[stream provider=sound img=x:/www.queerty.com/wp/docs/2010/02/Duncan_D._Hunter.jpg flv=x:/tgpride.net/Audio/20100202_atc_RepDucanHunter_DADT.mp3 embed=true share=true width=650 height=200 dock=true controlbar=over skin=dangdang.swf bandwidth=med autostart=false /]
We always have a hard time understanding the argument, from folks supporting Donât Ask Donât Tell, that repealing the policy would somehow infringe on unit cohesiveness and would destabilize the military, because soldiers arenât ready for their gay and lesbian comrades to serve openly, when the desires and wishes of soldiers have never been a part of military policy. Itâs always about what is best for national security, not making troops feel comfortable. Which is why we understood the flurry of angry tweets when California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter went on NPR yesterday and railed against gays in the military.
And also: âhermaphroditesâ and âtransgenders.â
Says a person American people actually voted to put in office: âI think that its bad for the cohesiveness and the unity of the military units, especially those that are in close combat, that are in close quarters in country right now. Its not the time to do it. I think its â the military is not civilian life. And I think the folks who have been in the military that have been in these very close situations with each other, there has to be a special bond there. And I think that bond is broken if you open up the military to transgenders, to hermaphrodites, to gays and lesbians.â
He continued: âYeah, I think that the majority of people in the military are theyâre young kids. They usually have more conservative families, more conservative backgrounds and I think that it would go against their principles and it would frankly make everybody a little bit uneasy to be in these close situations, how you go into combat, you know, the shower situation, the bathroom situation, just, you know, very mundane details â things that we have men and women separated, you know, because we dont want to have that sexual distraction. That exists for the homosexual aspect of things, too.â
Rep. Hunter is a Vietnam War veteran. Heâs quoted as saying, âI didnât do anything special in the U.S. Army, but I served with very special soldiers I will never forget.â Undoubtedly, at some point during his â24 helicopter combat assaults,â for which he received a Bronze Star, he was serving alongside a homosexual. Or maybe, horror of horrors, even a âhermaphrodite.â UPDATE: The interview is with Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, the son of Duncan Sr., and who is a sitting congressman from California. We regret the error.
(Audio via)
Zack
Rep. Hunter is no longer an elected official, which you should make clear. His seat was won in 2008 by his son, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, who was on a segment during yesterday’s The Situation Room also criticizing DADT repeal. Looks like bigotry runs in the family.
alan brickman
This shows why our economy and other issues are such a total disaster….
Space Jesus
You say “people of color” don’t have a choice as if they would choose not to have color if given the option, while also insinuating hermaphrodites would choose something else as well. Disgusting!
JH
Hermaphrodites don’t exist. It’s physically impossible to be born with complete sets of both genitals. The correct term is intersex – which refers to a person born with some aspects of both sets of genitalia.
Barry
It’s lunatics like Hunter that would like to see this nation be a conservative Christian, theocracy.
And, it’s not just a few small herds of sheep living in trailer parks in fly-over country who feel this way.
The results of recent polling of Republicans about gays was chilling.
Fitz
There are just a few worms, and plants that are hermaphrodites. Using that term on a human is inaccurate and insulting. When a human is born with both sex organs it is called inter-sexed, and it is a serious, serious birth defect. In addition to the obvious, these folks suffer amazing medical problems especially around bone and joint development. Intersexed humans are 100% (yes, 100%) of the time infertile. Hermaphrodidic organisms can reproduce.
reluctantcommenter
ahhhh, hunter pulls out the classic conservative appeal to “logic” : “if you went to work for NPR, you don’t go to work and on the first day say hey, i want everyone to know that i’m gay. you probably don’t care one way or the other as long as they get their particular job done.”
who said anything about immediate declarations of sexuality? or declarations of anything, ever? lesbian and gay soldiers just want to be able to serve without fear of being discharged on the basis of something frivolous. they are getting their jobs done, and if anything, they probably wish everyone else cared a little less about their sexuality. not to mention, you probably could strut into NPR, announce your sexuality, and not be fired.
and per usual, hunter doesn’t actually face the reality that gays and lesbians are already serving in the military, without shower orgies, or rape, or ogling of other soldiers. that DADT isn’t solving any substantial problem, rather creating weaknesses through doubt, lies and institutionalized abuse and discrimination.
