adidasss

ot: Backs to the walls guys!!

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Zaqarbal

Why? Perhaps in certain contexts. But, actually, there is no intrinsic reason to think like that. There are thousands of examples of notable gay soldiers throughout History. Remember that Macedonian guy...



Didn't he have a pair of....... deadly impulses?

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ThePhanastasio

I really feel that DADT was a good idea in theory - serving while keeping ones' sex life private seems as though it's the best course of action in any workplace and for anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. It also allowed gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons to serve in the military with more or less equal footing as the rest of the members of the service.

DADT also had stipulations which proved it to be a flawed system: If members of any branch of the armed services were outed through any means, or proved to have been practicing homosexual behavior, they were discharged from the service. In addition, the discharges were, naturally, not honorable discharges. As such, upon leaving the service, finding employment elsewhere became difficult because the status of their termination from any given branch of the United States military. In this way, what was meant as an anti-discriminatory bit of legislation was tainted with that bit of discrimination, resulting in those who were gay and serving not quite on even footing with their heterosexual brethren in the service.

With that said, repealing DADT and allowing servicemen and women to openly serve is, in my opinion, for the best. The classes you're required to take may seem stupid to you and to most, but ultimately, the military can't function as well if there are clear cracks in the firmament, as it were; if acceptance of those who choose to openly serve was not enforced, then there could potentially be sever issues amongst the troops - if you don't work as a unit of more or less equals, the job doesn't get done as efficiently.

I'm all for the new legislation, but if I were to serve, I still wouldn't do so completely openly, nor would the majority of those in the LGBT community - but it's nice to know that now, if someone's "outed", they're not going to lose their job under less than spectacular terms.

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Freebase Dali

I've discussed this before, but being a veteran myself, I do have a DADT perspective from an experience view. On one hand, its implementation was originally to allow gays to serve while maintaining unit cohesion by anticipating any negative effects that biases/fears may cause, and aligning with the gender segregation that's enforced in various situations. On the other, the DADT part of it was based on a an assumption that there would be significant problems as a result of having openly gay members of the armed forces integrating with heterosexuals. The reality of it, via my own experience, says this is not the case... at least from a unit standpoint. Anything beyond that is irrelevant, though.
I've never come into contact with any problems surfacing as the result of gays that were serving along side me and my fellow soldiers. DADT wasn't really a mask of sexuality either... we knew when someone was gay, and more often than not, those people would be open about it regardless.

While I can understand the idea behind its original implementation, I can't really see how it's all that relevant in our military. We'll always have biases against certain things, but when you consider the fact that there are still racists, and there are certainly racists in the military, you can make the comparison that gays will be just as successful in their integration as blacks were. Yes, there are times where military members in positions of leadership make decisions based on biases, but there are measures in place to report and combat it. I don't see why it wouldn't be reasonable for those same measures to be equally useful in cases where the bias has to do with homosexuality.

s_k

These two .

So yes to equal rights for gay people, no matter in what branche.
But no for patriotism or fighting for your country.

Sorry again FD .

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OccultHawk

I love the hate for the military I'm seeing here.

djchameleon

Most civilians hate the military and even people that are serving in the military hate it as well so I don't know why you are thinking that it's unpopular to hate the military.

When it comes to DADT, I didn't really see a problem with it either.

Being a veteran from the Navy, yes the stereotype is somewhat true and there are sailors that are gay but we didn't have any issues with the ones that choose to be open about. Similar to what Freebase mentioned earlier, they would be open about it regardless of DADT. We always knew the sailors that were gay and lesbian and it wasn't any qualms or problems with it. I really don't get why civilians that aren't even in the military feel like DADT was such a bad policy. If you were actually in the service, you would see that it's pretty non-existent in this day and age. Well at least in my experience.

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TockTockTock

I don't see any hate.

EDIT: I stand corrected... s_k hates the military.

I've seen many people who have served in the military (some of them being discharged homosexuals) who have denounced the policy (on and off the news). So, it's not just civilians.

djchameleon

I'm not saying it's only civilians but majority of the outcry that I personally see are from civies.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

captaincaptain

I took the DADT training the other week (I am in the military). The repeal is great, but if homosexual/bisexuals want equality with heterosexuals, then their needs to be a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.