My efficacy aside, I assure you I'm attempting to understand...(And I am willing to table this from this thread, since it's not really a DADT issue): Why is it that if I'm attracted romantically I'm homosexual? As I brought up in the drug description, I'm pretty sure that I'd like to try at least amphetamines and probably some of the other stuff to see if I like it. Until I do, I'm not a drug user. I'm pretty sure that when I was 17 I wanted to know what Jack Daniels' tasted like, but if until I did it in the military I wasn't consuming alcohol illegally. If one of my best friends (male) is gay, and we hang out all the time or are roommates, am I gay by proximity? Is it only when that switch turns from "friend" to "boyfriend", but isn't consummated, that I become gay? What sense does that make? EDIT: The stuff I was saying was "right" dealt for the most part with my refutations to most of crandc's post above.
I find the non-military posters lecturing an active military member on DADT to be a fascinating irony. As I read the thread, Brian seems to be explaining the actual policy that is law, and how he operated under it. Everything else seems like unrealistic rhetoric on how they would like things to be, but that isn't how the military operates at this point. Proceed...
This is really remarkable. You really can't see the difference between being friends and romantic partners? That the two are so equivalent that "it doesn't make sense" for sexuality to hang on one and not the other? So you consider your relationship to your wife the same as with all of your friends? Did you consider your relationship to your wife identical to those with your friends when you were dating, prior to having sex with her? The point is, if you generally find the same sex attractive to you for romantic and/or sexual partners, that is what homosexuality is. It doesn't rely on actually having sex. Your sexuality guides who you would choose sex with, not the other way around. You, personally, didn't marry and have sex with a woman randomly and that determined that you were heterosexual. You chose a woman because you are heterosexual. Even if you had never had sex with your wife, you'd still be heterosexual due to which sex attracts you for sexual/romantic partners. You can be attracted sexually without actually having sex.
Considering this thread is about repealing a law, explaining that the law is currently in effect is rather useless. Whether a law should be repealed is very much about what we, as a society, think should be. Whether it is "unrealistic" is certainly up to personal opinion.
Its because being homosexual is not the same as doing drugs. Being homosexual is what you feel and who you are. Having sex with someone of the same gender is just acting on those feelings. With drugs, its the act that is defining you as a drug user.
The reality is that the law has not been repealed. Activie military members are still operating under DADT. That seems to be Brian's point in most of his posts until he took the "this is how things should be" bait.
Look at the title of the thread. The thread is about whether the policy should be repealed, not whether it already has been.
Brian's posts were about the reality of DADT. The thread seems to be based in fantasy, with a lot of hypotheticals being brought forth for debate. My stance? I already gave it in this thread. Dare you find it, Minstrel?
And that is why this thread is unique. Never before in the history of message boards have hypotheticals ever been debated. My friends, we've witnessed something we can tell our grandkids about here. barfo
I guess I'm saddened but not terribly surprised that Brian would blame the raped woman and not the rapist. He does have a history of blaming the victim. Brian, who apparently has served in the military, has (I think) deliberately blinded himself to what goes on to those who are not straight white men. Women, gay and straight, know that reporting sexual harassment and sexual assault very often, more often than not, results in greater penalty for the victim than the alleged assailant. It has been widely reported that women serving in Iraq are statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted by male US military personnel, their comrades in arms, than killed or wounded by "enemy" action. But they have vaginas, it must be their fault. It is the culture of "boys will be boys" and blaming the victim that allows rapists to stay in the service, not the victims. While kicking out thousands of loyal, hard working, qualified gays and lesbians, the military was so strapped for personnel they issued "moral waivers" allowing those convicted of serious crimes, including sexual assault, to join. But the raped woman is to blame! And yes, the United States military is under civilian control so it is entirely appropriate for all citizens to discuss and debate legal issues impacting the military. It is, after all, a civilian body, the Congress, that makes those laws.
What a bunch of horseshit. Brian didn't blame the victim while letting the rapists off the hook. Did you even read what he wrote? Everything that I read from you is based in some sort of identity politics. That's fine, but blatantly misrepresenting Brian's position is just as bad as the grievances that I consistently read in your posts.
BGrantFan, this is what Brian said Of course if someone is not straight, white and male she can't have a valid viewpoint, it's just "identity politics", which of course is a nice way of not dealing with actual issues. Which is that senators filibustered to stop the entire defense appropriations bill in order to make sure that gays and lesbians continue to be kicked out. They put bigotry ahead of funding the soldiers.
He didn't blame the victim for being raped. He blamed the victim for keeping silent while she knew others subsequently were being raped. Since she was in a position of oversight, she should have reported the rapists' criminal behavior. Do you disagree?
Simplistic, I'd say. And way off the mark, but I guess that's what you get from the East Bay enclave. The amazing part to me is that you'll accept anecdotes as gospel from those you don't know but agree with, while trying to twist words around of those who actually have and are working with the situation. I'd like to know where you get the idea that women in the military (and there are somewhere on the order of 400000 of them) feel that they're not supposed to report rapes because they're afraid of punishment. Here's a cool anecdote...once you join the military, you don't get to hide behind stereotypes, "how we used to do it", "how it should be done", etc. I don't employ the thought process that your duty ends when something bad happens to you. If your ship is burning and sinking, you don't get to save yourself and leave others to drown. If you get shot, you don't get to lay down your weapon and let your buddies get overrun. I couldn't care less if someone was black, white, hispanic, female, Jewish, etc. If they are under my command they have to perform their duties in accordance with the rules, regulations and policies set forth. A black woman doesn't get any more leeway in performing her duties than a gay hispanic man or straight white man. Having a vagina in my world doesn't excuse you from duty or discipline. We're much more equal opportunity than the rest of you seem to be. Not to get all Jack Nicholson on you, but we use terms like Honor, Courage and Commitment as standards to uphold. You use them as a punchline. You don't hear about the stories on the deckplate level, or the seedier side of "what goes on". You don't have the first idea of what the "culture" of a ship or submarine is or combat patrol is. You've never been in my shoes. You've never been in my troops' shoes. You read a few stories and think you know the black-and-white, right-and-wrong. But you don't make any attempt to listen to people actually going through it. Why is that? Finally, the only reason those rapists were allowed to stay in the service is because she didn't report them. If you think that a commander can cavalierly discharge a suspected lesbian b/c of a few rumors, but he or she will allow a gang of rapists to stay, that says more about your deduction and bias than anything the military does. I'm still waiting for a response on why she thinks she should cover up for her "male friends" (her words, not mine) and let rapists continue. A simplistic way of looking at the honor code is "we don't lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do". Our job is tough enough without sniping from the ivory-tower types. Our job is tough enough without having gangs of criminals able to run around unchecked. If this needs to be said (and sometimes I can't believe comprehension levels in here) the rapists should be punished to the maximum extent of the law. But they weren't, in part b/c the command didn't know about it and in part because the sergeant covered for them.
You conveniently cut out what I'm blaming her for, and not standing up against it yourself. "Make sure gays and lesbians continue to be kicked out"? DADT is the only thing that lets them serve right now!! As I've stated from the beginning, you're barking up the wrong tree. If DADT was repealed today, there would be no protection for anyone. For what you want, you need to go back and change the US Code that states this: As for the question above about "what makes a homosexual?", Congress defined it for us: To me, this says that my definition is much more in line with the law than Minstrel's. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/654.html
