Posted on 12/19/2010 8:43:08 AM PST by Comparative Advantage
The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military is over. The lame-duck Senate passed legislation ending the policy today by the overwhelming margin of 65-31; all that awaits is President Obama's signature, which is a certainty. The legislation couldn't have passed without Republicans, including the Tea Party insurgent Scott Brown and Ron Kirk, who won Obama's old Illinois seat in November. It fell to the doddering old war hero and loser of 2008, John McCain, to argue against the policy (and McCain's position was undermined by his wife's and his daughter's public opposition to DADT).
The end of DADT will be hailed as a groundbreaking achievement, like the racial desegregation of the military in 1948. But race is an involuntary characteristic that becomes irrelevant so long as the minority service member conforms to the military's behavioral and performance norms. Proclaiming one's sexual orientation and acting upon it is voluntary, not involuntary. Thus, homosexuals will be given not equality, but preferential treatment, based on chosen behavior. Why, then, draw the line at homosexuality? Why should the military discriminate against service members who announce proclivities for transsexuality, polygamy, bestiality or pedophilia?
What will be the effect of the end of DADT? The short-term effects will probably be minimal. The military won't be overrun by homosexuals anytime soon. It's unlikely that very many gays, who constitute a tiny fraction of the population, want to serve in the military anyway. But the cultural shift in the military will be dramatic. The military will be forced to deal with issues like anti-gay discrimination (real or imagined), how to deal with transsexuals, gay marriage, and benefits for gay partners. There will be gay affirmative-action quotas, gay cliques and subcultures, and you can be sure that in the future, there'll be some gay equivalent of the "Tailhook" scandal. A military that is in the process of losing it's second decade-long war in Asia to ragtag insurgents needs none of this. But the military, with its "can-do" ethos, will deal with it.
The consequences for cultural conservatism are much more acute, though. Repeal of DADT means that homosexuality will officially no longer constitute "conduct unbecoming" of a professional soldier. This amounts to a de facto sanction of homosexuality as normal and acceptable.
With the repeal of DADT, cultural conservatives will no longer control any institutions in American society. The military, the last bastion of cultural conservatism to which Americans rallied en masse after 9/11, has now been conscripted by the Left. The military is the final institution to fall in what Roger Kimball described as the "Long March" of cultural Leftism through America's institutions that began in the Sixties. The academy, the churches, the courts and the government have long since fallen.
In the 30 years since the election of Reagan, cultural conservatives have failed to overturn Roe v. Wade, suppress pornography, stop gay marriage, or make a serious dent in the use of illegal drugs. Conservative activist Paul Weyrich noted that Clinton's high public approval rating in the wake of the Lewinsky sex scandal meant that a "Moral Majority" no longer existed in the U.S.
Polls indicating overwhelming public support for ending DADT reaffirm that Weyrich's observation was surely correct.
Their next stop is repealing DOMA via legislation or the courts.
"This amounts to a de facto sanction of homosexuality as normal and acceptable."
I think that about sums it all up, doesn't it?
The FINAL blow is gay marriage IMO.
Anyone that’s read “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” will see that U.S.A. is following the same path. The last thing before the Roman’s Empire’s complete fall was acceptance of homosexuality.
Next up: MEIU....an international brotherhood of military "employees."
Yes, it is Mark Kirk. This guy did not do his research very well. As for DADT, obviously, there have always been gays in the military. Do not ask, do not tell, was a fair rule - I won’t ask you and please don’t shove it in my face. While it is true that some armies have openly gay soldiers, their armed forces are not as large as ours and not in as many places. If our military is badly affected by this, I wonder how all the so-called civil rights supports will feel about this? Will they run out to support us? Will there be overtly homosexual acts conducted on military bases now in the showers? I am annoyed that people compare gay rights to the rights of black people - they are talking apples and oranges. People are free to serve their country - they should not flaunt their life style while doing so. The armed forces are not a democracy.
Which begs the question, now what ISN'T acceptable behavior? I mean compered to buggery everything is acceptable. I am having a hard time finding something that isn't.
I want my country back:
Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
Ya know why the majority of the country supports this (if that is indeed true)? Because for the last 10+ years, no one has had the guts to remind America of how disgusting these people are.
Case in point: Matthew Shepherd. At the same time, two homos raped and murdered a little boy in Arkansas. The MSM bstrds buried that story and trumpeted the gaybee instead.
Since then, the internet has gained steam as a portal for activism. But everytime someone tries to stand against the militant fags, they are threatened, bullied, intimidated. Look to California with prop. 8.
NO ONE STOOD UP TO THEM. That’s why they won.
I can prove to you that the militant queers would wilt under a strong response: remember when they disrupted church services during the whole prop 8 thing? Notice they didn’t go to black or latin churches. They know the beatdown would have been severe.
If this b.s. article is true, why has, in recent years, EVERY VOTE to give ‘gays’ marriage ‘rights’ failed, even in Commifornia?
I refuse to buy it.
WE MUST STAND UP. We CAN undo this. But we must be strong.
It is a sad day for America and our military, and a great day for America haters.
BINGO!
DADT was far-left in its day and was one of the factors leading to the GOP Revolution of 1994.
This shows how far our society has declined in a very short 17-year period.
I bet it took Sodom and Gomorrah much longer than 17 years to get where they got.
“When fascism comes to America it will be carrying a pink swastika wrapped in a rainbow flag.” Larry Upton Lewis Sinclaire And it has.
It was then a tiny step from that to throwing Christians in the arena for sport with lions, becoming acceptable.
The big problem here is Senator Warner and Senator Webb ~ many falsely thought these two were heterosexual ~ but alas, they apparently aren't. That's probably been a factor in Webb's multiple marriages ~ he just can't get along with women.
>>> It was a step in that direction
Then how is removing it considered another step in the same direction? That’s my question.
Unless the repeal specifically forbids the observance or enforcement of anti-sodomy law in the USMCJ, this repeal is a step backwards for gays... and I don’t get it.
Seems more to me like this whole DADT repeal is more about re-writing the Clinton legacy... making it look like his policy was more anti-gay than pro-gay by repealing it.
Either that, or it establishes a basis upon which Obama can effectively campaign against Clinton as anti-gay.
Either way, I still don’t understand how this repeal is pro-gay.
Is this the same Larry Sinclaire that was one of Obama’s lovers?
“They won’t stop here....it will never stop until homosexuality is deemed superior to heterosexuality.”
YES! You are right! Right now, all strip joints and titty bars in San Francico are CONFINED to a heterosexual RESERVATION called the Tenderloin District! EVERY WHERE else is is GAY!
Rome started nasty ~ it didn't decline.
Me, too, lad! ;-)
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