I won't get into a debate about whether or not homosexuality is a choice because it is a vexed issue and I doubt that the US Board on SP is the place where we will get the most informed discussion about it. What I will say is so what if it is a choice? For a place where a bunch of guys who prattle on about freedom so much there seems to be a pretty poor understanding here that freedom means allowing people their choices, so long as they don't harm others, whether you like them or not.

If being gay is a choice then it is no less legitimate a choice than you being catholic is. Do you want somebody to tell you that you can join the military but that you aren't allowed to be open about the faith that you follow, because some bigotted arsehole in another more dominant religion might get offended? I'd say that since the US military is there to protect you (as it is to protect gay Americans) and since you pay the taxes to keep it running (as do gay Americans) then you would feel rightly miffed if that was the case. So should Gays and they shouldn't be subject to such an injustice.

 

This concern that you have about gays taking unjustified legal action about promotions and costing people their careers completely misses the point. If this has indeed happened with other groups such as women in the past, then that is an indication that there is a problem with the military justice system. It is that problem that needs to be fixed, rather than denying an entire group justice because the military justice system is screwed. Are you going to make the argument that women should never have been allowed into the military because the military justice system is stuffed? What about blacks, I suppose a few of them have sued on this basis as well so are you going to say that it would have been easier and more convenient for them to deny them access to military jobs at all? Its an absolutely preposterous suggestion for those two groups and it is for gays as well.

 

Finally, how many gay people do you actually know? I've known quite a few and they generally don't go around "queening" or "dyking" it up. Quite the opposite, they are so used to biggotted arseholes giving them a hard time that they are very cautious about whom they tell about their sexuality and are very discrete in the way that they interact with their partners in public. If you think that gays in the military are going to be hanging around the mess in pink hotpants and fishnet singlets if the DADT policy is canned, then I'd suggest that you are worrying a bit too much. Getting rid of it is as much as anything a step towards letting people in the military know that even they have have to get over any homophobia they harbour, just like people in every other workplace in civilised countries have had to.  

Sentinel, I don't think being gay is about choices. You just get it up and your juices flowing better thinking about people of your own gender. I know lot of gay men, including my little bro, and none has made a decision to become one (for some reason these things get discussed after enough consumed brew). Some of them have spent few years in a relatonship with a woman and wondered what all the fuss was about. I believe traits like liking to take it up the bummy develop at such a young age that no conscious choice gets to be made. Why would one want to choose something that difficult anyway? Merely getting your prostate rubbed regularly is no trade-off for all the difficulties homosexuals have to face even in modern society.

 

Ah, there was another point I was thinking of and here it goes! Men of war, as I understand, tend to be rather forgiving about sexual preferences. Men that spend years in trenches don't get too picky in where they get their pressure relief. The phenomenon occurs in prolonged conflicts, in total war. The Finnish field army in WW2 had this three year peaceful stage between the attack phase of summer -41 and defencive phase in summer -44. Men who experienced that were quietly very tolerant of all kinds of sexual behavior. "Who's your captain, who's your captain!?" Rapes being a whole different issue naturally.

 

Things like this were typically something men didn't talk much about afterwards. What happened in eastern Carelia, stays in eastern Carelia. It's the peacetime soldiers that have time and energy to think of these issues. If you can depend on someone with your life and regularly do, you really don't care whether the person in question likes to bend over to the squad machine gunner every now and then. It is simply irrelevant. I'm not saying we had a gay army back then, Finnish army is just the only one I've read about regarding this particular phenomenon.

 

US armed forces is such a huge institution and has so much non-combat personnell that being openly gay quite naturally is an issue.  For some reason I did like the DADT -rule. It was equally fair to everyone, simply taking sexual preferences out of equation, be it gay or straight. They have absolutely nothing to do with fighting abilites so they shouldn't belong there either.

 

With one exception though: DADT -rule should apply to straight people also. No showing girlfriend pictures or talking about getting laid. None. It's an unfair situation where one guy can brag about getting some quality time with a nice lady, and the other can't tell how soft&tasty buttcheeks Tim Williams from 2nd Platoon has. Equal rules. That's all.

 

Mikko

Winston Churchill understood the role of homosexuality as a factor in the maintenance of the British Empire.  Several variations are quoted about his take on what it took to endure life abort ship and the preeminence of the British navy; gin, sodomy and the lash. 

 

Talk about making a "virtue of a necessity," and "any port in a storm."