Cam
His bigotry is so ridiculous it’s beyond comprehension.
Nicky
As an Intersex person, currently in the US Military as a coast Guard Auxiliarist, they are currently banned from serving on Active duty, Reserve or even the National Guard. The closest thing that an Intersex person can do is serve in the Coast Guard Auxiliary or the US Air force Civil Air patrol. The US military bans intersex people not only on the gay issue, but also the medical issue as well because the military thinks that Intersex people will be a burden to them and to the military health care system. The only countries I know, that allow Intersex people openly in the Military is UK, Canada, Spain, Thailand and Israel.
I think Rep Hunter is screwed up and he mixed transgender people with Intersex people. For the Record, Intersex people are not transgender and Rep Hunter needs to go back and retake biology and genetics 101 again. Intersex is a medical condition and Intersex people have more medical issues than transgender people. Intersex people like myself get pissed when you see people like Rep Hunter calling intersex people trans, when in reality, Intersex people are not trans and intersex people have medical issues.
LooseCannon
Damm he’s hot. I’d do him, even if I were a hermaphrodite.
christopher di spirito
What a moron.
Just more proof that if all the Republicans in Washington pooled their IQ cells they would still total less than the temperature in my house at any given moment.
Just flush them all.
Ritorna
So they want men in the military to have a “special bond”, but they don’t want it to be too special. And if Transgendered are able to serve openly in the military, then there will be nothing stopping them from marrying themselves. Ok. Now I understand why Republicans suffer so much from dementia. They never use what little brains they have.
meloncollar
Well, since this world and all of its possibilities belong to all of us…why couldnt they?
Why are striaght men the golden children? fuck.
Dionte
The articles on here are depressing, they take all my gay away. I’m gonna have to stop following queerty on twitter.
B Damion
“hermaphrodites” do not have a choice about the way they were born, just like people of color.
??????….WHAT IN THE CRACKER..VANILLA..LIGHT MILK PLEASE..WONDER BREAD…SHEET OF COPY PAPER.. HELL IS THIS SHIT?
Who the hell says shit like this. Lmaooo..i can’t I can’t go on I’m too missed off.
Cam
In 2006, as he was preparing for his successful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, McCain told an audience at Iowa State University that “the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.”
Isn’t it funny that now that McCain is being challanged from the right in his home state primary he is claiming that we shouldn’t listen to the joint sheifs opinion that DADT should be repealed.
Devon
Who knew Billy Zane’s little brother was such a douche?
dan j
@Nicky:
Thanks. I knew some but not all of that, and many of us aren’t clear on the details of what intersex really means.
The true purpose of DADT is to accommodate prejudice and maintain the cultural taboo. There is no good reason to discriminate.
Manuel
Gee, why would the issue of hermaphrodites, “intersexed” and cross-dressers come up in a discussion of whether gay people can serve in the military? Why would Duncan Hunter make a connection b/t gay soldiers and hermaphrodites?
Oh, I know! It is because a few PC idiots in the gay community decided 10 years ago that it would be a great idea to rename ourselves LGBT, so now the whole world can connect us with any number of gender variant behaviors and gender identity disorders, thus undoing 3 decades of public education. Hunter is obviously a fool for many reasons, but no one can fault him for taking LGBT at face value. If we want to publicly associate ourselves with every bizarre form of gender expression, then it is fair game for our opponents to point it out.
The bigger point is how the concept of LGBT is an insult to the gay men and women who are serving and who have to battle against the stereotype that they are something other than men or women. LGBT is a slap in their face and a boost to every homophobe who says that gay men really want to be women.
Same Crap
@Manuel: The transphobia of presumably gay men like you is common, but no less appalling.
JohnnyCock
@Same Crap: I’m sorry, but in my book, trannies are not gay. Are you one Manuel? Then I don’t want to be identified with you.
tjr101
What a dump pic of him. Quite appropriate.
The House Republicans just keep the idiocy coming don’t they? Just imagine what will happen if these fools take back the House of Representatives this fall. It will be more constitutional amendments to dehumanize people the right-wingers don’t consider “normal.”
