Easing the Transition

What a dump!
--Beyond the Forrest (1949)

If you really wanted to mess me up,
you should have got to me earlier
—High Fidelity, Nick Hornby

Why can't they have gay people in the army?
Personally, I think they are just afraid
of a thousand guys with M16s going,
"Who'd you call a faggot?"
--John Stewart
_________________

2010 was a slog, and we found little of national import to celebrate. However, the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays serving in the military was one bright strike for truth-telling.

In honor of that decision, Ranger is holding another contest, challenging all readers to answer the question: What changes do you think will happen now that gay soldiers can serve openly?

Some suggestions:

• The Soldier's Creed will undergo a grammatical revision. Instead of "I will never leave my buddies behind", now: "I will never leave my buddy's behind"

• No fuit drinks served in mess halls or vending machines

• Neckwear remains regulation -- no feather boas or leis
  

• Roger's Rules for Rangers will become, "Roger's Rules for Rangers and Rangerettes". Emendations include, "Never leave your lip gloss behind" (now available in grapefruit and musk options.) Motto change: "Rangers Lead the Way, Gayly" {RLTWG]
  

• Now, one can bend over and pick up soap if dropped in the shower
  

• The Meritorious Service Medal will be redesigned to change the ribbon color from pink to a more androgynous mint green

• Never start a forced march before you've had your pedicure

• Clean Machine Gun prior to manicure

• Doughnut pillows now standard-issue

• Never wear a thong on a night jump

• Troops may wear mascara like the Taliban, fostering a competitive fashion spirit

• No hooped earrings allowed in combat pits

• Issey Miyake deodorant fragrance, optional
  

• Multiple awards of the Meritorious Service Medal will no longer be designated with an oak leaf cluster; to be replaced by a petite rosebud

• Tracers will go from red to fuschia

• It is o.k to call your rifle "Betsy"

• Chipped beef on toast will be replaced by a framboise reduction over pork medallions

• Chaplains assistants are no longer to be used for joke fodder

• Never leave two gay soldiers on point at a time. Ditto for guarding an objective rally point, in a buddy team, or as a Machine Gun crew

• As Winter Rangers are unofficially allowed to use white thread to affix their tabs, gay soldiers may use pink thread

Well, that's Ranger's start to help ease the transition. What are yours?

Plessy Versus Ferguson II

We hold these truths to be self-evident --
that ALL men are created EQUAL
--U.S. Constitution
___________________

"Needs of military take precedence over liberal social engineering" was a recent USA Today op-ed by Marine Corps veteran Tony Perkins arguing against the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (DADT).

Every one of Mr. Perkins' assertions was deserving of refutation, and away we go:


[1] First, his thesis is erroneous.

The military has long been a site of social engineering. Testing -- vocational and psychological -- began in WW I; racial integration of non-segregated combat units began post-WW II. The current Volunteer Army (VOLAR) is also a form of social engineering by virtue of creating a separate military caste (versus the previous draft army.)

Military academies and ROTC are also forms of social engineering, as they professionalize the officer class. The integration of minorities and females into the officer corps of the military has also been a social engineering project. Females serving in deployable units is yet another form of social engineering.


[2] "A soldier must represent his or her country and maintain military discipline 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is why sexual behaviors such as adultery and sodomy remain crimes under military law."

This is a non-sequitur, and a faulty comparison, to boot. Sexual behavior does not necessarily impact upon one's ability to represent one's nation or to maintain discipline. (Sloppy sexual behavior would be an exception.) Adultery is a crime, or certainly a breech of contract; sodomy is just a variation on a theme, and not one confined to homosexuals. It is not a crime (even in Texas.) Why is sodomy a no-no, but fellatio and cunnilingus aren't?

If we are so moral, why are illegitimate offspring of service members now afforded coverage under the Tricare system? Is this sanctioning of fornication any less of an offense to order, discipline and soldierly conduct? To equate adultery to sodomy to unsoldierly conduct is hypocritical.


[3] "To put people with sexual attractions to one another into conditions of forced intimacy — sharing bathrooms, showers and sleeping quarters — runs the risk of increasing sexual tension, harassment and even assault. These are clear threats to good order, morale and unit cohesion."

But "people with sexual attractions" are already in proximity -- they are called "men and women". Mr. Perkins is carrying on the libel that homosexuals are predatory and not in control of their libido. His illogic is revealed if one replaces gay male soldiers with female homosexual soldiers, or heterosexuals of either gender.

Is Perkins presuming men are strong enough to be soldiers, but not strong enough to fend off unwanted advances? Or that homosexuals are not regimented enough to curb their libidinous drives? He is condemning them a priori. It is the Mandingo fantasy in its 2010 update.


