"A conservative pro-family leader believes the Obama administration will move sooner rather than later to attempt to repeal the law that forbids homosexuals from serving in the military.excerpts from & to read the rest of the article click here: OneNewsNow - Chad Groening
... The Washington Times reported that president-elect Barack Obama will not move for months, perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to repeal the ban. The paper quoted two sources who advised the Obama transition team about the potentially explosive issue.
But Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, gives credence to a story published in CNN that the policy could be overturned this year.
"I was told by a reporter, [from] a very respected media institution, that the number-three priority on the list of the liberal activists who are very excited about Mr. Obama taking over the White House...is indeed [the] repeal of the law regarding gays in the military," she explains. ..."
Gay advocates state:
"Thousands upon thousands of courageous troops -- who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are in our National Guard, who patrol our coasts and our skies, who can undoubtedly be found in every area of the armed forces -- aren't afforded the rights and dignity bestowed upon their fellow soldiers simply because they are lesbian, gay or bisexual," said former Human Rights Campaign leader Elizabeth Birch on the 10th anniversary of the military's ban.
Other "Experts" who knew nothing of the military experience have spouted psychobabble about the military's "need" to overcome its "homophobia." The media also did their part by parading homosexual commissioned officers (whose experience is hardly representative) who claimed that they performed their duties well and that what they did in private harmed no one.
Maybe you have wondered what's the problem with Gays serving in the military -
Read these articles below. They are very informative, and discuss potential problems.
-excerpts from and to read entire article click here: about.com gays in the Military...
"Under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the military no longer asks a person's sexual preference when that person enlists (it used to be a question on the enlistment forms). The military no longer investigates claims that a person is homosexual (they can, and do, however, investigate allegations of homosexual CONDUCT). Homosexual CONDUCT is still grounds for discharge (honorable). CONDUCT includes, not only homosexual acts while on active duty, but also includes telling others that you are homosexual (That's the "Don't Tell" part).
What bothers me is that most of the people who criticize the policy either have no significant military experience, OR, their military experience is limited to the relatively luxurious privileges of the commissioned officer.
Single commissioned officers who reside on-base are authorized to reside in single rooms. That makes all the difference in the World. But, what about the poor, low-rank, enlisted person, who is forced to live in the barracks with a roommate? Isn't anyone concerned at all about the privacy rights of the single, low-ranking heterosexual?
I will be the first to admit that homosexuals have served in the military for generations. I will also stipulate, that most have served with honor and distinction. I will further admit that the relatively minor problems which would arise in the workplace, could be effectively handled.
What I fail to understand is exactly how the military would be expected to house openly-admitted homosexuals, in an environment where we force people to room together, without seriously violating the sexual privacy rights of the heterosexual majority, or causing major problems with morale.
I have 13 years experience as an Air Force First Sergeant. The First Sergeant, as the representative for the Commander for all enlisted matters in the unit is the primary individual who would have to make any new policy work. I can foresee the scenario going something like this:
Commander: Well, Top, the new policy is in effect. From now on it's "Don't Ask, but You can Tell." It's up to us to try and make the new policy work.
First Sergeant: Should be no problem, sir. After all, I can't see where being gay would affect anyone's duty performance.
Commander: That's the attitude! I'll leave it in your hands to make it work.
(One week later)
Airman Jones: Sir, I've got a problem.
First Sergeant: What's up, Jones?
Airman Jones: It's my roommate. He's Airman Thompson.
First Sergeant: So?
Airman Jones: Well, he's gay, Sir. He told me so.
First Sergeant: We briefed you on the new policy. Gay service people are no different from anyone else. Airman Thompson does just as good a job as you do.
Airman Jones: Yes sir, but he keeps staring at me when I shower or change clothes and stuff. It's really creeping me out.
First Sergeant: I can see how that might bother you. I'll have a talk with him.
(Later, that same day)
First Sergeant: Airman Thompson, we've got a problem.
Airman Thompson: Yes sir?
First Sergeant: Your roommate claims that you keep staring at him when he undresses. He feels uncomfortable with this.
Airman Thompson: Oh, no sir! I'm not looking at him. He's not even my type.
First Sergeant: Okay. Just do me and your roommate a favor. When he undresses, make sure you look in another direction. Give his privacy rights a little break, okay?
Airman Thompson: Sure sir! No problem.
(Five days later)
First Sergeant: We've got a problem, Jones. Your NCOIC says this is the 2nd time you've been late for work this week. What's going on?
Airman Jones: I'm sorry sir, but I can't sleep at night. Now, every time I even reach for my zipper, Airman Thompson stares at me and gives me a "wolf-whistle." I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm about ready to smack him.
First Sergeant: No. No. You can't do that. I'll have another talk with him. Don't you even think about harming him. Got it?
