Dback Jon

Currently, the military uses the Clinton era "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy. Prior to that, recruits were asked directly if they were gay.

Most NATO countries allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in their militaries - and in a "coalition" setting like Iraq, there are undoubtably openly gay soldiers from other countries serving with U.S. troops.

In addition, the military, in the height of hypocracy, are not discharging any openly gay U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but waiting until they complete their tour of duty and return to the states before discharging. Apparently, in time of war, it is ok to be gay and get shot at, etc, but back home, it is a threat to our military..... :rollseyes:

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R.I.P Tim Minnick

The KING of Cards

Dback Jon

Sierra Vista, Arizona) A 19-year old Army Private who was beaten by one soldier and threatened by another after they learned he is gay has been discharged.

Private Kyle Lawson was punched in the face by a fellow member of a training unit at Fort Huachuca at an off-post party in October after a friend let it slip that Lawson was gay.
The soldier accused of hitting Lawson told police that Lawson made sexually suggestive remarks. But the Sierra Vista police officer who investigated the case said "there was no provocation." (story)

Lawson told police that the soldier who broke his nose used a profane anti-gay slur. He said a second soldier threatened him with a knife outside a barracks as word spread about his sexual orientation.

He became so concerned about his personal safety after the attacks he slept on a cot in his drill sergeant's office.

Police charged Private Zacharias Pierre with felony aggravated assault - a charge that draws an average 3 1/2 years in prison upon conviction in Arizona, more if a judge finds the crime was hate-based.

Using military regulations officials at Fort Huachuca took control of the case, dropping the charges laid by Sierra Vista police. They have refused to say if any appropriate action has been taken to hold his attacker accountable but media reports indicate that Pierre has received only a slap on the wrist - the withdrawal of a weekend pass.

Lawson requested the discharge following the attack.

Thursday night he left the military with an honorable discharge, a suggestion that military police agreed with local authorities that the attack on him had been unprovoked.

The discharge papers contain space for illegal or problematic behavior to be noted. Each of those spaces in Lawson's paperwork contains the word "none."

"It's bittersweet," Lawson said of his departure from the military. "On one hand, it will be better for me because I can be who I am. But I'm going to miss it a lot. I really loved it," he told the Arizona Daily Star.
While Lawson begins his new life as a civilian the underlying issue of homophobia in the military remains.

“The command at Fort Huachuca owes Private Lawson, Congress and the public an explanation about why an anti-gay attack appears to have gone unpunished," said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

" Harassment will continue to flourish and commanders will continue to condone that harassment, as they appear to have done in this case, so long as it remains official policy to discharge soldiers for being gay," said Osburn.

" Congress and the Pentagon must repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ immediately and impose strict penalties against those who engage in any form of harassment. If America is fighting for democracy abroad, it must abide by those same principles at home."

Openly gay Congressman Barney Frank is also waiting for answers.

Last month Frank sent a letter to Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker, Frank criticizing the handling of the Lawson case. (story)

"According to unchallenged reports, the local police believed the attack to be a criminal assault, with no justification such as self-defense," Frank said his letter to Gen. Schoomaker.

"Despite this, apparently at the request of the Army over which you preside, no charges were filed against the assailant and the consequence is that Private Lawson was doubly victimized, once by the assailant, and then by having to leave the Army in the absence of any action by those under your command to protect him."

Shortly after the attack on Lawson the mother of a soldier killed in a homophobic attack by fellow members of the military in 1999 accused the Pentagon of doing little or nothing to end hate attacks. (story)

In 2000, the Pentagon announced it would take concrete steps to curb anti-gay harassment in our military and to hold accountable those who harass and condone harassment.

"Nearly six years later, Pentagon leaders have failed to keep their promise," said Patricia Kutteles the mother Army Private First Class Barry Winchell. "The time has come for them to do just that, or for Congress to hold them accountable if they do not."

In 1999 Kutteles's son, Army Private First Class Barry Winchell, was perceived as gay because he was seeing Calpernia Addams, a pre-op transsexual. Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat in his barracks. Two men are currently in prison for the attack.

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R.I.P Tim Minnick

The KING of Cards

Dback Jon

Washington) An organization that represents gays in the military said Tuesday that it will file a Freedom of Information Act request to learn if it or other LGBT organizations have been monitored by the Bush Administration following media reports that the Pentagon has been spying on “suspicious” meetings by civilian groups, including student groups opposed to the military’s "don't ask, don't tell".

