A repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would either have some 25 percent of American soldiers leaving the military, or would be the most anti-climactic decision in the armed forces and would, at best, lead to open secrets being just as open, but no longer as secret. (Go click on that second link. Great story.)
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Keith Kimmel
There are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics.
dizzy spins
Please stop reporting the opinionated rants of WorldNetDaily as some kind of news. Or at least bother to mention that this “study” was conducted by WND columnist Michael Massy of some “military folks” he knew
Pete
Vets can’t get jobs. I wonder how many will really give up a pay check in this recession because of serving with gays. As civilians, they will serve with gays in real life, whether they like it or not.
Chip
Y’know, it occurs to me that if the ban is lifted, any openly gay soldiers will be working their hardest to show that they’re just as professional in all ways as anybody else. It’s in their interests to get the ban-less regime off to a good start.
(I was going to say “working their butts off” but decided not to.)
zenflo
No’s 1 & 2: Right on.
Yet even in an unbiased poll of military on this question, I’m sure there will be many closed-minded soldiers who will CLAIM they will quit over this issue.
A few will. Most won’t. Despite their empty “cohesion issues,” they simply need the work. Here’s hoping they will STFU and follow orders.
This non-issue is being promoted by the Neanderthal far-right in yet another attempt to influence public opinion through fear.
jason
If the 25% want to leave, let them leave. Then they’ll be replaced with soldiers who truly love their country and don’t mind serving with fellow country-loving gays.
jason
My message to this 25% is this: don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Jill
The majority of the military is people who failed at their life thus far and have no other option because they can’t get in to college or find a well-paying job. Sure, there are some that are there because they want to be, but please. People are so full of it – 25% can leave because the have no future otherwise (other than being conservative a-holes).
orpheus_lost
Great! Then perhaps we’d have to end our occupation of two foreign nations. At least there would be openings for the thousands of GLBTers who could really use the benefits a stint in the forces provides. Either way I think it’d be a good thing to remove access to guns from these skin-headed homophobes who say they’d quit.
Lukas P.
Any study that asks a hypothetical question is heading for trouble.
Bottom line, people are lousy at predicting what they’ll do when “situation X” occurs. What their “gut” tells them they’d do often gets outweighed by what they discover when the choice actually presents itself. That’s when reality hits: add new facts, a new cost-benefit analysis occurs. When a soldier actually figures out what it “costs” to leave the military and examines his/her options, the choice may not be as easy.
Bob R
Considering the current economy in the civilian world, I doubt any attrition rate would even approach 1% of current enlistees. Last I heard the military was having no trouble filling its ranks. I even have read about older folks enlisting because they couldn’t find work or afford health care for their spouse and children. I put this threat right up there with all those folks who declared they would leave the country if Bush was elected (twice!), almost all of whom are still here in the US of A. Right wing BS pure and simple. And for those bigots that do leave, good riddance to bad rubbish.
terrwill
Gee, WHAT A SUPRISE!! The survey cited for that bastion of equality world net daily didn’t want Gays to serve in the military! Holy Thit!! Based on their ideology most likely they surveyed soldiers at the westboro baptist church………..
Queerts, there are many sources of info on the internets. Maybe you can avoid publcizing those who kinda sorta hate Gay people. Like world net daily, and your sudden love affair with the crunt from said church……….jus’ sayin’……………
B
No. 1 · Keith Kimmel wrote, “There are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics.”
It was some World Net Daily guy pulling some numbers out of his presumably straight ass (although no one knows for sure if the ass is in fact a straight one). He attributed to unnamed sources in the military. An unnamed source could mean anything, including a Mormon private from Utah returning to his barracks after spending his first night out drinking.
Just because someone put a ‘%’ character after a number does not mean it has anything to do with statistics.
