Repealing 'Don't ask, don't tell' ban on gays in military is wrong, Skelton says

Pulaski County Daily News ^ | 5/25/2010 | U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, House Armed Services Committee Chairman

[darrellmaurina]

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 25, 2010) — Today, Congressman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) released the following statement regarding efforts to attach a repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” to the Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act: “My position on this issue has been clear – I support the current policy and I will oppose any amendment to repeal ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.’ I hope my colleagues will avoid jumping the gun and wait for DOD to complete its work.”

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ike’s up from his nap.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Maybe, but Skelton has always been the military’s go-to guy on the Rat side of the aisle. Translation: The chiefs have been talking to him and warning him that repeal would cause the military rank and file to ultimately disintegrate.

[oldironsides]

Watching Joe Lieberman talking about repealing Don’t ask policy seems a little nuts. Did he serve? Why are they not waiting for the report from the Pentagon before voting?

[Ostlandr]

How about we replace “don’t ask, don’t tell” with “don’t give a rat’s posterior?” The only problem I see is if someone is “in the closet” and the threat of being “outed” could be used to blackmail them- that would be a security risk. And that applies to any such secret, not just sexual orientation.

Whenever I hear that gays serving openly would “cause dissent in the ranks, undermine military discipline” etc., I consider that an attack on the character of our men and women in uniform. What, is every soldier a screaming homophobe? That’s the sort of hateful generalization I expect from the Left. It saddens me to see it from the Right as well.

[17th Miss Regt]

Whenever I hear that gays serving openly would “cause dissent in the ranks, undermine military discipline” etc., I consider that an attack on the character of our men and women in uniform.

You may consider it to be an attack but it is not. It is merely a reflection of human nature. It would cause dissent in the ranks and it would undermine military discipline. That is simply reality.

[silverleaf]

No kiddin, all we need is to have to build bathhouses in Afghanistan...

[Future Snake Eater]

I’m willing to wager quite a bit of money that you’ve never spent a DAY in uniform.

Since you have not, let me clue you in to some realities.

1) Service Members live together in VERY tight quarters both on post and deployed. We’re not talking college roommates here, it’s all far closer than that. They shower together, they hang out together. Gays are incompatible with that lifestyle around raging heterosexuals, especially in the combat arms, and double especially in the Infantry.

2) It absolutely will cause dissent in the ranks and undermine discipline. The Army especially is already a VERY P.C. organization. Now add the most politically protected class to that equation and let them be...the way they are. See what happens. A male Soldier sexually harasses another male Soldier, he complains to his CoC, nothing happens b/c nobody wants to approach the subject (a la MAJ Muslim Nutcase at Fort Hood), and Soldiers will take action on their own.

3) Gays are massively more expensive with regards to medical care due to their very sick lifestyle. Add those diseases to blood getting splattered on unknowing medics, transfused into Soldiers who need blood right away, and you have real problems on top of them swamping the already-strained military medical system.

I could go on, but anyone who throws out the words “homophobe” and “hateful generalizations” is already a lost cause. You are demonstrably incapable of rational thought.

[Past Your Eyes]

Anyone who believes he can trust a Democrat to do the right thing will get what he deserves. Ike Skelton. BAH.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ike hasn't done anything that a straight thinking Republican wouldn't do. He shows up to hand out money for police and military (taking credit for looking after these agencies as if he were the sole shareholder) yet never answers a direct question from a constituent.
His appearances are always carefully controlled media events where he will not take questions from the public and only from the media when the discussion is about his favorite topic.
Ike voted for the Cap & Trade legislation that would fundamentally derail this nation, destroy our agriculture, make us entirely dependent on Asia for our machinery and manufacturing and set back our standard of living by at least 50 years.
He's the last of the KC Pendergast regime, never held a job in private industry, though he likes to appear as the ‘old country lawyer” he never wrote so much as a last will and testament.

[ohioman]

Enough with the homophobe crap. It really simple, real men do not respect, nor do they want to work with degenerates. Open or known fags should not be allowed in the military ever.

[Ostlandr]

Your post contradicts itself. First, you complain about the “homophobia crap”, then use some pretty hateful language. And since when are “real men” so insecure in their sexual identity that they have to prove it by resorting to gay-bashing?

{sarc} I can’t imagine how traumatic it would be if a guy looked you over in the shower, told you you were hot, and asked you out. The horror! You’d be scarred for life! {/sarc}

Who do you have more respect for- a “degenerate” who’s been with the same partner for 20 years, or a “real man” who cheats on his wife and has nailed every loose woman in three states?

[Ostlandr]

Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that every stereotype you’ve used about the US military, the US soldier, and gays is 100% correct.