Allegations of spying were first reported in the media last week. The reports said that Pentagon investigators labeled a gay kiss-in at the University of California - Santa Cruz as a "credible threat" of terrorism.

The demonstration, to protest the ban on gays in the military, was staged in front of Army, Navy and Marine Corps recruiters who were trying to interest students in careers in the military. (story)

Media outlets also reported that Pentagon had spied on New York University law school’s LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw, which the military classified as “possibly violent”.

The administration is also alleged to have spied on gay groups at the State University of New York at Albany and William Patterson College in New Jersey.

"To suggest that a gay kiss-in is a ‘credible threat’ is absurd, homophobic and irrational," said Servicemembers Legal Defense Network executive director C. Dixon Osburn. “Students have a first amendment right to protest and Americans have a right to expect that their government will respect our constitutional right to privacy.

Osburn said that the SLDN will file the Freedom of Information Act request to see how much information the Pentagon is amassing on gays.

"The Pentagon is supposed to defend the Constitution, not turn it upside down,” Osburn said.

In January, the Department of Defense confirmed a report that Air Force officials proposed developing a chemical weapon in 1994 that would turn enemies gay. (story)

The proposal, part of a plan from Wright Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was to develop “chemicals that effect (sic) human behavior so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely effected (sic). One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

The Pentagon later said it never intended to develop the program.

Reports of spying on gay groups was also denounced by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The CSSMM said that the reports evokes memories of the Cold War crackdowns on gays during the McCarthy era.

"Then, as now, the government compiled lists of American citizens who were suspected of subversive activity by virtue of their association with critics of government policy. Targets included gays and members of gay or gay-friendly groups," the center said in a press statement.

David K. Johnson, a historian at University of South Florida and author of The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, the banner of “national security” has long been used as a pretext to crack down on gay rights and even to spark moral crusades against homosexuality under the guise of national defense.

His book explains that “security risk” was used throughout the Cold War to invoke “the specter of homosexuality,” which was cast as a threat to national security, and as something that “needed to be systematically removed” from the government and minimized in the culture at large.

Johnson said the Pentagon’s spying is the latest in a long history of targeting gays and lesbians as subversives, despite lacking any evidence for such a charge.

“It's no surprise,” he said. “The federal government began spying on those who challenged its discriminatory policies from the very earliest days of such activism.”

He said the FBI investigated the first organizational meeting in 1961 of what became the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest gay rights groups. Government agents took photographs in 1965 at the first gay and lesbian public demonstration in front of the White House against the military’s exclusionary policies.

“What is surprising,” he continued, “is that in nearly a half century of undercover intelligence gathering, they haven’t yet figured out that these are always peaceful, lawful protests.

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R.I.P Tim Minnick

The KING of Cards

CaptTurbo

Yes - Sexual Orientation is irrelevent.

Now women in the military is another matter. I say no, not for the fact that they cant handle combat. But for the fact that 90% of women in the army at least get over on so much work and cause so much trouble that ruin careeers out of spite that its a problem we do not need.

KloD

Sorry, please translate.

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Mulli is smarter than KloD.

CaptTurbo

Well I could spend all day giving examples. Here one. In an MP unit you have to clear your humvees of its equipment and give them service checks. Females do not have to do it because some of the equipment is very heavy. So in a unit that is 50% female as mine was in Texas half got to sit and watch the other half cleared all the vehicles.


Or...

A SGT makes a female private in his squad/team do pushups as punishment (happens every day) She gets made and claims that once that SGT sexually harrassed her. He is guilty until proven innocent. He loses his command while under investigation, he also is not allowed to carry a firearm and is given Kitchen duty or some menial tasks. Meanwhile his wife leaves him and takes the kid. 8 months later he is cleared. (True story saw it happen 3 times) I had an all female team I wouldnt dare punish them or make them do something they did not want to do. (anti military)

PortlandCardFan

Women in the military are not held to the same physical standard men are. Therefore they should not be in combat roles.

The percentage of women that could meet the physical standard was like less than 1%. I believe Canada did the testing/study.

__________________
All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!

nothing worth having is freely given... it is earned through hard work and sacrifice.

I'm sorry Thomas!!!

Chris_Sanders

Sorry but I can't agree SWD. There are so many jobs in the military that women do just as well as men. I had a woman commander and Michelle is a Captain in the Air Force.

