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MILITARY PRIDE
PHOTO: Rainbow Flag Flies Proudly Over U.S. Military Base In Afghanistan
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A
Homonationalism at its finest.
Curtis
Im probably going to get a lot of angry queens on my ass for this.
But I just plain don’t like the military.. and I don’t like being associated with the military at all.
My feelings are just that that flag which is supposed to represent our community, should not be flown over a military base. The military and its soldiers, (even the gay ones) does not and should not represent our community.. When Afghans see that military base, I don’t want them to see a flag that represents me and my community, because the military does not stand for tolerance and equality, (quite the contrary, really).
Nick
How far we have strayed from the original spirit of the gay liberation front. Absolutely despicable.
Ozymandias71
Just think – a year ago, this picture would have been impossible. Bravo!
michael
Curtis, you do realize DADT is history, right? Our military actually does stand for equality when it comes to our community.
Btw, this is a huge and good f#ck you to those countries who persecute gays and lesbians. While I don’t agree with our need for constant war, I am proud of our soldiers.
rodca
Regardless what anyone thinks of the military as an institution, soldiers are putting their lives on the line everyday. Str8 or Gay they have my utmost respect.
If anyone bothered to go to the facebook page you would have learned that this is a Str8 soldier who did this in support of his gay friends/fellow soldiers. His wife is very proud of him as she well should be. They both appear to be strong allies of our community. I applaud and thank them.
Just being real
This is a good thing since now bisexuals of both genders, gay men, and lesbians can openly serve in the military and no longer have to be closeted. Trans people will eventually get to serve or be out about being trans.
Notafan
Take it down. The only flag that should be flown is the American Flag. I appreciate the milestone, but this.os not appropriate.
pedro
What’s wrong with the military? Who do you bastards think are going to defend you if the shit were ever to hit the fan on U.S. soil…These young men and women are putting their limbs and lives on the line…Do I think we should get out of the hell hole that is Afghanistan? Yes…Am I in the least bit offended by the rainbow flag being flown over this base, absolutely not….But I suppose you whiners are fine with the flag being flown by some effete muscle queen in a thong prancing down the street like a fairy during gay pride…I’d rather be associated with our brave soldiers than a bunch of methed out losers at gay pride any day.
rodca
Again, from the facebook page. According to the OP (his wife), there is an American Flag flying from the flagpole at the center of the camp.
Martin
@Curtis: If the afghans saw you and the flag you say represents you they would happily cut off your head and broadcast the footage on the internet, so i wouldnt worry about the association with the army…
Marie Cohn
They’ll hate us for our freedom. To fly a rainbow flag on the soil of a completely insane Islamic nation chafing under our baby-killing occupation.
HM
“When Afghans see that military base, I don’t want them to see a flag that represents me and my community”
“Your community” would be jailed, beaten or worse if a majority of Afghans saw you dancing around with that flag and pondered what it represented. Guess we’ve been breezing past the YouTube videos on what neighboring Iraq does to teenagers accused of being gay (I’ll save you the suspense….they hang them.) In fact, while I think the end of DADT and the reality of gay Americans serving proudly in the armed forces is one of the great milestones in gay rights, I’d almost say flying that flag in that country is an unneccesary provocation to a surrounding culture decades if not centuries behind Drag Races, Harvey Milk and Ellen. It’s the fundamentalist Islamic equivelent to raising a Confederate battle flag. In Harlem.
HM
correction: Gay teens have been confirmed executed in Iran, not Iraq.
HM
@Marie..your “baby killing” comment is a bitch slap to the face of every gay American serving in uniform. But thanks to them, you’re perfectly free to make it.
Raven
I am a gay man. I don’t feel the gay pride flag is appropriate. We don’t fly the gay pride flag over libraries because we support gay librarians. Fly the American Flag…be proud to be American..gay or straight! Does it really matter who we sleep with? We want to be equal, not special.
B
Why is the flag there? Is it at the location of an LGBT hangout or did someone just put it up at random?
Or is it an area to use to interrogate suspected Taliban – you point them to the flag and let their homophobia and imagination do the rest.
[email protected]
@michael:
While one appreciates your support of our troops, full equality in the military for LGB service members is NOT yet a fact. Yes, they can now serve openly, but in an inexplicable, indefensible bow to recalictrant homophobes in the Pentagon, Mr. Obama broke his promise to fight for the ORIGINAL repeal bill which would have included creation of a new federal law banning discrimination against gays IN the military after repeal such as in performance evaluations and assignments. Thus, the Pentagon is now OFFICIALLY refusing to give LGBs the same protections against harassment and discrimination under the Military Equal Opportunity Program automatically given to other troops in relation to race, gender, ethnicity, religious, and political affiliation. For instance, a soldier claiming to be a Wiccan witch has more protections than the tens of thousands of LGBs serving. Further, they are officially refusing to extend to gay military couples important benefits such as access to military housing that are not, repeat NOT, banned by DOMA. Months ago, SLDN urged the President to issue an executive order to clean up this inequality mess, but, so far, he’s remained silent.
@Nick:
With all due respect, Sir, you don’t know what the F you’re talking about in regard to the “original spirit of the gay liberation front” which you seem mistakenly to believe was the beginning of the fight for gay equality. While it is true that a number of the members of the actual NYC GROUP that called itself Gay Liberation Front were anti-military, not all were. Here are some things you and others might be interested in learning:
1. The founder of the first gay rights group in the US, Chicago’s Society for Human Rights in 1924, Henry Gerber, was a German emigre who served in the American military in both WWI and WWII.
