Posted on 06/21/2004 2:03:44 AM PDT by Finally_done
SAN FRANCISCO - Even with concerns growing about military troop strength, 770 people were discharged for homosexuality last year under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a new study shows.
The figure, however, is significantly lower than the record 1,227 discharges in 2001 just before the invasions of Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq (news - web sites). Since "don't ask, don't tell" was adopted in 1994, nearly 10,000 military personnel have been discharged including linguists, nuclear warfare experts and other key specialists.
The statistics, obtained from the Defense Manpower Data Center and analyzed by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, offers a detailed profile of those discharged, including job specialty, rank and years spent in the service.
"The justification for the policy is that allowing gays and lesbians to serve would undermine military readiness," said Aaron Belkin, author of the study, which will be released Monday. "For the first time, we can see how it has impacted every corner of the military and goes to the heart of the military readiness argument."
Does the "journalist" have an opinion?
Sheesh.
Dan
The definition of homosexual behavior does not require love and/or reciprocity!
What a waste, they should have sent them all into Falluja.
You're not. In most states, it is still legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Nobody requires you to "entertain" homosexuals, whatever that means.
We had that in the dorm at U of Michigan. No big deal, except you could never find a free sink since the chicks were always primping.
Precisely my point.
The military is not some kind of feel good equal right experiment.
And the folks in charge need to take a solid stance on that. If a mission gets jeapardized because of tensions about gays, then somebody has failed. And it becomes self-serving, and defeatist for gays to insist they be allowed some kind of "opportunity".
If they want to do something to contribute, do it here. By insisting they be allowed in uniform, they risk losing the very rights they so desperately say they want to protect.
Finally_done, is that you?
EvilEd: Since Jun 21, 2004
You are going to drive the guys in our data analysis and statistics unit completely crazy. (a short drive, I admit)
While I am admitting that you have a point, using a behavior-only approach to determine someone's sexuality leads to problems. Is the aforementioned rapist to be labelled as homosexual from now on? (what if it was "rape by instrumentation>?) And if HE is now to be labelled homosexual, what about a (previously) homosexual man who engages in a heterosexual act? Is he straight from now on?
Most "experts" in the field will agree that rape is not a desire-linked crime, but a violence and power-linked crime anyway.
I would think that the whole gays-in-the-military issue would apply to men who are gay most of the time, rather than to part-time homosexual rapists.
My original point was that the men who committed "homosexual" atrocities in Iraq were probably "previously heterosexual". They probably still think of themselves (however wrongly) as heterosexual.
Our armed forces are obviously NOT trained to be a band of rapists, but rather to be honorable defenders of our liberty. It seems obvious that no rapist (gay or otherwise) belongs in our armed forces. Connecting the issues of rape in the military and gays in the military just clouds the issue(s).
Some suspect that this man changed his tune because he was blackmailed over sexual activities:
I say good riddance. Since homosexuals are <3% of the population, they should be extraordinarily easy to replace for any skill set.
Except, of course, the vitally-needed "Combat Hairdresser" MOS...
I had rainbow discharge once, but a shot cleared it up pretty quick.
"Finally_done"
You may be finally right...
You ARE done.
Buh bye.
It's still homo-erotic.
Now, concerning the "experts" a survey of rapists was done some time ago and their opinion (mind you it's only an opinion) was they commited rape for strictly sexual purposes.
This business about forcible sex being about power fails to recognize that unless you already have the power you are not likely to do it.
Having some familiarity with "gay" literature I have noticed they spend an awful lot of time contemplating "dominance" and "dominant positions". Might be that homosexuals think of sex in terms of "power", but everybody else thinks of sex as sex.
Concerning a homosexual who "reverts" and commits an heterosexual act, he's still a homosexual. It's kind of like being a little bit pregnant! You "is" or you "ain't". Most of us don't care about what you think either ~ gays could believe themselves to be canaries in cages, but that would have no bearing on what others see them as.
The "experts" I was referring to were specifically from within the Correctional community. Their views are supposedly based on more than what the criminals had to say about it. (Any state's "offender version" file is usually an interesting read, and of course usually has very little bearing on what actually happened.)
The whole business about forcible sex being about power HAS to recognize the having of power. ALL of our rape felons found a way to seize the power to commit rape. ALL of our "internal misconduct" rape cases were because the inmate found a way to seize the power to commit rape.
From what the district attorneys and correctional officers and court appointed experts had to say, none of them would have committed the crime if he hadn't found a way to get access to a victim. (sounds like they were being kind of obvious to me - you can't steal something that you can't get near)
Meanwhile, the problem with using gay "literature" as a source is that it is mostly porn. If we look at the porn on our side of the fence, we find plenty of stuff that advocates bondage, wife-swapping and God knows what else.
I am sure that there are gay men who are not into bondage. (and that there are three or four straight guys who only read Penthouse for the articles) (I really do, Mom! I promise!)
I guess what I am suggesting here is that the most visible homosexuals are usually the ones who are easy to lump in with the rapists. It doesn't seem logical to equate the soldier who keeps his (gay) sex life a secret, and who serves with honor (other than the secret he's keeping), with a rapist who was "heterosexual" up until the day he got a chance to commit an atrocity.
The really scary thing here is in your last line: "... that would have no bearing on what others see them as."
I wonder how many straight men who happen to act a bit effeminate get bashed because of "what others see them as".
(btw, I am NOT suggesting that you would condone bashing)
However, if we go out and interview a thousand rapists and they tell us they did it for the sex, I'd say there's definitely a trendline there that we ought to pay attention to no matter what the expert facilitators might wish to tell us.
As far as bashing gays because of effeminate behavior, it's not as common as you might believe.
Ah, the first fallacy. Now Air Force members face another upheaval as service leaders trim the force by some 16,000 personnel and reshape it to correct current manning and skill imbalances.
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