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I am the king of Douche Bagastan

PortlandCardFan

Depends on the specific job. In SWD case he resented women in his unit because they could perform their job duties. If it was a man that could perform his duties then he would have been written up.

__________________
All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!

nothing worth having is freely given... it is earned through hard work and sacrifice.

I'm sorry Thomas!!!

Chris_Sanders

This is a really tough question btw. It isn't because of the way I feel, but because of stuff like the article Jon posted. I believe sexual orientation shouldn't matter, but it would require an entire change in the culture of the military.

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I am the king of Douche Bagastan

Chris_Sanders

It shouldn't be an issue of being written up. There should be a list of physical qualifications for any job. If someone, wether male of female, can't make those tasks then they need another MOS.

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I am the king of Douche Bagastan

Chris_Sanders

It isn't an option, but I am voting "Not Sure" on this poll. I think with the way that things currently are in the military, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is what works...but certainly that can and should change. It will just take a LONG time.

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I am the king of Douche Bagastan

PortlandCardFan

yeah but the military doesn't work that way. There is a set standard for physical requirements for all duties, not specific duties. Those that are more physically fit get the more physically demanding jobs.

In the case of the Marine Corps everyone is a rifleman first. Every Marine goes through combat training including WM's. However a WM does not have to meet the physical standard of a male Marine.

__________________
All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!

nothing worth having is freely given... it is earned through hard work and sacrifice.

I'm sorry Thomas!!!

Dback Jon

Santa Barbara, California) A new four-volume series on the cultural and psychological dimensions of American military life includes, for the first time, a chapter on the open service of gay troops.

The chapter, in Military Life: The Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat, describes social and institutional changes needed to lift the ban on openly gay service members in the U.S. armed forces.

The inclusion of the topic in a publication endorsed by major military scholars is seen as a reflection of a shifting landscape on the question of military service by gays.

An Annenberg Survey reported in October that half of junior enlisted personnel and their families support allowing gays to serve. And in 2003, FOX News reported 64 percent support for allowing gays to serve.

Experts, citing the surveys, say that integration is seen by the military as a much less difficult option than would have been the case 12 years ago, when President Clinton tried to lift the gay ban.

The new chapter, "Sexual Orientation and Military Service: Prospects for Organizational and Individual Change in the United States," was written by Dr. Gregory M. Herek, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Aaron Belkin, Director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Military Life: The Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat was edited by Lt. Col. Carl Castro, Dr. Amy B. Adler of the US Army Medical Research Unit, and Dr. Thomas W. Britt, formerly of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Described by scholars as a "path-breaking analysis" of the military experience and a "comprehensive review" of factors influencing military performance, the compilation addresses the emotional impact of combat, methods of coping with war, the role of spirituality in military life, issues affecting family life, cultural diversity within the armed forces, and more.

It includes military officers, academic experts, healthcare professionals and others who have in primary research about the personal and institutional qualities of military life.

The chapter on gay service is considered unique in that it examines how military culture could smoothly integrate open gay and lesbian troops.

It offers "some practical issues relevant to replacing the [current] policy with one that does not discriminate against personnel on the basis of their sexual orientation."

This focus is unusual since debate on the topic more commonly centers on whether known gays should be allowed to serve rather than on how to implement a change in policy.

"The decision of the editors and publisher to include analysis on how to modify military culture to accommodate this policy change is an important milestone," said Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military.

"It reflects an evolving understanding that the current exclusionary policy on gay troops is harmful and outdated, and that change is inevitable."

The chapter authors explain that compliance with new regulations -- in this case nondiscrimination toward gays -- will be most stable and enduring if strong leaders enforce new expectations by creating high costs for noncompliance. The initial focus of change in this case, they explain, should be the behavior, rather than attitudes, of heterosexuals; but over time, it is reasonable to expect that personnel will conform to new policies because they believe their conduct reflects their identity as members of the institution.

A bill is pending in Congress to repeal the military's ban and allow lesbian and gay Americans the opportunity to serve openly. (story)

A study done by the Government Accountability Office shows that more than 10,000 service members have been discharged over the last 10 years under "don't ask, don't tell".

__________________



R.I.P Tim Minnick

The KING of Cards

PortlandCardFan

For the record... I voted gays should be allowed to serve in the military openly.

__________________
All Hell is breakin loose!!!!!

nothing worth having is freely given... it is earned through hard work and sacrifice.

I'm sorry Thomas!!!