The problem is they think only reading the bible is good enough education. If you do have a formal education you’re a socialist, marxist, elitist. There are vast portions of the American populace that think like this. No wonder we have had so many conservative presidents and the country is so screwed up.
Ugh… will the Repugnant party ever change, don’t hold your breath.
Same Crap
@tjr101: And don’t forget impeachment. A large percentage of the increasingly deranged, angry and divorced from reality neanderthal Republican base wants to see Obama impeached. For what? Who the heck knows?
Manuel
@Same Crap:
Great name. It describes you well. Anyhoo, your argument is that if someone says “I am not X” that really means “I hate/fear X.” Therefore, I hereby declare you Canadian. If you deny it, then you hate Canadians. You bigot!
Same Crap
@Manuel: Any advocacy for the rights of a group often involves coalition building. You are uncomfortable that the “Ts” are part of the LGBT coalition. You stated it yourself. You are not lesbian either, I presume. Are you bi? Does it matter? Do they not belong in the coalition as well?
You didn’t just say you aren’t trans. You said you don’t want them under your umbrella. That’s kinda bigoted. Typical of many, many gay men, but still bigoted.
Manuel
@Same Crap:
Do you understand the difference between coalition and self-identification? A coalition is an alliance of different groups to fight on a single issue or set of issues. In that regard, gays are in a coalition with traditional civil rights groups, labor, the Democratic Party, pro-choicers, etc. But we don’t define gayness by reference to any of these groups and we don’t include them in the name of our community. Transgenders certainly are a coalition partner on certain issues. But that is not enough for them and for the PC crowd. No, nothing less than a complete identification of gayness with transgenderism will satisfy them. And anyone who objects is a “transphobe”. This has consequences. The world will take us at our word and conclude that gays are essentially the same as drag queens and hermaphrodites. That is simply a lie.
As I noted above, just because you say “I am not X” doesn’t mean that you hate or fear X. Well, neither I nor the vast majority of gays and lesbians are transgendered and we shouldn’t be called that just to satisfy a clique of dumb politically correct leaders.
jason
If now is not the time to lift the ban, when is it? This is something that Duncan Hunter needs to answer. He sounds like those who resisted the black civil rights movement. Just go back to that era and you’ll see that the arguments against civil rights were very similar.
jason
Since most men are bisexual in their orientation, it kind of neutralizes Hunter’s concern about men lusting after each other. What you have now in the military is many bisexual men who aren’t fucking each other.
hephaestion
Duncan Hunter is just as dumb as they come.
terrwill
These lunatics just can’t stop spewing these clusterfucks of circular logic………
Same Crap
@Manuel: I understand it completely, but I don’t think you do. You don’t self-identify as trans, so you don’t want to be associated with the trans community. You call it dumb PC-ness, deviant or variant (which is really buying into the language of people who hate all of us). I don’t identify as lesbian or bi or trans, but I have no problem being associated with any of those. Which is the bigoted position?
Dasher
Rep. Hunter says there has to be a “special bond” between the men who serve in the military. Now that’s special.
But what about the many women who serve in the military? Why can’t they have a “special bond” between them?
Does this mean the Congressman is sexist too, on top of everything else?
And since there are no intersex in the active duty military, why is he bringing that up?
And I didn’t know there were any transgenders in the military, either pre-op or post-op…is the Congressman referring to anyone in particular that he knows?
Bayonet
I dont want no fucking trannies serving in the armed forces, Jesus Christ, just what we need, drag parties in the barracks! No, trannies are not like gay men, sorry. They’re just fucked up in the head.
