When NPR went looking for someone to speak out in favor of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” thy could not have found a better representative of thinking on that side of the aisle than Duncan Hunter. Wait a sec… did I say thinking because that clearly not a problem that afflicts Congressman Hunter.
Duncan Hunter: the military is not civilian life. In think the folks that have been in the military… that have been in these very close situations with each other, there has to be a special bond there. But that bond is broken if you open up the military to transgenders to hermaphrodites to gays and lesbians.
NPR: Trangenders and hermaphrodites?
Duncan Hunter: Yeah, that’s gonna be… uh, uh, uh… part of this whole thing. It’s not just gays and lesbians. It’s the whole gay lesbian transgender bisexual community. If you’re going to let anybody in no matter what sexual preference that they have, that means the military’s going to let everybody in.
I can’t tell what’s stranger: that Duncan Hunter is in a rash about hermaphrodites invading the US military, or that he thinks being a hermaphrodite is a sexual preference.
So, what do you think about Obama’s wanting to change the policy? Should homophobes be considered more of a liability in the military than gays? If you feel gays shouldn’t be in the military, do you feel blacks and women shouldn’t either since they also can’t help how they were born? When you’re being attacked by the enemy, which is more important: the guy next to you can shoot straight or that he’s not gay?
The whole thing is plain stupid. Don’t see any reason why this is even on the agenda. This is 2010 and not 1410… This is ridiculous. Grow up America!!!
What I find most disturbing is that I was going to refrain from posting my response to this, on the basis that I didn’t want all the flack that my response would attract.
My response would be along the lines of “homosexuality / heterosexuality is not a condition you are born with, it is a choice!”
That is the power of peer pressure. Yuck!
This conservative soldier doesn’t give a damn where my fellow soldier prefers his penis to be during sex, only whether he can do his job of covering me and completing the mission.
This is less of a problem than some are making it out to be. I don’t have to be comfortable with someone’s sexuality to trust him.
Great topic for web hits – Sex, Violence, Religion and Fear of one’s own masculinity. There is a movie in there somewhere!
It should be clear to all it’s a matter of time before enough Conservative dinosaurs die off for a clear majority of public opinion to shift decisively. It’s already at 51% (nearly 2x what it was 5-6 years ago).
I predict that in about 100 or so years, Pope John Paul XXXVIIVXXIIIXXX will also apologize to gays adding them to the already long list of persecuted people in the church’s bloody history.
Once again, the concern is the close quarters troops are kept in, sharing rooms, sometimes beds, and showers. Men and women are segregated, but how would you feel showering with an openly gay person? The military will have to change how it does things to protect its men from sexual harassment. Can they change shared foxholes and showers and not diminish our military strength?
Leave it up to disingenuous leftist goons on here and in the media to get the facts wrong yet again. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane.
1. Don’t ask don’t tell legislation became law on Nov 30, 1993.
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/solomon/background.html#statute
Who was President and who controlled congress then? Say it out loud so the answers can reverberate in the empty space between your ears.
Democrat Bill Clinton was president and congress was controlled by the Democrats. That means this bill and policy was NOT created or signed into law by a Republican or Conservative. It was a Democrat agenda from start to finish.
2. Partisan hacks like Aunt Dave would make you think that it is just republicans and conservatives that are fighting the repeal of this.
Not so fast, my leftist fact hating friends.
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) are keeping the law as it is. I am sure there are other Democrats who want the law just as it is.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/79891-dems-send-conflicting-signals-on-dont-ask-dont-tell
And again, who controls the White House and Congress?
Point is the Democrats can’t shoot straight when it comes to moving their own agenda when they have a super majority in the Senate and control the house.
It’s convenient to blame the Republicans for the Democrat’s own incompetency. But that’s what incompetent people do. They blame others.
And when this country needs leadership in helping the economy flourish to provide new jobs, the President and the other misguided morons in his party want to tackle Gays in the Military.
