Obama faces test on gay military ban

POLITICO ^ | 3/2/2009 | JEN DIMASCIO

[itsahoot]

Vets & servicemen: Is the above (nobody likes it) true?

Is for this Vet.

[itsahoot]

kicking them out for admitting it is insane.

kicking them out for admitting it is sane.

[liberalism is suicide]

A recipe for mass resignations,desertions, and plain insubordination.

[ArrogantBustard]

OK. Thank you.

Follow up question for vets and servicemen:

If you don’t like “DADT”, what would you replace it with?

[Chinstrap61a]

Not permitting any gay presence in the service at all; i.e., no admissions and trials by court martial if dicovered.

The defense of our country and what's left of the Free World can't be a failed social experiment.

Homosexuality is a mental disease.

[ExTxMarine]

I don’t understand why you and most liberals believe that having one’s sex life out in the public is so D@MN important! You are NOT your sex life! That is only a PART of your life, but it is NOT who you are EXCEPT if you are gay/lesbian - WHY?

Like I have said many times, loving someone of the same sex is NOT wrong. I went to combat with 120+ Marines and I love every single one of them! We are brothers in arms and I will say it again - I LOVE THEM! I love my Father! I love my brother!

What makes homosexuality WRONG is acting on ones feelings! The SEX part! People have desires and wants and feelings! If you “want” someone else’s money, you are not allowed to just take it. Maybe you NEED money, yet you are still not allowed to rob banks! There are people who feel a “need” or “desire” to kill people - shouldn’t these people be allowed to “live their lifestyle” just like gays and lesbians?

How about this, if someone is a closet alcoholic or drug-head and a Marine jet pilot, can they come “out” and still expect to fly? Why not? Hey, he is only acting on his “desire” to drink. He might even have a genetically PROVEN tendency to be an alcoholic! I mean, if ANYONE is being disenfranchised or discriminated against, it is the alcoholic/drug-head!

Immorality is not a sound policy on which to build the US Military and defense system!

[ExTxMarine]

You are probably one of those that believe Michael Vick is a good football player, so we should just excuse his dog fighting activities. I mean heck, he was a good player BEFORE we knew he was a dog killer, why shouldn’t we just look the other way once we find out otherwise?

In the military, your entire life and lifestyle is judged based on your ability to perform your job with OTHERS in a COMBAT situation. Contrary to popular believe, it is not designed to get free food, clothes and college money! If others don’t want to fight with you in combat, you will NOT get promoted. So, they will force people to go against their religious believes to “look the other way” when it comes to this lifestyle, otherwise, most of these people will not get promoted beyond Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps!

[ExTxMarine]

I have no problem with DADT. There is an old saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” and that is the case in DADT.

I have gay/lesbian friends. I don’t ask them what they do in their bedrooms and I don’t tell them what I do in mine - it is not a PROPER topic for open conversation! What two or more people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is NO ONES BUSINESS but their own! But most gays/lesbians want you to not tolerate their lifestyle, they want you to accept it as completely NORMAL.

So, if you insist on putting your lifestyle in my face, I will tell you exactly what I think, why I think that way and I can assure you that I will NOT accept it as normal - EVER!

[Chinstrap61a]

As noted earlier, male homosexuals aren't interested in monogamy; they're into many partners every day if they can get away with it. That's where the explosion of HIV/AIDS came from. The service is supposed to be dedicated to the defense of the country, not some expanded vrsion of the gay bath house.

Gays that can do the job and stay out of everybody's faces/not turn the services into an epidemic aren't a problem.

Gays (and their Leftist backers) that want to pollute the service and turn it into West Hollywood or Castro Street are the problem.

[ansel12]

The Navy used to breeze into a port, fight the locals and leave a genetic line with the local women.

The new navy breezes into a port has homo sex with the locals and our female sailors bring home the genetic offspring of those nations to our shores.

Of course it is the same with every other branch of the military.

[itsahoot]

The new navy breezes into a port has homo sex with the locals and our female sailors bring home the genetic offspring of those nations to our shores.

My last port of call was Subic Bay in 1965, I suppose all things change. I certainly didn't think my service would bring us where we are today, or I wouldn't have wasted the time.

That is not really true, I don't regret serving my Country, I just regret the things I see today, and wonder how we could have got here.

I know a lot of WW II vets that deeply regret the outcome, seeing where we are now.

[itsahoot]

If you don’t like “DADT”, what would you replace it with?

Don't accept, period. Immorality within the ranks is unacceptable. Please notice I limited the immorality to within the ranks. That applies to women in combat positions as well. Remember the first online ships that had female crew members, most came home pregnant.

I guess they pass out birth control, or maybe injections, I don't know, and I don't care.

[itsahoot]

A “grizzly” murder

Languages change over the years. Grizzly is now a synonym for gruesome, only more extreme.

Gay, Revenue enhancements, kleenex, tax neutral alot(sic just to annoy you.)

[itsahoot]

I don’t ask them what they do in their bedrooms

Good move, because if you knew what they did, you would or should be sickened in such a way as to never want to be near them again.

I live in an area that has a Urine festival, and a white party, so information is plentiful on these deviant behaviors.

There is a reason for the term S--t eating grin.

[ansel12]

“I know a lot of WW II vets that deeply regret the outcome, seeing where we are now.”

---

They are the ones that mostly created this reality. By the time they left office and government and universities in the 1990s they had finished most of the work that their parents had begun in the 1930s before they in turn had started retiring in the 1970s from the leadership of society.

[kaylar]

GRISLY is a synonym for gruesome. GRIZZLY refers to gray tipped hair (grizzled) and hence to the bear so named. The language has not changed (at least in respect to these two sound alike words), there’s just too many subliterate journalists who don’t know they need to use a dictionary, and editors who are in no way an improvement. :-(

[Lucky Dog]

There is NO ban on gays entering the military.