Airman Jones:
Yes, sir.
(Later)
First Sergeant: Thompson, your roommate claims you've been staring and whistling at him. That's sexual harassment, and we won't tolerate it. Understand?
Airman Thompson: I haven't been looking or whistling! He's just lying because he doesn't like homosexuals! Most people in the military don't like us, and they'll lie in a heartbeat!
First Sergeant: Look, you're not the only one that I'm having a problem with in implementing this policy. How about if I move you into a room all by yourself?
Airman Thompson: Sure!
(Two weeks later)
Commander: First Sergeant, we've just received an Inspector General Complaint. It claims that you've given all the homosexuals in the squadron a private room?
First Sergeant: Yes, sir. There were some serious problems developing between them and their heterosexual roommates. I thought it best to get them split up before someone got hurt.
Commander: I understand, but we can't give them special privileges. We don't have enough space to give everyone a single room, and you can't single out the homosexuals as getting a benefit that isn't available to the others. Now, fix it!
First Sergeant: Yes, sir.
(One week later)
Airman Pizaz: Airman Tippy is my girlfriend.
First Sergeant: That's nice. What can I do for you.
Airman Pizaz: Well, she wants to room with me.
First Sergeant: (spitting coffee) You know we can't room a male and female together in the barracks.
Airman Pizaz: Why not? You roomed Airman Thompson and Airman Eckers together.
First Sergeant: So?
Airman Pizaz: Come on, Shirt! Everyone knows they're going together. If Thompson gets to room with his boyfriend, how come I can't room with my girlfriend?
First Sergeant: Well.....I guess that makes sense. Okay, I'll approve it.
(Two weeks later)
Commander: (Storming into office, blowing steam out of his ears) What in the Hell are you doing, First Sergeant?
First Sergeant: Sir?
Commander: (Face turning blue) The Wing has just received a slew of Congressional Complaints about you from concerned parents! It appears as if you are allowing their young sons and daughters to shack up in my barracks. Is that true?
First Sergeant: Well, yes Sir....but.....
Commander: (Having a kiniption) No buts!!!!!!! Not in my Air Force!!!!!! People don't shack up in Military Barracks!! Is that clear???
First Sergeant: Yes Sir.
Commander: (Jumping up and down) Fix this, now!!!
First Sergeant (Thinking): How in the World do I fix this?
(After much thought)
I know! I'll room male homosexuals with female heterosexuals, and female homosexuals with male heterosexuals!
(One week later)
Commander: (Blood pressure rising like a steam boiler) First Sergeant, what in the blazes is going on in my squadron?
First Sergeant: Sir?
Commander: Every single male in the barracks now claims he's homosexual, and wants to move in with a heterosexual female!
First Sergeant: Well, Sir, I guess the studies were wrong. Maybe it is possible for one to change their sexual orientation."
Here's another perspective (from within the military) on the military ban.
-excerpts from and to read full article click here: James M. Wallace - The Military's Ban Against Homosexuals
"Junior EMs are usually billeted in roughly 300 square foot, four-man rooms; junior NCOs get similar sized two-man rooms. They all share common latrine and shower facilities. These people are the bulk of the services; they are the military. Having risen through the ranks from Private First Class to Sergeant, my experience as an enlisted soldier is particularly informative.
There was a time (even as late as one year into my enlistment) when I would have argued for lifting the ban. I have always been somewhat sympathetic towards homosexuals. Having come of age as an atheist in the Bible Belt, I know what it is to be a member of a reviled minority. ...
... As a student here at UNCG, I definitely went to school with homosexuals. In Spring 1985, as a member of the Student Senate Judicial Committee, I helped push impeachment proceedings against a fellow senator who had disrupted our meeting after we had voted $50 for refreshments for a talk on lesbian nuns sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Student Association.
In my last civilian job prior to joining the Army, my manager and three of my four coworkers were homosexuals. One of my coworkers had been voluntarily separated from the Navy due to homosexuality. I was "open-minded" enough to put up with his vain, and in vain, attempts to seduce me before I went back to school.
In basic training, during an equal opportunity class given by our company's senior drill sergeant, one of my fellow recruits asked, "Isn't the Army's policy against homosexuals discriminatory?" The big NCO allowed himself a moment of humor and enthusiastically and gleefully replied, "Oh, yeah!"
We all laughed, but I remember thinking how narrow-minded and ignorant he was. As an "enlightened" college boy, I arrogantly assumed my own moral superiority. But theory and practice are often very different, and I received my comeuppance in the fullness of time.
During the middle of the second year of my enlistment, I began to suspect that two of my roommates were having a homosexual affair. They were keeping it out of the barracks, so I wasn't sure.
Other soldiers had begun to take notice as well. I was often asked what was up with them. I would feign ignorance and answer, "I don't know; what do you mean?" I knew full well what they meant, and their suspicions lent credence to my own.
