether the military can legally force heterosexuals to shower or room with homosexuals or if that would be considered sexual harrasement on par with forcing women to shower with men? Would the congress then force the marines to have the same “one person one apartment” policy the Air Force has? Would the Navy be exempt or would sailors be forced to room with open homosexuals on ship?
I served for nine years in the Air Force and though I had friends who were homosexuals I was not going to be showering with them, and my one housemate was not a roomate. I honestly don’t think I would have served if I they were going to force me to shower and live in intimate conditions with openly active homosexuals.
Kalroy
Kalroy
>Learn to read- I said sex is a behavior. Orientation is more complicated, but homosexual orientation is an ALTERNATIVE sexuality much like people who are into BDSM. lol, what? Keep running in circles. >Yes that is me/s. It has nothing to do with the litigious gay lobby or the sensitivity training they are proposing in the military. As soon as you single out a group for “protection” you cause a crack in the team. This is not irrational. Look how women have been treated, and tell me that they do not get preferential treatment. For real? You’re going to leave the military because you get an extra power point? 95% of the extra slack women get is because of the difference in physical standards. You’re really grasping at straws here. IDK, how does someone adulterous keep you from doing your job, and yet the military barrs that. How does someone who recreationally takes drugs on the weekend. How does someone who is 5lbs overweight? So your answer is that you can’t give me a single instance in which they would interfere with you doing your job and instead are going to assert that because there are other stupid rules we should keep this one too? Way to go. >And yet you are willing to lose MANY good marines for the repeal of DADT. Your opinion is that these people are shitbags, but they are also our combat troops. I didn’t call combat troops shitbags, I was calling the people you listed shitbags. You still haven’t given me a single historical precedent or intelligible reason why we would lose “many” Marines but we have on the record the people we’ve stupidly kicked out under DADT. >Really the overweight? Prevents people from doing their job. >People with a criminal record? Have proven to be authority problems. >People over a certain age? Demographic trends making it harder for them to do their jobs. >Single mothers? Can’t deploy. Any other non-sequiturs? No? Ok. >Who says that these people can’t do the job or is the military just taking a standard and applying it to… Read more »
Incidentally, there is no such thing as losing a good marine to DADT. Since the only way to lose that “good” marine would be for them to purposefully flaunt their sexuality. As long as you aren’t prominently flaming at a pride parade or yelling “I’m gay” at your commander, DADT protects you from being kicked out.
So I’m calling BS on that strawman tripe.
Kalroy
Kalroy,
You’re seriously mistaken. Simpy being “caught”, as in your S-6 reading emails while deployed or you being seen out in town with a boyfriend or even over hearing a conversation, is considered “telling” because you failed to keep it a secret. The list of people kicked out of the military because they were inadvertently exposed as a homosexual is quite wrong.
EDIT:
I meant “quite long” not “quite wrong”.
What is going to be problem when DADT ends is housing and things along those lines. To prevent sexual harrassment cases homosexuals will have to have seperate quarters. It would have to be done for the same reasons men and women have seperate facilities.
What’s wrong with using the term homophobia? It’s the irrational fear of homosexuality. Own it man.
==========
What is wrong is that it — homophobia — does not exist. No one has an “irrational fear of homosexuals”. Some people have an irrational hatred of them (Westboro) and some hold a belief that homosexuality is hedonistic and wrong, but I don’t know anyone who has some kind of “irrational fear” of homosexuals. It’s a term the GLBT movement made up to stop debate on issues relating to homosexuals and is thrown at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. Against repeal of DADT… homophobe! Against redefining marriage… homophobe!
It’s the same thing with the made-up term “Islamophobe” and how the “racist!” accusation is thrown around in debate nowadays as well. They are terms used now to shut down the opposition.
Imagine if someone who disagreed with Christianity was labeled a “Christophobe”. Or someone who disagreed with Judaism was labeled a “Jewphobe”. Or if homosexuals were called “heterophobes”. Doesn’t that sound asinine and ridiculous? Well, the same goes for throwing around idiotic terms like “homophobe”.