$0.02
Actually Fitz you are incorrect in SOME of what you posted. Intersexed is an umbrella term for various conditions with varying degrees of intersexuality if you will. Everything from Klinefelter’s syndrome to Androgen insensitivity syndrome (which has about seven different stages to the disease in which a person can be born) to Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (another condition with different degrees of stages in which a person can be born). All, even many, intersexed persons are not born sterile. With some conditions such as AIS and CAH to name just a couple of examples, depending on the state in which the affected person was born, some can be partially to fully fertile. Some conditions of intersexuality are very serious as you pointed out. And some are born living very “normal” (whatever that is) healthy lives as fully functioning happy people. Some intersexed folks are fully functioning people, they just have ambiguous genitals like a fertile man born with genitals that looks female or a woman fully functioning born with a large clitoris (the female equivalent of the penis, they look alike, the clitoris functions almost exactly alike and are made of the exact same tissue only the clitoris has double the nerve endings as the penis). Also, you would have to factor in the endocrine system where someone can be born a fully functioning male or female and just exhibit the hormones of the opposite sex as males and females secrete all of the same hormones, again at differing degrees. So, one cannot throw the word “INTERSEXED” at every single intersexed condition and assume every single intersexed person is the same, has the same type of body and suffers. That’s just not true. This is spoken from a trained biologist/chemist who has done much scholarship and research in this area so please give me a little credit to what I just wrote đ .
$0.02
@32, Trans men and women are not f****d up in the head as you say. They are just different from you. Like you are different from a staright man. I’d have to say as a Gay man you should know better than to attack a group that is different from you just because they are different. How is what you’re doing better than what is done to us?
Manuel
@Same crap:
As I said twice before, it is not “bigoted” to say that you are not a member of group X. “I am not Canadian. I am not a Catholic. I am not disabled.” – does not mean I hate Canadians, Catholics and disabled people. If you think that’s bigotry, then you are morally confused, and of course, a bigot b/c you don’t identify yourself as a member of every group on the planet Earth.
Also, I never used the word “deviant”. The fact that you have to make things up in order to try to rebut me shows that you have no real argument. I did use the term gender variant, but that is a term that trans activists use all the time. That is where I first heard it. I have never heard any right-winger or “transphobe” use that terminology.
Zoe Brain
Manuel – so you’re a lesbian? Or do you want them expelled from GLB too? Because, you know, they’re different from you.
Rob Moore
Hunter is quite pretty. He might have even had a special friend from grade school; however, none of that makes up for his highly advanced ignorance. Perhaps, he inherited the stupid gene from his daddy, or his daddy was exposed to Agent Orange.
He is merely a reflection of the ignoramouses who elected him in the first place. Conservatives get elected when they face a mostly ignorant group of voters.
San Francisco Treat
@ Manuel – I think it’s great that you are trying to walk back your original post, but that post was transphobic at first by implication and then explicitly. Let me help.
You said, “It is because a few PC idiots in the gay community decided 10 years ago that it would be a great idea to rename ourselves LGBT, so now the whole world can connect us with any number of gender variant behaviors and gender identity disorders, thus undoing 3 decades of public education […].”
This is implicitly transphobic because you describe the PR branding of the community with an inclusive “T” as 1) idiotic, 2) connecting LGB people with “any number” of gender variant behaviors, 3) and the same with “gender identity disorders” and 4) counterprogressive. You are effectively saying, “don’t group me in with THOSE people because they have disorders and will slow down me getting what I want.” That’s transphobic.
EXPLICITLY, you said “The bigger point is how the concept of LGBT is an insult to the gay men and women who are serving and who have to battle against the stereotype that they are something other than men or women. LGBT is a slap in their face and a boost to every homophobe who says that gay men really want to be women.” Here you are saying it is INSULTING for LGB people to be associated with T people. And that, frankly, is offensive. I think you could benefit from some more education on this issue. You seem to disown bigotry, but your comment clearly runs counter to that aspiration.
PageAda20
One acknowledges that today’s life seems to be not very cheap, however different people require cash for different stuff and not every man gets enough money. Therefore to receive quick loans or just sba loan would be a right solution.
McMike
This guy is such an idiot. The last part of his BS interview was “let’s see what this long year study shows us.” What a friggin moron since that study showed our military members don’t care. Imagine that….
paul
@Manuel: Well, as soon as I thought that we, as gay people, had achieved a certain level of common sense…along comes Manuel…making it clear to me that not all gay people have good sense & good taste. Some of us are just plain idiots too!! Thanks for setting me straight Manuel.
blake
we should have fags in the army. send them to the front lines and let them die instead of important people.
curiouscat
Why don’t they just ban transphobes and homophobes from service?