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To be honest, I would wager that if/when DADT is overturned, you will not see a great rush of openly gay men into the "grunt" units. Oh, there will be plenty of them in there, just like today, but they will not be open about it - at least for a long time.
You will see openly gay men and women in some of the "soft" areas (i.e. non-front-line). Can any one of you, really defend the exclusion of a gay or lesbian from being a translator, medic, etc?
Yes and No. I think those places you mentioned are about as good a place to start as any. Starting in the Air force would also be a good idea. Still going to have to deal with homophobes for a few years until several gay men save the strait guys ass!!!
I know I servered with a least one gay man and at the time if he would have told me it wouldn't have been a big deal.
On the flip-side at that time in my life if a new 'boot' came in and was openly gay I would have kicked him out of my room and told him to bunk somewhere else. Stupid for so many reasons but that's the way it/I was.
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Iiiiif YOU want to beat up the GUUUUY next to you becauuuuse he is GAAAY, instead of fighting the guys who want to KIIIIIL YOOOU....you might be a redneck.
NO, I'm a wanna be redneck...
__________________ All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!
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Last edited by PortlandCardFan; March 5th, 2007 at 04:02 PM.
To be honest, I would wager that if/when DADT is overturned, you will not see a great rush of openly gay men into the "grunt" units. Oh, there will be plenty of them in there, just like today, but they will not be open about it - at least for a long time.
You will see openly gay men and women in some of the "soft" areas (i.e. non-front-line). Can any one of you, really defend the exclusion of a gay or lesbian from being a translator, medic, etc?
R.E.M.F.'s already get enough crap from frontline guys.
__________________ "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy".
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Yep, while I was in AIT, we trained with some marines training for the Abrams with us at Ft. Knox. We had a blast messing with each other...they buried our Fox upside down, and we used to call cadences through the door between our barracks in their direction and bust out some seriously rude stuff in them. Good times. I had to stay two weeks after training was over (broke wrist in a bball game) and hung with a few of the Marines there...had some seriously fun times. Kentucky absolutely sucks...especially in the summer.
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and you really think that would be any worse? And would the front-line guys generally even know?
You think a front-line guy is going to refuse help from a gay medic/doctor/nurse?
I know that I wouldn't. And I can guarentee that most people wouldn't either.
It doesn't mean that the gay medic is going to have a happy career in the military.
Think about how miserable most people are in the military in the first place. How many times did you wish you'd never signed up? Now add on top of that being treated like **** by the guys who are supposed to have your back and I just don't see the appeal.
__________________ "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy".
I just feel that the years of racial intolerance far surpass anything that a homosexual could ever experience.
People in this country bought and sold slaves after they were uprooted from their families in Africa, they were not allowed to sit with the white people on buses or trains. They had their own water fountains in public areas
I can't recall a gay person ever being sold to work on a cotton farm or having to use a special drinking fountain.
So I just don't think you can compare racism in this country to anti-homosexual opinions
Okay, but then by your stance, which I see & pretty much agree with, (although I have some reservations, because being black was never considered "a choice" or "deviant"--I'm pretty sure people accepted that blacks were at least born that way) gays would be able to integrate easier than blacks, since gays don't have it 'as bad'.
Okay, but then by your stance, which I see & pretty much agree with, (although I have some reservations, because being black was never considered "a choice" or "deviant"--I'm pretty sure people accepted that blacks were at least born that way) gays would be able to integrate easier than blacks, since gays don't have it 'as bad'.
Every one of the gay people I know feel they were born that way and that it wasn't a choice
As most of you know, I was in the Marines and I was a grunt. I was lucky enough to escape the infantry my first two years in Security Forces. I was stationed on a naval base in Washington State where our responsibility was to guard a nuclear weapons facility and its nuclear submarines.
When I arrived at my first duty station in Washington, I was befriended by a young black Marine who seemed to be a little withdrawn from our platoon. He was a cool guy and we hung out often outside of work. I was 18 and fairly naive at first. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't cleared to enter the facility to guard the nuclear weapons.
As the weeks went on I began to notice that the other Marines were talking about us and making vague jokes about us hanging out. Like I said I was naive and thought that it was normal. Eventually it became obvious that it was something more and my roommate also let me in on the big secret. Apparently, during a health and comfort inspection, the inspectors found gay porn in his lockers which launched an investigation into his personal life and caused him to lose his clearance to enter the nuclear weapons facility. I asked him if he knew what others were saying about him, and if what was being said was true. He would neither deny nor confirm it. That pretty much answered my question.
I was forced to stop associating with him in order to salvage my reputation and to avoid being ostracized by my fellow Marines. Due to my friendship with him a lot of my fellow Marines had suspicions about my sexuality, and it took me a while to overcome that and to gain their trust. Even still, jokes were made until the day I left the command.
Recently, I looked up the Marine on Myspace and found out that he is in fact gay. I think back now and laugh because we used to wrestle and play stupid Marine grab ass games during the work day. I wouldn’t have if I knew he was gay. I probably would have avoided him and saved myself the trouble. He was ostracized for suspicions of being gay. I was also subjected to punishment by fellow Marines just for associating with him. Just imagine if he would have been openly gay.
He was a cool guy though. He just shouldn’t have joined the Marines.
Every one of the gay people I know feel they were born that way and that it wasn't a choice
Yes, I know that--I'm saying that generally speaking, people that are bigoted against gays don't believe that. Racists hate blacks just for who they are (something they couldn't control), whereas homophobes hate gays for the choice they made (something they can control). I know it's stupid, and I don't believe it's a choice either, but I would think that if a person were to hate, their hate would be stronger for something that they felt the person could change if they want to. I don't hate, so I don't know for sure--that's just my reasoning.
Replace "homophobes" with "racists" and "gay" with "Black." Life certainly was difficult for Black servicemen when units integrated and many whites didn't like it, and I'm sure more than a few Blacks were beaten or otherwise mistreated. Obviously, 50 years later, that lack of "morale" among the bigots has largely dissipated, and the sacrifices of Blacks who took beatings and the politicians who maybe lost votes seems worth it (although I realize that's pretty easy for me to say). The time will come when gays will be as accepted in society as heteros. It's time confront the bigots, if they won't progress willingly.
You are barking up the wrong tree there, my grandfather was in the "negro army corps" as it says on his discharge papers and then in 1949 when my father went to enlist he was told by the Navy that they already had enough "coloreds" but they might be able to find him a spot as a porter(read: Butler)--he joined the Coast Guard but later retired from the Air Force. Sure there was bigotry, mostly based on ignorance but my father will tell you this, he was much more widely accepted by white men from the north than the south and he knew who to hang out with. Gay men don't have it like that, the military is a very macho group nobody wants the ramifications for hanging out with the gay guys for the stigma that will be associated with it. This isn't a regional thing like a lot of the bigotry was, this is a whole different matter, not only will you have the homophobes to deal with you'll have the bible-thumpers too.
When I was in in the early 90's we had 1 Navy Corpsman who was getting discharged for being gay, because of that nobody wanted to bunk with him he was the only E3 in the entire barracks who had a room to himself. He was ostracized, not just by his peers but by his superiors as well.
It all sounds good but unless you have any experience in the military you have no idea what it would be like.
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