Today at the Pentagon, some 350 “rank-and-file” soldiers assembled into an auditorium for a town hall meeting on what’s in store for the future — in ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Amazingly, none of the soldiers ran out of the room screaming “It’s going to make the terrorists stronger!”
“Attendees of the Tuesday session said that one female Marine stated that bunking with a lesbian would be the same as being told to share a room with a man,” relays the AP. “A soldier said he didn’t want to wade into the political debate and that he would follow orders. Another service member asked if a gay service member who gets married — now forbidden under law — would receive military family benefits. At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.”
Know what that means? At least half of those troops would be negatively impacted in the military cleaned house of gay soldiers. And that’s a conservative estimate.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
BLAH BLAH BLAH.
And the game to run out the clock until after the midterm elections buzzer sounds on Nov. 2nd and any chances of repeal are dead goes on and on and on.
When do we hear from all those straight wives scared their men might like a walk on the wild side? Do their tater tots get a vote, too? And how about the latest group Secretary of DEFENSE OF DADT Gates said must also be polled: straight military “influencers”…whoever the Hell those are?
But why should gays care that they’re being discussed like potential insect infestations and all Americans care that their tax dollars are going to pay for Pentagon Study #4,328?
[img]http://secondclasscitizens.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/obama_fail.jpg[/img]
ktbisl32
And if gays were allowed to serve openly in the military I bet no one in that room would have their hand down. Harvey Milk said coming out is the best political thing for gays to do. I wonder if there were any “rank and file” gay soldiers in the room. Out of 350, surely there was one.
B
QUEERTY: “At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.” “Know what that means?”
What is means is that about 1/2 of them were so unconcerned about whether the people they worked with were gay that they were completely oblivious about it.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.”
At which point, the moderator should have said, that’s good enough for me. Tell Secretary of DEFENSE OF DADT Gates that we don’t need to do anymore “studying” and to go back to Congress and tell them to repeal NOW.
The kids will be all right.
Truth B. Told
Hmmmm…Imagine, if you will, that instead of GLBT we substitute another group — say, how about Jews or some other difficult to discern ethnic or religious group, or any non-mainstream political group — and then you have a conclave of enlisted men and women gathered to discuss how they feel about said group. Of course, the object of their discussion [that is, the group in question that is the actual one being persecuted and oppressed] is not even invited to speak out concerning their own persecution and oppression lest they face further oppression and persecution — along with an inevitable discharge as the ultimate reward for their unwavering patriotism.
Ahhhh yes, American “fair-play” at its best.
Yep, sounds like just another typical dumb-ass, amoral American way of making a douchebag of its arrogant self once again before the eyes of an indifferent world.
I wonder how well that would have worked out in the late 1940’s when Truman desegregated the US military? How about excluding those victims of discrimination and ask only the discriminators about their precious little feelings on letting some minority in their club, and how that might impact their delicate little lives for better or worse. Oh, and of course, don’t let the Black soldiers even have a voice in how institutionalized bigotry had affected their lives.
But, in this case it’s different — hey, they’re just queers. They don’t have real feelings. It’s not like race or religion; it’s not like they can’t help being who they are. Besides that, being a heterosexual man might not any longer be all that special if a gay man can do the same job as good as you — and maybe even better.
I smell a rat, and the rat is thinking: “Maybe we should just try to run out the clock on this one? That’s what the Big “O” really wants anyway.”
…God, this country SUCKS!!!
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
NEXT UP:
“Pentagon Will Assemble Military Wives & Their Children to Ask: Are You Afraid Homosexuals Will Rape Your Husbands and Fathers and Give Them AIDS?'”
CNN will broadcast live.
Jason
@B: At least 35. And if you count heteroflexible servicemembers, many more.
DR
So one woman out of 350 people expressed concern over being sexualized. One person asked about the logistics of providing benefits to partners, and one said “I’ll follow orders”. A full 50% served with folks they believed to be gay.
But not one said that they wouldn’t serve with an openly gay person, and not one said it’s had a negative impact on troop morale to have a gay person around.
We’re in pretty good shape when it comes to the rank-and-file soldiers, I think.
gomez
oh look, queerty thinks it’s using “fags” ironically again.
yeah i’m done. bookmark deleted
Steve
You have to wonder about the methodology. It is very odd that they would have a meeting to ask such questions.
If you actually want frank and truthful answers, you usually get them by conducting a poll with a guarantee of anonymity. Sometimes researchers use individual interviews. But there is always a guarantee of anonymity. There has to be a reason why they choose to have a meeting, without anonymity.
I suspect they used the meeting format specifically to suppress support for gays, and to encourage the anti-gay bigots to speak out. Clearly, no gay people could afford to speak out at the meeting, when they could have answered truthfully to an anonymous poll. And clearly, any anti-gay bigotry that might be expressed at a meeting could reinforce and encourage further similar statements.
This appears to have been a blatant attempt to “rig” the “research”.
It seems they got a surprise. The anti-gay feelings among the troops are considerably less than the “researcher” wanted to find. Even a blatant attempt to “rig” the methodology, failed to obtain the desired results.