I returned to our room late one night and discovered the two of them asleep in the same bunk. They were under the covers, in each other's arms, face-to-face, with very contented expressions on their faces. I no longer had any doubts. They were starting to awaken so I decided that it would be best just to go to bed as if I had seen nothing. As I turned out my lamp and settled into bed, the one scurried back to his own bunk.
The next morning, wanting to determine what I had seen, they asked me when I had gotten in the night before. I didn't want them to know that I had discovered them. In the Army, your roommates are fellow squad members and naturally your friends as well. If they knew that I knew about them, I risked alienating them because they would view me as a threat who might not keep his silence. If I did indeed keep my silence after affirming that I had seen them, I would become complicitous in their violation of Army regulations and would be in violation myself because I would have failed to report a known violation. Neither alternative seemed particularly desirable. To buy more time and to protect myself, I claimed that I didn't really remember due to the effects of good German beer.
They became emboldened and continued their affair in our room which they turned into their own love nest. For three weeks, I endured being locked out of my room and interrupting whatever it was that they were doing so that I could get in. Obviously, I knew what they were about, and just as obviously, they knew that I knew.
I finally decided that I had no choice but to inform our superiors. I asked our platoon sergeant how to get a couple of homosexuals out of the Army. He knew to whom I was referring. The command was informed of the situation, but it was determined that nothing could be done legally as it was a case of my word against theirs.
I wanted to move into another room, but there was no extra space. Anyway, the problem would be partially solved when one of my roommates was transferred back to the States during our upcoming field exercise, but I was stuck with them both for ten days. When I was in the room, they would have the vilest conversations about me as though I wasn't even there. They did everything they could to make me feel uncomfortable in my own room. My sleep was light, fitful, and brief; I often woke up several times a night in order to check on my well-being. I spent as little time as possible in my room, and I was never so glad to go to the field.
The presence of known homosexuals is disruptive to the good order and discipline of military units. When my roommates became a couple, they ceased to be members of our unit in a social and emotional sense. They became so obsessed with one another and their relationship that they couldn't or wouldn't fulfill their responsibilities to the rest of us. Their commitment to one another negated the required loyalty to the Army and to their fellow soldiers. They willfully violated the regulations and policies of an organization that they freely joined. Not only were they abusive to me, they were defensive and confrontational with other members of our unit. They acted as though we and the Army were the ones who were wrong. For our part, we others couldn't and wouldn't accept their relationship. This exacerbated the situation and turned it into them against us. This state of affairs was intolerable.
Barracks life is highly communal, and privacy is very limited, but these conditions foster the camaraderie and the unit cohesion that is vital to the proper functioning of a combat-ready force. In the military, respect and loyalty between members is powerful enough to transcend almost every animosity. One is constantly aware of the fact that the SOB down the hall could very well be the SOB who comes between you and death. One disrupts the process at the risk of needlessly lost lives when war becomes a painful necessity. Males have a natural discomfort for homosexuality and intuitively know that they are not to relate to one another in that manner. In the close quarters of the barracks, this discomfort becomes a vital animosity which cannot be transcended.
The advocates for lifting the ban assume that homosexuals would "check their sexuality at the door" of their barracks. The opponents of lifting the ban and the militant homosexuals seeking an end to it agree that this is ludicrous. The advocates' assumption requires that homosexuals remain celibate because any expression of sexuality will probably end up in the barracks. The extreme promiscuity of male homosexuals makes this an inevitability. ...
...The real objective of those seeking to lift the ban is not the end of some perceived injustice but the normalization of homosexuality. This is entirely unacceptable. While a society can tolerate some deviancy on its fringes, it cannot accept it within its mainstream. Homosexuality represents a threat in that it creates an inappropriate sexual outlet that corrupts the natural relations between men and women. If increasing numbers of men and women opt out of child-bearing and child-rearing and choose "alternative" lifestyles instead, our society increasingly will be unable to renew and maintain itself and will ultimately founder. Those who choose the "traditional" lifestyle will find their task made more difficult by a disintegrating social structure.As an aside, opposing the normalization of homosexuality is not advocating violence against homosexuals. One of the functions of society is create a sense a personal security for its members. Individuals who engage in "fag-bashing" are criminals and should be treated as such.
The military is not a suitable subject for experiments in social engineering such as the normalization of homosexuality. Our armed forces exist for the sole purpose of defending our country and our way of life. Anything that interferes with this function is a threat to our society and must be opposed vigorously.
The outrage expressed by veterans such as myself is well justified. We sacrificed part of our lives and part of ourselves by serving in our country's armed forces. We gave up far too much to stand by idly while those who "loathe the military" attempt to destroy that which we made part of ourselves, that which we will always love."
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