Michael,
It’s clearly a real issue. It’s a range of negative feelings towards gays which have no basis in empirical data or personal experience. It’s inherently irrational. BTW, the Jewphobe term you’re looking for is anti-Semite, both Islamophobia and Christophobia are also real (look them up). They are all fear and hate of a group of people not based on logic.
Figured you meant “long”. I’m not one of those who are all that picky about grammar (well I have a problem when people misuse to and too).
Yes, you have to openly flaunt your homosexual activity such as making out with your boyfriend in public (which as you’ll recall is verboten for heterosexuals also as PDA is frowned upon). Also, you will need sworn statements by at least two witnesses.
As to the e-mails, when you use government computers, cell phones, land lines, sat coms, radios and so on you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so that is also shows poor judgement, poor forethought, poor thought, oh heck, it simply shows that person to be a typical dumbass whether homosexual or heterosexual. Seriously don’t have phone sex on a government phone.
So my argument still stands, you have to make an effort to get kicked out for being gay, or you have to be not a “good” marine (or airman or sailor) but a dumbass.
I’m sure there are a few exceptions but I have never read a single article or read a single verified first hand account of someone being kicked out for being gay without flaunting their sexuality or being a dumbass.
Kalroy
Kalroy,
Well there are in fact a few exceptions that I can quickly reference (Margaret Witt and Mike Almy just off the top of my head). Not only does this apply to the “one is too many” issue but it shows that the idea that one must be openly and belligerently flaunting their sexual orientation in order to be discharged per the order is incorrect.
It’s clearly a real issue.
==========
It may be for a very tiny minority of people (ie Westboro), but that is not how the GLBT movement defines “homophobe”. They consider anyone who is against repeal of DADT to be a “homophobe”, despite plenty of logical, rational reasons presented for keeping DADT in place. They also consider anyone who is against the redefinition of marriage to be a “homophobe” and a “h8ter”, despite plenty of logical, rational reasons to NOT redefine marriage.
You may say that “homophobia” is a real issue, but when people throw around the accusation like people throw around “racist”, then it has lost all meaning.
And no, “Christophobia” is not real. When Philadelphia was told to take down their “Christmas Village” sign in favor of “Holiday Village”, was the term “Christophobe” thrown around? Nope. When the Florida school banned all Christmas colors, was the term “Christophobe” thrown around? Nope. When the Smithsonian had a art exhibit desecrating Jesus with ants, was it deemed “Christophobic”? Nope.
But you do any of that against Islam and it is deemed “Islamophobic”.
>It may be for a very tiny minority of people (ie Westboro), but that is not how the GLBT movement defines “homophobe”. They consider anyone who is against repeal of DADT to be a “homophobe”, despite plenty of logical, rational reasons presented for keeping DADT in place. They also consider anyone who is against the redefinition of marriage to be a “homophobe” and a “h8ter”, despite plenty of logical, rational reasons to NOT redefine marriage.
Well the corner stone of the (actual) definition is that the negative feelings or opposition to the group must not be grounded in empirical data and logic. melle didn’t demonstrate that his position possessed either of those qualities (but I didn’t call him a homophobe either). You may also be surprised that I’m not an advocate of the redefinition of marriage. While that’s a whole other can of worms I’ll just say that I find the argument that including gays in the term “marriage” as defined by our culture is a redefinition and there is nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with that.
>You may say that “homophobia” is a real issue, but when people throw around the accusation like people throw around “racist”, then it has lost all meaning.
I completely agree.
>And no, “Christophobia” is not real. When Philadelphia was told to take down their “Christmas Village” sign in favor of “Holiday Village”, was the term “Christophobe” thrown around? Nope. When the Florida school banned all Christmas colors, was the term “Christophobe” thrown around? Nope. When the Smithsonian had a art exhibit desecrating Jesus with ants, was it deemed “Christophobic”? Nope.
I’m not sure those instances were demonstrations of an irrational fear of Christianity (and instead more a stupid and juvenile temper tantrum under the cover of Constitutionality). Regardless, it’s a real word, look it up.
>But you do any of that against Islam and it is deemed “Islamophobic”.
I agree there’s a double standard. I’s also assert that we are now way off track 🙂
Has anybody seen the internals from the survey results? Since we know we’re dealing with people who will lie to advance their agenda, it occurs to me that we probably shouldn’t take that 70% number at face value.