The saying, “those who fail to learn from history are deemed to repeat it” is something the Democrats will never learn nor understand.
Looks like srgothard and The Warden nailed it. Oh, and how come its only acceptable to blame a minority when that minority is Republicans?
These guys totally miss the point that all-homosexual units throughout history have been some of the most feared fighting forces in existence. However, they were generally Greek.
See: The Sacred Band of Thebes
Of course, they may not have every had a history lesson.
I served in the Army for 8 years. I met a lot of people during that time. A few of them, while never asking or being told, were gay. My thoughts at the time, as now, simply were “Are they doing the job they are NEEDED for, and are they doing it well?”. Those were the only concerns, because if they weren’t doing the job ‘up to speed’ then I did not want them around me, as I appreciated being able to fight another day. There were women who I would not work with, as there were men I would not work with. Simply based on JOB performance. Not on who they preferred to sleep with.
It should not matter what a persons proclivity is, even though for some reason gays/lesbians feel the need to announce theirs. However, it should not matter. The point of the Military, is to get the job done. As long as the soldier fighting next to me can do that, I couldn’t care what they do in their ‘off’ time.
@#9 For that exact reason I’d conclude exactly opposite: if someone is doing the job (which has nothing to do with sexual orientation) why on Earth does he/she need to disclose it? What is the benefit for the job? Nothing. That is why do-not-ask policy is optimal one (not ideal one, because we are not ideal people and human nature, if ignored would make problems for the job to be done).
Why don’t we bed military men and women in the same barracks? Why don’t they shower together? Why don’t they share the same bathrooms?
These are the real problems of repealing don’t ask, don’t tell.
The liberals see it as a civil rights issue. It’s a bit thornier that.
The problem is also not combining a gay man with a heterosexual man in the same barracks, it’s combining a gay man with a gay man. If you don’t see how that’s a problem, go back to the first paragraph of my comment.
On the subject of hermaphrodites. The congressman probably means those with two sets of functioning sex organs. Actually, that’s a myth. In human beings, it simply never happens.
As for pseudoherms, they comprise only about 150,000-200,000 individuals in the USA. Not gonna be too many of applicants for military service. And probably most of those will be excluded for other medical reasons.
Duncan Hunter … see the nutcases Obama and the Dems have to deal with?
The GOP and the conservatives have devolved into a completely dysfunctional movement who base their “no on everything” opposition to American prosperity on the most irrational viewpoints (which can change mid sentence!)
Yet, the mainstream media keeps picking up on this right wing talking point that the democrats are equally to blame.
>> pedro said, on February 7th, 2010 at 5:31 am
>> So you postulate that gays are born that way. Genetic perhaps?
>> Interesting!
I believe that gender preference is likely some complex mix of “nature and nurture,” unique to every person. (like most other preferences.)
But the “why” of sexual preference has nothing to do with their civil rights and has too long by used as a way to deny gay people their full rights as Americans.
Are gays Americans or not? That’s the central question.
If they are Americans, then they should have the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as any other Americans.
“Why” they are gay or what your church says about homosexuality or the fact that Duncan Hunter seems to have some weird fixation over gays is completely irrelevant.
The people who say being gay is a choice have never met an actual gay person. Every gay person I’ve met (and there have been lots) has said they knew they were “different” from as far back as they remember.
If women can be in so should gay men. I think the rape and pregnancy rate for female soldiers shows us that unwanted sexual attraction between soldiers is already present.
There are already ‘gays in the military’ protecting your rights to be bigoted assholes, they are willing to die (if necessary) for the country that attempts to protect your right to choose if you want to be backwards, superstitious and scientifically illiterate or respectful of diversity, educated (even if you are a woman or a gay) and ready for future challenges. The army has not fallen apart yet, America is not a caliphate yet and the sky seems to be still up there.
What about showering with a gay? What about having a gay save your naked ass from a house fire or save your naked ass in the emergency room? No gays anywhere you happen to be naked? Don’t be childish.