2. The oldest, longlasting gay group was Veterans Benevolence Association, created in NYC in 1945 by four gay WWII veterans. While they made some efforts to provide help to gays that had gotten “blue discharges, it was primarily a social organization whose dances often drew hundreds of attendees. It lasted nine years until efforts by some to make the group more political resulted in it imploding, and some of those moving on to other gay groups that had formed by then.
3. At least two of the original five founders of the first Mattachine Society in LA in 1950 were gay veterans. One of them, Dale Jennings, was the first known gay person to challenge a police entrapment arrest and win.
4. The cofounder of “ONE,” the first gay magazine in the US, Don Slater, was another gay WWII veteran. In 1958, he defeated the US Postal Service in a landmark Supreme Court free speech case.
5. Ending the ban was one of the four main goals of the Mattachine Society of Washington cofounded by WWII veteran Frank Kameny in 1961. Letters were sent to President Kennedy, his cabinet, and every member of Congress announcing same. That same year, the first out gay person to run for public office, Jose Sarria in SF, was also a WWII veteran.
6. THE first organized gay protest in the US was about the ban on gays in the military: at Whitehall Induction Station in 1964 in NYC. It was led by multitalented movement pioneer Randy Wicker and Craig Rodwell who, among his several accomplishments, would open the first LGBT bookstore in the United States, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.
7. The 1965 idea for the first gay pickets of the White House and other federal buildings including the Pentagon because of the ban was, in part, that of Lige Clarke who was IN the Army and had a top secret security clearance as an aide to the Army Chief of Staff in the Pentagon where he surreptitiously distributed copies of Kameny’s brochure on how to respond to being investigated.
8. The first gay protests to get any significant mainstream media attention were those happening simultaneously in a number of cities [SF, LA, DC, NY, Philadelphia, and Denver] on Armed Forces Day 1966 against the ban. It was the idea of Daughters of Bilitis cofounder Del Martin who spoke at the SF protest.
9. The first openly gay person to address a national political convention was Jim Foster at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. He had been kicked out of the Army for being gay.
10. The first “celebrity” gay activist was Air Force TSgt. Leonard Matlovich who, according to gay historian Nathaniel Frank triggered the first national “discussion” in the US of gay rights generally by purposely outing himself to fight the ban in 1975. He was the first named gay person featured on the cover of a mainstream news magazine [TIME 1975], and the first living gay person to have a TV movie made about him [NBC 1978].
11. Harvey Milk was still so proud of his service in the Navy in the 1950s that he always wore his Navy Master Divers belt. He was wearing it when he was murdered by Dan White in 1978.
In short, gay veterans and the issue of ending the military ban helped form the backbone of the gay rights movement in America, and those gays who are childishly anti-military by definition are no more a majority among our people than society at large.
Curtis
Michael,
I do realize that DADT is history.. and I can not tell you how happy I am, that the gay men and women of our country can now fight and die to fill the coffers of a hand full of old, straight, rich, power-hungry men.
Pedro,
Yes, I am a bastard, and it has only made me stronger. Soo.. Gee, i can’t really think of whats wrong with the military.. besides killing nearly as many, if not more innocent people than any other disease, or natural cause for that matter. :-/ …. Look, if you have half a brain, (or ANY knowledge of history for that matter), you would know that NO military has EVER served as a purely protective body, especially not the US military.. But if that is too complicated for you to follow, than absorb this: Apparently now the LGB community represents the military.. but does the military represent the LGB community??
@Martin:
@HM:
Yes they would 😉
luckily our big, strong “protectors” are there over there.. protecting us.. :]
PS: using the word, “fundamentalist” over and over again like Rick Santorum, does not make you sound smart.
“HM”,
just please check to make sure your ‘facts’ are factual, BEFORE you post, ty.
@[email protected]:
I think I’m in love.
Shannon1981
I cannot believe there are people criticizing this historic, landmark event! Shame on you!
jon
the gay flag and the peace flag are almost the same…for a reason!
Cam
Oh BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH…
I just LOVE the trolls on here freaking out.
Look, the Marines are there for years, they are bored, they were emotionally beaten down by DADT, they eat, work, go out, get shot at etc…
So one guy in a moment of pride and happiness hoists a flag and then the trolls come in to attack it, gays, etc…
If you don’t like expressions of sexuality on military bases, then ask that they stop allowing hetro marriages to take place on base, or married housing, etc… other wise, enough with the manufactured Outrage.
Curtis
lol, My hatred for the military is not manufactured, sweetie.
Phantom
@Raven: I agree with what you said, but at the same time, you have to think about how some of these military men and women have to deal with hiding their secrets for long time. Now they have the opportunity to come out as proud gay/lesbian person without shame and fear. It’s same feeling when you see American Flag, it makes you feel proud American. America should welcome lgbt and should not exclude them.
ed
Since when did the US military allow special interests to fly flags … sorry I do not think this is a great idea … to my knowledge US military bases do not fly the flags of any other unique groups on the basis of age, race, gender, class, religion or disability .. why should orientation be any different? These guys are there to represent the USA not sub-divisions thereof ..
Colby
Are we really complaining over someone hoisting a flag in a warzone? Really, they have bigger issues than what you guys think. Maybe the flag brings them morale, which they really need over there. Just shut up about it, they’re shot at and they die for us. The least we can do is let them raise a gay pride flag.
David Hearne
@Curtis:
You hate the military? Do you hate driving your car? Do you hate sailing in the waterways without pirates attacking you? How about everything you consume being imported on ships protected by the US, British, and French navies? Do you hate that?