All I’ve heard about it is that 70% of respondents said changing the policy would have either no effect, a mixed effect or a positive effect on the military’s ability to do it’s job. Consider this – we don’t know what part of that 70% thought the change would have no effect or a positive effect, or how the remainder of that 70% thought a mixed effect would play out. It’s possible that 10% said there’d be no effect, 10% said there’d be a positive effect, and 50% said that there’d be a mixed effect that leaned more towards the negative than the positive.
What we do know is that the president and his political appointees had a desired outcome in mind when they put together this survey. Don’t you think that if an overwhelming majority of service members actually did approve of the proposed change the administration would just say so instead of lumping them in with the folks who just think it might not be a completely unmitigated disaster?
>lol, what? Keep running in circles.
Who or what you prefer get off on is sexuality. Actually acting on that attraction is behavior something people can control. Men may find a 14 year old that looks 20 attractive, but as soon as they learn her age- would not act on it.
>You still haven’t given me a single historical precedent or intelligible reason why we would lose “many” Marines but we have on the record the people we’ve stupidly kicked out under DADT.
Preferential treatment, sensitivity training to a sexual behavior that someone doesn’t agree with. And people haven’t been stupidly kicked out for DADT. Margaret Witt(for example) was committing adultery and was charged with that first. She would have been slammed for that. Most other DADT are because they told their command. Fraternization in combat units is another reason which currently don’t have that issue. AIDS within the male homosexual community.
As for the non-sequitors: I have seen those who can’t make tape & are overweight max the PT test. Single mothers deploy all the time in the military when they have babies after they join. There are some 50 years olds that are in better shape than some 25 year olds. The military though takes the majority of each group and decides that allowing them would be detrimental to the military. It is discrimination, but since the military legally can discriminate that is fine.
>Yep and none of those reasons you listed has anything to do with the qualifications of a homosexual. Zilch. Analogy is not your friend.
Women can’t serve in combat- There’s one..
>So you’d add additional burdens on your the guy fighting on your left because the guy fighting on your right might not like his sexual orientation?
Why because he can’t tell someone who he likes to have sex with?
It’s kind if ironic that the biggest opponents to keeping DADT active at neither gay nor have they served in combat in the military, if they’ve served at all. They just don’t understand that it doesn’t matter what creed and background a (wo)man comes from as long as they can do their job. I’d take 100 gay dudes who are calm under fire and in control of the radio and their fire teams any day.
Also, this
“Really the overweight? People with a criminal record? People over a certain age? Single mothers? Who says that these people can’t do the job or is the military just taking a standard and applying it to everyone in these categories? There is no right to serve you country. People are denied service to their country for many reasons.”
We kick people out regularly for failing to meet height/weight and APFT standards. We regularly kick people out for having too many DUIs or pissing hot for drugs (criminal acts). We regularly force retire people for being too old. We regularly discharge or separate single mothers who have no other care plan available for their children, renderng them undeployable. None of these people can do their job and usually don’t get recruited anyways. There’s a reason that ~1% of the country is in the military and it’s for these exact reasons, more or less. We should be so fortunate that after 9 year of war that we still have a 100% volunteer military and should be thankful for anyone who steps forward to volunteer to serve no matter their gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference.
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Whats the over under on the First Transexual enlistment?
The are the “T” in LBGT,correct?
Social experiments should not be fostered onto the military.
The civilian population needs to come to terms with homosexuality first.
I honestly have way more important shit to worry about, than who gets to shit shower shave where.
To get the 70%, they included those that believed repeal would cause “mixed results,” i.e. some positive (or neutral) and some negative.
For OFA (or a few specifically selected Generals) to turn around and say that 70% think it won’t cause problems is a lie.
The last time I was around a bunch of Squids and Zoomies, the Air Force had already overtaken the Navy as being the most prolifically gay service with one of my Soldiers openly approached by an Air Force Major for a homosexual encounter and the Air Force barracks being known for debauchery.
We expect politicians to lie, but the increasing tendency for Generals to be used to spread that lie is very distressing.
As General Pace was fired for expressing support for Congressionally mandated DoD policy, every General Officer expressing opposition to that same policy should also be fired.