First, how many stereotypical gay men would actually choose a career in the army, even if they could serve openly? Of that number, how many would choose to enter the combat arms, and of that number, how many would choose the Infantry?
And of the few gays who ended up in the Infantry, how many of them would be stupid enough (given the stereotypical US soldier’s attitude towards gays) to make a pass at a straight fellow soldier? The first time it happened, they’d be the guest of honor at a “blanket party” or some similar punishment. As you said, “Soldiers will take action on their own.” Problem solved.

And as to gay women, the stereotypical “butch” homosexual female would be far better suited to military duty than the average heterosexual female, and be far less of a distraction when serving alongside men.

As to gays and their filthy diseases, doesn’t everybody who joins the service get a full medical workup?

[william clark]

I disagree. I think it should be repealed, because presumably as long as it’s not replaced with some other policy designed to make liberals giggle with delight, the policy would revert to what it was prior to DODT, which was pretty much “We’re going to ask, and you’d better tell.”

[binreadin]

You make me sick. You have no clue what you are talking about. Gay men can’t even donate blood according to current Red Cross rules. (You may remember a recent incident where a US base in Afghanistan was almost overrun with Taliban, and service members were having to donate blood to each other during battle.) We already have a lot of same-sex harrassment in the military, which is covered up, and a lot of inappropriate behavior that hurts morale. Having spent time sharing a barracks room with a gay service member I can tell you it was really uncomfortable and inappropriate. So would we have to build separate quarters and shower areas for Gay soldiers? Things are tough enough for the military guys right now without having to add this bull-—t on top of it, just so some self-serving, self-absorbed and self indulgent person can have his or her “rights.” We are talking about peoples’ survival here, for God’s sake. Anyone who doesn’t understand that has no buisness in the military, or the right to offer a stupid opinion.

[Future Snake Eater]

Where am I using stereotypes? I’ve been in the Army for 12 years, I know what it’s like, and I know what will happen to order and discipline, especially in the units that most require it.

How many? I have no idea and neither do you. But I can tell you for sure that one problem Soldier will cause a LOT of headaches in a company. Soldiers taking care of problems on their own, in this manner, is NOT good for order and discipline, but if you feel like the problem’s solved, I guess we should just let the fags roam free.

[ohioman]

You sir have proven yourself to be an open lover of dengenerates and are not worth the time or energy of anyone on FR. Do us a favor and crawl back to your hole.

[ohioman]

dengenerates = Degenerates

[darrellmaurina]

If the Israeli military manages to make gays in uniform work, I suspect it can be done, even for a military that deals with aggressive combat operations on a regular basis. Furthermore, several people here have pointed out that some of the few gays who actually **WANT** to be in the military and succeed are lesbians. So yes, the U.S. Army will probably survive this mess, even though it will cause major recruitment problems and a lot of well-publicized "blanket party" incidents that I will end up having to cover as a reporter, when soldiers decide to ask for a court-martial rather than accepting non-judicial punishment, knowing their fellow soldiers are not going to vote to convict them of beating up a "open and out" homosexual. That will be truly horrible for good order and discipline, and we'll be back to Vietnam-era problems of "fragging" when soldiers can't trust their fellow soldiers. But that's not the point. Congressman Skelton had an opportunity to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and say, "Thus far and NO FARTHER!" If Pelosi is not stupid, she understands that this is an issue on which Skelton could lose his race for re-election, and therefore would have "cut him loose" not only to speak against but also to aggressively act against her pro-gay agenda. So we have a situation here were either the Speaker of the House is 1) so politically stupid that she's willing to risk losing a major conservative Democrat in a seat where anyone other than Skelton will be much more cf an opponent, or 2) she is so ideologically radical that she doesn't care about political realities and is forcing what she believes to be a civil rights issue down the throat of even the most conservative Democrats, or 3) Skelton was threatened with loss of his commmittee chairmanship or some other dire penalty, and doesn't have the political backbone to stand up to the Speaker of the House when she forces San Francisco politically correct stuff down his throat. One of his opponents has already turned this into a campaign issue. It is no secret that as a reporter outside Fort Leonard Wood, I've supported Congressman Skelton for years because of what he has done for the military. He is virtually the only Democrat I would consider supporting outside our local area, where there are still a lot of old-school Southern Democrats, and that's a common sentiment about Skelton in this area. Several people on Free Republic have already pointed out that Skelton has recently been avoiding hard questions from the media. I may be one of the few reporters out there who can ask those questions and insist on an answer. The Pulaski County Daily News has more readers than any other media organization that covers Fort Leonard Wood, Skelton's campaign staff know that, and I do not intend to play "softball" on this issue. Congressman Skelton needs to answer some very serious questions about how this vote got to the House floor and wasn't stopped in the House Armed Services Committee, where he apparently had the votes to kill it. I fully intend to make sure those questions get asked, and that the answers make sense.

[ohioman]

Good luck my friend. Hopefully this repeal of DADT will be denied.