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West Point Officer - Iraq Veteran....faces discharge

cathiasplace said:
My husband and I have talked about this before and he seems to think that berthing would be the biggest issue. There are still a lot of anti-gay people in the military. And it only seems to bother others if the gay person is open with it.
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As snakewispera said, though... is Joe Straight Guy really that vain to think that a gay man is going to be drooling over him while he showers? If they're serving now and not hitting on Joe, why would things change once the gay man is allowed to be himself and not forced to lie about a "girlfriend back home?" It goes right back to the old stereotype that a lot of old school folks like to propogate-- the belief that gay men are horn dogs who have no sense of propriety, impulse control or ethics.
 
lol Wade, I think most soldiers fit that description. If that describes gay men, they'll fit right in.
 
wade said:
Don't want to rock the boat, but straight men fit that description. Are gay men different?
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The boat's not rocking. :) Maybe I should have been clearer. Straight men are not typically stereotyped as being so sex-crazed that they "go after" little kids... but gay men often are. In reality, however, it is usually a straight male relative that is found guilty of child molestation. I see no reason to think that a gay man who is "out" in the military will be hitting on his bunk mates. In fact, if you are gay, you take care NOT to hit on straight people because your health, safety or even your life may be at stake if you hit on the wrong straight person. In fact, I think that it is more dangerous for a gay man to be out in the military than it would be for his straight squad mates.
 
In reality lots of gay men are pretty out in the military. And I'm proud to say that the majority of soldiers don't seem to care one way or the other. I think the split is pretty nearly exactly like the nation as a whole where some serious fundamentalists object loudly and we think the objection is bigger than it really is, because it was so loud.
Is there a danger to being out in the military? I think depending on your leadership, there may be. Discipline is the key that put black soldiers and white soldiers together before the nation as a whole was able to do it, and it'll be the same here. Except for 'don't ask don't tell' which is more political that military, that's already the case, IMO.
 
tom e said:
In reality lots of gay men are pretty out in the military. And I'm proud to say that the majority of soldiers don't seem to care one way or the other. I think the split is pretty nearly exactly like the nation as a whole where some serious fundamentalists object loudly and we think the objection is bigger than it really is, because it was so loud.
Is there a danger to being out in the military? I think depending on your leadership, there may be. Discipline is the key that put black soldiers and white soldiers together before the nation as a whole was able to do it, and it'll be the same here. Except for 'don't ask don't tell' which is more political that military, that's already the case, IMO.
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You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later.
Great post and probably the Quote of the week....
 
Hypancistrus said:
As snakewispera said, though... is Joe Straight Guy really that vain to think that a gay man is going to be drooling over him while he showers? If they're serving now and not hitting on Joe, why would things change once the gay man is allowed to be himself and not forced to lie about a "girlfriend back home?" It goes right back to the old stereotype that a lot of old school folks like to propogate-- the belief that gay men are horn dogs who have no sense of propriety, impulse control or ethics.
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Trust me, I brought that same thing up to my husband, that just because the guy showering next to him is gay doesn't mean he's checking him out, but he says that's the way most guys view it.

My husband likened it to having guys in the women berthing. If men and women were showering together, most likely the guys would be checking the women out. I don't see it that way. I think the straight guys need to get over themselves. I don't know how it is in the rest of the military, but I know on the 2 ships I served on most of the straight women weren't even checking out any of the guys. :laugh:

My husband and I don't see eye to eye on this and neither of us could come up with a successful solution to the problem. My fear is that if gays were out in the military, there would be an increase in hate crimes. :(
 
tom e said:
lol Wade, I think most soldiers fit that description. If that describes gay men, they'll fit right in.
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:laugh: I was going to add something like this to my most recent reply, but didn't want to man bash.

There is a high amount of hooking up on Navy ships. Lots of cheating. It's sad really. On both sides, not just the guys. Really, you can't go for 6 months without having sex?
 
The thing about the hate crimes going up though, is that whether soldiers are right or wrong about it, they already THINK they know who's gay and who's straight.
 
Hypancistrus said:
I want NO ONE in the Oval Office who is taking their orders direct from the man upstairs, because as far as I know He doesn't have fax or email. It's perfectly fine to be religious and to pray for guidance for your personal life, but if you are the leader of America, I want you making decisions based on the here and now... not the hereafter.
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Completely agree!. Usually when someone does something, because a voice tells them to do it, it doesn't end well!.

Hypancistrus said:
Of course we can also come back to the point now that if I were a straight person I could just marry her now and she could have MY benefits. But because I am not straight, I have to demonstrate my level of committment to her by living with her for 12 straight months and jumping through a bunch of other hoops as well. Heck, she can't even change her license over without jumping through these same hoops-- but if we were straight and got married, I could just write a letter saying she lives in Maryland now, deal with it MVA....
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Exactly!. Any straight person in America who is old enough to marry can buy a ticket to Las Vegas, get hitched, and then immediately be eligible for the other persons benefits, whereas a homo-sexual person has to actually pay for their own healthcare regardless. A clear injustice.



Hypancistrus said:
If you want to go a little further into that, think about the fact that the biggest demographic of voters who voted yes on proposition 8 were Latino voters! For God's sake-- they are the next most discriminated against group in America. It's like the 2nd scrawniest kid beating up the most scrawniest kid on the playground!
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Ya, and the only reason the 2nd scrawniest kid did it was so he could be liked by the monster by the jungle gym (we'll call him Bill O'Reilly) who beat the snot out him the day before.
 
Topics such as this depress me. I just keep telling myself that eventually there will be equal rights for gays. It is only a matter of time. The trick is being patient!

Hopefully Obama will address DADT policy in the near future. Unfortunately, I do not think the soldier addressed in this topic will be in the military for much longer, which is sad considering the sacrifices he made, and all that training he has being wasted. Military's loss!
 
As far as I'm concerned Tom hit it with his post. Most people I met in the military had no issues with people they knew were homosexuals. You were there to do a job but comraderie is a big thing in the Navy. I assume as much for the other branches but I know for a fact that in the Navy everyone mixed with no problem. Nobody seemed to care who you date, we were all sailors.
As for the berthing issue, that's crap too. I was assigned to a submarine for four years. In that four years there were a few men on that submarine that were openly gay, I guess only openly to us, but everybody knew it. I'm sure there were also men who just didn't say so. It doesn't get any closer than in a submarine and it's close like that for months at a time. (old joke: Submarines go to sea with 100 men and come back with 50 couples) By the end of the tour you'll have been naked in front of or near just about everyone on board, in close quarters. If anyone had an issue with this they kept it to themselves, never an incident or complaint.
I'm talking about more than 20 years ago.
Someday maybe the government will get on board too and quit making it an issue.
 
Thanks Alan!

Good to hear the "way it really is" from somebody who has actually been there, and knows from experience (I think at least one other person also spoke from direct experience, so thanks to them as well). A lot of my family members have been in several branches of the military, but I never really asked them about that particular aspect of their service. I will have to ask them more at the next family get together.
 
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