[4] "There is no constitutional right to serve in the military, and individuals are routinely denied enlistment on the basis of characteristics that would rarely, if ever, be the basis for exclusion from civilian employment. These include height, weight, family responsibilities, or even relatively minor health conditions such as asthma."

Homosexuality is not a pathology. It is a gender orientation which has no bearing on the individual's ability to perform a task. It does not prevent the service member from executing duties faithfully. As an aside, the first U.S. military service member wounded in the Iraq Occupation was Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Fidelis Alva, who lost his leg to an IED. Staff Sgt. Alva is homosexual. (Alva is quoted on his Wiki page as saying that his name, "Fidelis", means "faithful, and that he has always been faithful to the Corps, as have many previous generations of his family.)


[5] "Polls showing support for homosexuals in the military have been distorted by biased wording."

Opinions are irrespective of the Constitution. We have all become such slaves to the talking heads and the pollsters, but their views or results are irrelevant to the topic. Polls do not trump the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection of all.


[6] "Only one in eight of the world's countries allow homosexuals in their armed forces. The 10 largest military forces all exclude homosexuals."

Irrelevant. We are our own example, and lead by American exceptionalism. It would be more relevant to look at our NATO allies. Nations like Afghanistan are filled with good family men who keep personal dancing boys for their pleasure. (But they are not gay, you see, because they do not love the boys.)

If you prohibit homosexuals from the military, not only do you indulge in affirmative action bias, you do not remove the scourge of rape and sexual abuse which is rampant among hetero service members.


[7] "The needs of the military must come before the demands of radical social activists."

Au contraire. The needs of the nation precede those of the military. We are not a military dictatorship.

One wonders if Mr. Perkins has ever known or had any interaction with a homosexual. Surely he acknowledges that a percentage of our population is homosexual, and phony arguments cannot change that fact or marginalize these people.

His arguments are lacking in Christian compassion and understanding, qualities which should not go missing in a man who is the leader of the Family Research Council.

[Cross-posted at MilPub]

Queer as Folk

Michael Jackson got married.
There are shows like “I Want to Marry a Millionaire.”
How sacred can it be?
--David Sedaris on gay marriage

Hans Moleman: Lesbian?!
This isn't my army reunion
Gay man in army clothes:
You're coming home with me
Hans Moleman: Yes, Colonel
--The Simpsons

[I]f God had thought homosexuality is a sin,
he would not have created gay people
--Howard Dean
_________________

Word, Howard. Too bad your masculine yawp has relegated you to the dustbin of history. There is simply no room for unrepentant male exuberance in politics today, as our president, the King of Cool, has demonstrated.

Ranger has some thoughts on the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. Since he entered active duty in 1968, it has been evident to him that bull diker types inhabit the U.S. Army in prodigious numbers and a freely accepted manner. Many of these women compete avidly with the men, and exercise so strenuously that they cease to have menstrual cycles. They are buff, hard and masculine.

These women do not threaten the male command structure and are therefore accepted. In fact, they reinforce the manly nature of the institution in their desire to compete on a man's playing field

At Ft. McClellan in the 1980's there was a Major General called "Mother Mary". She lived openly with a female Lieutenant Colonel an all knew her homosexual orientation, yet she was a Post Commander. Fellow writer FDChief speaks of his service in Panama, which was known as "Clam City" for its rampant lesbian activity among the ranks.

Compare this with the shelving of Air Force gayviator LTC Victor Fehrenbach. A decorated pilot, he will be discharged after 18 years of meritorious service because someone outed him as a gay man. Though Major Margaret Witt is fighting her discharge at the same time, the number of gay men discharged under DADT far exceeds the number of discharged lesbians. Why?

Gay men threaten to disrupt the masculine military ethos of the military. As friend Sheerahkahn wrote today: "thus the issue for the heterosexual men is that they feel like women around homosexual men." Het men feel feminized and thus vulnerable around gay men. Word, Sheerahkahn.

Those who say overturning DADT would disrupt discipline due to proximity in close quarters do not have a strong argument. In peacetime, we no longer have squad bay living; there are no gang showers or toilets.Officers have always lived in private or semi-private quarters.

Of course, neither applies in combat situations, but in Iraq and Afghanistan many troops live in modern billets. The fear of crazed homosexual overtures in the bunkers simply doesn't hold water.

That President Obama will be commemorating the Stonewall Riots Monday at the White House seems the height of hypocrisy to us. (The 1969 Stonewall Riots occurred in New York City when patrons of a city gay bar fought back against police brutality and harassment.) Obama could, with the flourish of a pen, roll back Clinton's DADT.

Whether viewed from a moral, military, legal or financial perspective, DADT makes no sense.