There is a ban on homosexual activity while in the military:

The legal reality:

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION Preamble. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [emphasis added]

In the very first paragraph of the foundational document of our country, the purpose of the military is defined. The military exists to provide for the common defense not to provide a specific “right” to serve in the military. As military service is not a “right,” all kinds of people are excluded for very good reasons, e.g., those physically, mentally or emotionally incapable of performing required tasks, as well as certain categories of law breakers such as felons, etc.,

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, Article. I., Section. 8., [Congress shall have the power ] Clause 14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

As enacted by the United States Congress:

Uniform Code of Military Justice

925. ART. 125. SODOMY

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration , however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

The following excerpt (passed in 1993) is from Public Law 103-160, Section 654, Title 10—"Homosexuality is incompatible with military service." (See Senate and House Reports, pages 293 and 287, respectively.)

Constitutional challenges to former and current military policies concerning homosexuals followed in the wake of the 1993 laws and regulations. Based on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) that there is no fundamental right to engage in consensual homosexual sodomy, the courts have uniformly held that the military may discharge a service member for overt homosexual behavior.

The logic reality:

Homosexuality is defined practically by behavior, i.e., unless one engages in sexual activity with a member of the same sex, he, or she, is not a homosexual.

Contrary to popular opinion, the term sexual orientation, an expression based exclusively on “feelings,” does not practically define anyone as a homosexual. To contend that only “feelings” can categorically define a person is to maintain that “feelings of “lust” define one as a rapist or “feelings” of “anger” define one as a murderer or “feelings” of “greed” define one as a thief.

“Feelings” are phenomena completely internal to their possessor(s). No human can know any other human's "feelings" without that other human engaging in some behavior from which those "feelings" can be inferred. Therefore, outside of mental health terms, defining a classification identifier, i.e., homosexual, based exclusively on a human's "feelings" makes the term practically meaningless.

Any human behavior (not driven by autonomic or instinctual responses) that is not voluntary is, by definition, a psychosis.

Therefore, homosexual behavior is either a voluntary choice or a psychosis.

If homosexual behavior is a psychosis, then it is validly subject to treatment and possible cure. Nonetheless, treated or not, like other psychoses, it is grounds for exclusion from military service.

If homosexual behavior is a voluntary choice, then it is subject to the same types of societal and/or military behavioral regulations as is any other sexual behavior such as pedophilia, prostitution, polygamy, etc.

Homosexual behavior, in general, like theft, assault, drug abuse, etc., is counter to good order and discipline within any organization, especially a military one.

This fact, just as with excluding convicted felons or drug abusers, is sufficient reason to exclude homosexual behavior practitioners.

The fiscal reality:

Homosexual behavior practitioners are statistically subject to a much higher rate of HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases than the general population.

This fact alone increases the cost of providing medical care for the services. Increased costs in the medical care arena means reduced financial capability to purchase military hardware and pay other military personnel benefits. In short, it decreases the capability of the country fiscally, to provide for the common defense.

However, there is another, even more compelling, reason for exclusion associated with the disease rate among homosexual behavior practitioners.

The combat asset risk reality:

Because HIV/AIDS and other diseases prevalent among homosexual practitioners qualify as blood-borne pathogens, the presence of homosexual behavior practitioners creates statistically increased, and completely unnecessary risk for the loss of combat resources. The long and short of this fact is that these diseases can be spread, among other ways, through contact with the blood of the diseased individual. The military is its own, largest source of material for blood transfusions. Additionally, in a battlefield setting there is never a shortage of blood to create exposure risks to those who are not homosexual practitioners.

Summary:

Homosexual behavior is illegal in the military for very good, legal, logical, fiscal and combat asset risk reasons. Those who have ignored these strictures, either, willfully, or inadvertently, under the so-called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy have caused a tremendous waste of taxpayer resources as well as lowered morale within the military. These costs were entirely driven by individual homosexual practitioners’ hedonistic, selfish motives and behavior and resulted in unnecessary detriment to the mission capability of the US defense establishment.

[relictele]

Why did you crop an already brief passage? The original read:

There is NO ban on gays entering the military. There IS a ban on publicizing the fact.

Neither statement differs with the policy you have posted.

[Lucky Dog]

Why did you crop an already brief passage?

Not sure what I "cropped." However, based upon what I interpret as the intent of your question and since you asked...

The DADT policy implemented by Clinton directly eliminated the question on entrance questionnaires that, in fact, established an applicant's homosexual behavior.

The legal presumption behind that question was based upon "demonstrated and acknowledged propensity to violate the strictures of military law and discipline" (Art 125 of the UCMJ). In fact, that underlying legal principle remains valid.

The implication of your statement (and other posted on this thread) is that homosexual practitioners would somehow reform or become celibate upon entering the military if they were not asked about it. Such would be the requirement to conform to the UCMJ after entrance. Unfortunately, that has not been the documented trend.

Therefore, that implication needed to be met and "defeated" with logic and fact.

[relictele]

My statements are my own and others are theirs.

You cropped “There is NO ban on gays entering the military. There IS a ban on publicizing the fact”....a mere two sentences cut down to one but the second half is the more critical and tends to agree with your viewpoint and copy-and-paste items. I am under no illusions that celibacy would automatically follow induction into military service nor did I imply same.

All the crocodile tears shed over DADT are exactly that. On a common-sense level it is a farce along the lines of “Don’t mention the war” from Fawlty Towers in terms of a taboo subject lurking behind every corner.

Serious issues of military readiness and morale aside there is an element of humor in the watered-down protests against the policy...the usual agitators know that pressing their case too hard may bring a Newtonian reaction so we get the usual dose of rhetoric.