Predatory behaviour in the military or in civilian life is not acceptable now and will not be acceptable when we finally move on. I have enough respect for the brave, long-suffering, under-appreciated, under-paid, over-worked, misdirected, shot at, men and women (& hermaphrodites if that is the case) of the armed forces to believe they can cope with respectful, professional relationships with the people they rely on for their lives regardless of whether or not they are known to be gay (e.g. # 3 some soldier), and I value and appreciate all honourable, professional soldiers regardless of religion, sex, sexuality, race etc. as long as they are up to the job (which they clearly are as they are already doing it).
As many have said, gays are already in the military and have been even before Clinton. Most people in the military could care less if they are doing their job. They were in the military before Clinton’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
#6
Men and women are segregated, but how would you feel showering with an openly gay person?
It already happens. Just as white soldiers adapted to having showers with black men, so too will heterosexual men adapt to having showers with homosexual men.
The military will have to change how it does things to protect its men from sexual harassment.
That is definitely true. I seem to remember something about the military encouraging people to adapt, improvise, and overcome.
So, what do you think about Obama’s wanting to change the policy?
The sooner the better gays have served honorably in every war since 1776 to make them lie about who they are is criminal.
Everyone makes a point to say that, historically, the best fighters have *at times* been gay.
But what’s lost on everyone making the argument is that these are usually *entire* units.
Homogeneity, that is.
Which is one of the most important qualities of a fighting unit.
I subscribe to the theory that the army should be sexually homogeneous – which leaves only four possibilities: all straight men, all gay men, all lesbians, all straight women.
Otherwise, there are problems. Gays or women in the military? Fine with me, but the whole unit better be gay or female.
Frank Herbert’s book, “God Emperor Of Dune” touches on this a bit.
For those that seem to think that you choose to be gay/lesbian, I got to ask, when did you decide you were straight? Seriously! When did you decide your skin color? Your eye color?
Maybe you’re are right. Who wouldn’t choose a lifestyle that pretty much guarantees to get you ostracized, discriminated against, and possibly assaulted and/or killed? Of course they would choose that!
Homophobia is God’s gift to the Democrat party.
Don’t ask don’t tell isn’t keeping Gays from serving. And I am sure there are some very fine soldiers that just happen to be gay. But, some of you are confusing the issue. As straight soldiers don’t profess their “straightness,” Gay Soldiers should not profess their queerness. And those who liken gays to blacks, you really fail in the logic department. Being black is a characteristic. Being gay is not. Unlike being of dark pigment, being gay is a behavior that can be altered, not in the sense of trying to turn a gay person straight, but by not acting on the tendencies of wanting to engage in homosexual behavior. The military doesn’t allow for one to express himself as we do in society. That goes for straight people. WE have already seen what Political Correctness has done to the military with the Murdering Muslim Psychiatrist at Ft. Hood. Let gays serve but let them keep their sexuality to themselves. No harm no foul.
#25
Unfortunately, that sentiment does not work because as it stands now, if a person is “discovered” to be gay, they are dishonorably discharged.
It all comes down to cohesion.
Keep homosexuals out and soldiers will stick together through thick and thin. Let gays in and every platoon will disintegrate like Challenger with a faulty seal.
#27: Exactly the same argument about letting blacks into all white units decades ago.
Lets just have unisex facilities for the military, eventually it will be androgynous and the country can follow.
#28-Uncle Dave
So you’re saying dark skin pigmentation is the same as deviant behavior?
Interesting choice of example and one I’m sure many with dark skin would find insulting if not racist.
#30
Not to put words into Uncle Dave’s mouth, I suspect he is saying that skin pigmentation is akin to innate sexual preference: neither are conscious choices.
#30 “So you’re saying dark skin pigmentation is the same as deviant behavior?”
ROTFL When the hell were you born? Seriously. Yes you wouldn’t become a deviant!