Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Pentagon discusses easing "don't ask, don't tell"
3 comments
Discussions are taking place in the Pentagon over how to "loosen" the restrictions imposed by the disastrous "don't ask, don't tell" policy, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Wow. Can a person really get kicked out of the military if another person outs them? Goodness. Well, here's my suggestion: how about we just get rid of this outdated and discriminatory policy?
Seriously. It's high time we get on our representatives' assess about repealing "don't ask, don't tell." Contact your reps and the White House. It seems foolish and futile to contact the president, but enough demand to repeal this policy might just be the push he needs to do something about it.
Gates added: "What I discovered when I got into it was it's a very restrictive law. It doesn't leave much to the imagination, or a lot of flexibility."
The defense secretary said one possible modification might be consider the circumstances under which a service member is "outed" in determining whether or not he or she must leave the military.
Wow. Can a person really get kicked out of the military if another person outs them? Goodness. Well, here's my suggestion: how about we just get rid of this outdated and discriminatory policy?
Seriously. It's high time we get on our representatives' assess about repealing "don't ask, don't tell." Contact your reps and the White House. It seems foolish and futile to contact the president, but enough demand to repeal this policy might just be the push he needs to do something about it.
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June 30, 2009 at 7:41 PM
The army in itself is very homophobic...maybe not the individuals, but as a whole, they are TERRIFIED of gay men and women. It is a huge Fraternity in mentality and they always have to prove their "man-ness."
Yet, if you get individuals alone, they usually say they would be fine fighting next to openly gay soldiers.
Once "dont ask, dont tell" is repealed, which I believe it will be in the near future (crossing fingers) there will be a lot of backlash at first. The army will finally have to adjust their mentality, and as a person who has to deal with the army on a daily basis, I cannot wait for that to happen.
June 30, 2009 at 7:52 PM
Right, it's definitely going to be a really difficult process because the army is a homophobic institution. Maybe loosening restrictions is what should be done first to sort of ease soldiers into being comfortable fighting next to people who are gay/lesbian.
July 1, 2009 at 4:30 PM
the army needs to get over itself. It's stuck in the idea that it's some bastion of hyper-masculinity (it's not - it contains regular people) threatened by homosexuality (it's not that, either - being gay doesn't mean wanting to jump about in pink hotpants all day).
I've heard it said (from within the BRitish army, though) that just about everyone knows there are plenty of gay servicemen and women already in the armed force but they don't want them to be open about it for fear of the army getting the reputation to be the place to be if you're looking for some hot stuff. Because y'know gay people are only about sex and not regular people at all.
I think it's about time the military grew up.