[flv:http://www.youthradio.org/files/yr_media/00/00/00/00/30/27.mp3 https://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/2009/06/joseph-christopher-rocha.jpg 659 320]
Twenty-three-year-old Navy vet Joseph Christopher Rocha, who served in the Middle East, says rumors about him being gay led to humiliation and abuse, from being duct-taped and locked in a dog kennel to being forced to simulate oral sex with other men — where he was then criticized for not doing it well enough. The whole scene was videotaped, he tells YouthRadio. Three years after a Navy investigation into the conduct of other soldiers, Rocha was informed all charges would be dropped.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell doesn’t just force honorable gay men and women from hiding their sexuality — it creates an environment of tolerated harassment and torture of our servicemembers.
In a statement to the Navy about what happened, Rocha acknowledged he is gay. He was discharged. The men who assaulted him continue to serve our country.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
(Photos: Facebook)
7SK
Obama is a clown and a traitor. He’s a disgrace and a fool and a liar. He’s too busy with other issues? Five minutes to sign a piece of paper and gays stop being discharged. He wants a permanent solution? Tell Congress to work on it, then when they do, five minutes to sign another piece of paper.
Obama is a crook, plain and simple. His complete disregard and apathy towards the gay community is appalling. He should hear this man’s story. Maybe then he’ll understand why this is so important to us.
AlanInSLC
The fact that this guy was able to survive this torture without being completely screwed up is amazing. Good for him for standing up for who he is. The fact that our government hasn’t done anything to stop this type of discrimination and abuse is disgusting. If the draft ever gets re-activated again, I’ll spit in the faces of those who ever try to force me into service. I love the basis of what our country stands for and the values we try to uphold, yet I HATE with a passion the neglect that occurs every day to good people who are trying to keep our country safe and free.
BrianZ
I would love to hear what those people who defend Obama’s inactivity on this issue have to say about this man’s story. Really, I would.
HaveYouWritten?
@7SK:
You can’t be taken seriously until you’ve written your representative. Until you write and put some time into progressing gay writes, your hypocrisy only gets ahead of you.
HaveYouWritten?
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa020199.htm
Hey Queerty. Whenever you post anything about Obama, ENDA, DADT, DOMA, any kind of gay issue, you post the above links?
All I’ve seen is hollering and no action. It looks like the movement made by congress and the white house is all we’re going to receive for the next 7 years. If we want movement, we need the community in action. Besides, on the internet, republican plants probably do a fair amount of the hollering so that Obama loses a little support. It doesn’t mean the gay community at large really gives a damn what the consensus on gay blogs is.
So do me a favor Queerty. Do us all a favor. Be something more than you are.
Fitz
Tonight, across the land, gay men will be duct taped and put in dog kennels while performing oral sex and call it self fulfillment.
dgz
@BrianZ: he has a full plate; he’s kept very busy not commenting on iran and hosting abc news. 😉
AlwaysGay
Very, very sad. Your a good man, Joeseph.
What this proves to me is heterosexuals want gay men to be effeminate because it reinforces heterosexuality. And heterosexuals (particularly heterosexual males) want a system, a playing field where they always benefit, where they can’t lose.
JG
Sad, but what’s with the picture? Is he a model? When Queerty puts this picture up alongside his story, it kind of sexualizes (he’s very attractive) a story in a perverse way, since he was actually forced to simulate oral sex. It might have been, I don’t know, less tacky to leave a photo of him not all oiled up and shirtless. Which is nice, don’t get me wrong, it just doesn’t feel appropriate in the context.
dlpca
The issues of discrimination against gay men and women in every work base environment needs to be told. Where is the resource for those of us not receiving national attention to be heard? What resource is there for voicing my personal experience of over ten years of abuse, hate crime, harassment, stalking, employment sabotage and wrongful termination? Who can I tell if not in the military, who will hear me, furthermore who will respond?
The US laws, hiring practices and civil rights statutes apparently are not designed to protect victims. Instead it is those in decision making positions; supervisors, managers, companies and other institution heads, who are protected regardless of blatant inhumane civil rights violations. I propose a national gay boycott. A national gay walkout from the nation. If all gays were to just get up, go, migrate across the border to Canada for a while then see how the rest of the country would survive without us.
Let the rest of the world see how the country would quickly fall apart without the contribution of the millions of Gay citizens. I bet the administration would act then. Especially considering that DC is predominantly Gay. The government would suffer a major stall.
I know this is an unrealistic possibility. But just, what if. We are taken for granted. Unless there is some type of jolt to the movement things will continue as usual.
Aaron Akins
@JG: Yeah, that’s just a little weird. This SFGATE photo would have been a much better choice:
http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2009/05/26/ba-samesex27_rea_0500192940.jpg
TANK
@Fitz:
Class act.
edgyguy1426
@Fitz: right?
M Shane
I can say from personal experience that I have been fired from jobs, harrassed and denied work directly because of my sexuality, in work that I was well qualified for. This occurs because I am not obviously queer but am very open. This happened in Minnesota, of all places, where the Descrimination Board fraudulently backed the company who commited the first offense because it involved a black woman and her disturbed.religious beliefs.
Decrimination has if anything become worse in America because the religious fanatics run the organizations provioded to protect us. I think that this will become worse throughourt the country now that we have the fanatics stired up in religious wars around marriage.
Job descrimination is I suspect one of the worst areas of gay intolerance in the country.
Shannon
@dgz: DGZ FTW! That’s gotta be the comment of the day.
Captain Freedom (HRC doesn't speak for me)
All the Obama defenders are really starting to disgust me.