1EqualityUSA
Even if 25 percent did quit, would you want soldiers that didn’t believe we were created equal fighting for our constitution’s ideals?
jimmy
Since we need to cut the defense budget by at least a third, 25% fewer troops is a good start. Like the mafia, no one really leaves the military in the era of stop-loss.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
@No. 14 1EqualityUSA
I’m with you. Bigotry equals ignorance; if they are so bigoted to quit then they are too ignorant to honor the principles of freedom. Let them quit and we will have a smarter military focused on the much more important picture of defending everyone’s freedom.
Steve
One of my favorite statistics is, 87% of all statistics cited on the internet are fabricated out of thin air. Of course, that statistics is made up out of thin air, too.
When you read an article that gives a statistic, you have to consider the source, the methodology, and the results from similar studies done by other researchers. To be convincing, a result must be published by a reputable researcher, in a peer-reviewed journal, with disclosure of methodology, and the result must be in the same range as reported by other similar studies by other reputable researchers.
Mychal Massie is a columnist, not a researcher, and certainly not a reputable researcher. The WND is not peer reviewed, and has been thoroughly and completely discredited, many times over. The article presents no methodology. And, similar studies by other researches cite numbers ranging between insignificant to a couple percent. This article fails all four tests, miserably.
Same Crap
@1EqualityUSA: Newsflash! People who don’t believe in equality of all humankind have served and fought in all wars since the revolution up until the current wars. The are called racists and sexists.
And the notion that gay men and women will overwhelm and break down the doors to recruitment centers all across the country when DADT is repealed is based on what exactly?
Ricky
Soldiers cannot just “quit” the military… LOL! This makes it sound soooo easy but it is sooooo not.
A now confused John from England
@Chip: ‘butts off’ lol!
christopher di spirito
World Net Daily? Are you kidding me? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
ousslander
@Jill: So nice that you make such a great living that you can hate on the men adn women who for whatever reason put themselves on the line defending this country and its interest. Sucha snob!
MIlitary personel can’t just up and quit. They might not re-enlist but most soldiers aren’t retained for multiple tours.Of course they don’t reenlist as Jill thinks because they want to go work for dunkin donuts and join the klan,
Fitz
Of course, if you confidentially give people the option to be bigots, you are going to get results like this or worse. It’s like asking people in a very white area if they would move if black people started moving in. See.. this is why LEADERSHIP is so important, and why there is so much justifiable anger with the Obama administration.
Ricky
Wow! Jill! Nice generalizing there. You are just as bad as the biggots against us! I can’t speak for everyone else but I don’t want your voice being confused for mine. I most certainly don’t want you on my team.
spindoc
Oh please, World net daily also tried to say that only about 200 people showed up for the gay march on Washington nd used phony picture to try to back that claim, where and how was this poll taken.
romeo
You can get any results you want on a poll if you are selective in choosing your respondents. Even when you try to be representative, as legitimate polltakers do, the results are still going to be skewed and relatively worthless in any substantive way. And “World Net Daily” would be the MOST selective in choosing respondents. Puhleeeeeze. LOL
Arsen
Okay, so they won’t want to continue serving. They’re going to quit? How exactly? They can refuse to sign up again when their term is up, but they can’t leave. When you join, you are government property. I was only able to get out either by having a medical problem, committing a crime, or using the DADT policy. Guess which one I did?
Stevie
Ooooh, let’s all focus on “they can’t quit”.
Well, dudes, they’ll just fail to re-enlist.
Have YOU ever worked in a real military environment?
You are ass-to-ass with a lot of men with no escape.
When gays are allowed to serve openly, will they have their own clubs? Yes.
Will they attempt to form a small sub-group within the main group? Yes.
Is that destructive in a military environment? Yes.
Ousslander
@Stevie: Yes, i have. Have you?
Soldiers already form their subgroups. Were there clubs on base that catered to black soldiers? Yes. The same for white soldiers with country or rock nights. Then there were clubs thar were mixed. People automatically gorm sub groups wether based on race, religion, hobbies or whatever brings them together.
nate house
It would void the contract. Military would have to have everyone sign a new contract.