SM
@Captain Freedom (HRC doesn’t speak for me):
No, the problem is straight Americans who are not in the military have no clue this stuff goes on.
dlpca
@M Shane: I agree. This widely practiced, blatant, systematic gay intolerance must stop or be stopped. We need a national voice, a spokesperson, to clearly and loudly represent our position in this matter. Passively waiting for the President to save us obviously is not enough.
We need a true “fierce advocate” of our cause out there stirring things up until we as Gay men and women can exist, live and work peaceably protected from hate.
Tony
“dgz
@BrianZ: he has a full plate; he’s kept very busy not commenting on iran and hosting abc news. 😉
Also, we cannot forget all the time he spent picking a dog that would not be a “girly dog”. Oh and all the time on the beach with his sagging breasts, or all the time Michelle spends builing her man arms, or the time he spends cleaning Rick Warren’s boy parts with his tongue…..
Mike
Now you see the real truth of the person you elected.
The fanfare, the promises, the jubliation,
HE’S A POLITICIAN .. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT .. ?
sam
Don’t forget the other sleazy contradiction of straight guys where they call lesbianism “straight”. LOL. You see it in porn movies where lesbian scenes are categorized under the “straight porn” category.
LOL. I think we should have a new category for straight guys. How about “fucktards”?
John
SOURCE PLEASE.
John
Nevermind, thanks for adding it.
razz
JG: i agree about the photo choice…seems weird to take a sexualised photograph and accompany it with a disturbing account of torture…what were the people at queerty thinking….
galefan2004
@razz: Same thing they think all the time it seems, that people would see it and it would stir comments.
Jay Pat
on a brighter note….he’s really pretty
poof
Had he actually performed oral sex would it still be torture?
anyway, one hopes he finds justice in the law.
michael
@Fitz: Fitz, great grandson of an officer of the Third Reich? The gene pool is alive and well.
Trixiejack
@Fitz: Difference is, those who call it self-fulfillment are generally consenting to it.
@poof: Pretty sure at that point, it would have been torture and rape.
Casper O
this is fucking sick.
Ken
10 year Active duty myself.
We need to get this out to the MSM. Just like the gay exorcism that now is on CNN, we need this article written up a HELL of a lot better than this blurb, and passed around the community through facebook, myspace, email and such. We can make this a main stream media news item, which can only help!
galefan2004
@Ken: I personally don’t want to see this in the main stream, simply because I’m almost afraid to hear what Fox news and the rest of the conservative cause will say about and do to this dude.
itsnotme
Wows. Hes good looking !
sallee
@7SK:
Would u rather Grampy McCain
Obama is still a politician and I am sure he would like to be a pres for 8 yrs instead of 4 So lets keep support for him now. Otherwise we can get Rush or something worse
BrianZ
@sallee: Oh yes, let’s support Obama so we don’t have to worry about getting an upfront, in the open gay hater …
Mitch
I’m confused… why does the article call it “forced to simulate” instead of just using the word raped? Was he raped or was he just encouraged to perform oral sex? In that case, was he actually willing to go along with the other soldiers? Or was he basically raped, but he never said no, so it’s called forced simulation. And using the word simulate, did he actually perform BJs, i.e. dick to jaw, or was he forced to give “pretend BJs”? This article is either fishy or badly written. And by the way, dude is totally some model according to his model mayhem profile. I really hope he’s not doing this for publicity, because while the story is unclear, its allegations are pretty brutal.
David In Arizona
Drop this story on Anderson Cooper’s desk. See if he’ll run with it. Truth be known, he’d probably run from it. As fast and as far as his Chinese silk slippers would take him.
Cam
@Have”You can’t be taken seriously until you’ve written your representative. Until you write and put some time into progressing gay writes, your hypocrisy only gets ahead of you.”
YouWritten?:
______________________________________________________
Why would you assume that he hasn’t. And again, not writing your congressman in no way dissallows somebody from being upset at the way govt. is being run. It sounds like an easy way for an apologist to try to dissmiss people who dissagree. Well I’ve written my reps. Do I now have your permission to not be happy with the state of affairs on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?
ganymede5
No. 36 · Mitch —
Honestly, a sexy appeal was probably just the catch to hear the article, or the simple fact that the photographer thought the man was gorgeous and said, “Eh, this is a good pic.” Who knows. The point is, I seriously doubt it’s about publicity. I have personally known family members (not homosexual) who were simply tortured in the marines. Torture is prevalent in the Armed Forces. And there is definitely a sense of loathing “faggots” or “queers.” So perhaps the photo was a way to catch attention of gay males, which is sad because it says we are all just obsessed with sex. However, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is widely accepted, and is ridiculous. These men and women are throwing their lives to the wind to serve the country, only to be treated as second class, or a subspecies. We are not second class. This type of thing does happen throughout the country. I, for one, am personally sick of the bigots, and gay bashing. I hope he gets plenty of publicity, and I seriously doubt it’s made up. But whatever comes of it, we are discriminated against, and the Armed Forces are quite insane. They live in brutality and death day in and day out. Of course it’s easy to take it out on what’s weaker. Way of the world.
ApolloGenX
Although the guy is pretty attractive, why would they use such an inappropriate picture?
Why would they be attempting to put out some kind of sexually appealing image along side a really awful story about this guy? It’s almost as if they want you to think “he was asking for it”… or “he wanted it”….
That is pretty messed up. Stop trying to stimulate military fantasies, and focus on the story. Hell, even for those of us with military fetishes, we don’t want our guys treated like this. Get the news out, leave the softporn to other sites.
Bill
An all time low. Even for Heterosexuals.