Obama to sign law ending military gay ban

[Darias]

.


Finally...


DADT is repealed.

And it was done so via Congress - not via the courts.

And it was done with a Republican dominated House.

It will take a while before the policy goes into action, but at least it's there.

I didn't expect this to ever happen after the results of the November election.

Now the U.S. can join the rest of the world... finally.


Questions for debate:

1.) How do you feel about this?

2.) What effect do you think it will have on our military (will it look like Israel's or any of the other many countries who have equality in their armed forces? Or will it have negative repercussions?).

[East of Eden]

Would you and/or East of Eden please acknowledge and address the fact that DADT is a discriminatory policy that targets only minority sexualities? This is a key part of the issue! If the policy was that no one is allowed to talk about it, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Will you acknowledge when one chooses to join the military you forfeit certain rights?

Would you acknowledge it is very uncomfortable to force people to for instance, shower with people who are openly potentially sexually attracted to them? To be consistent here, in the name of equality why not force female soldiers to shower with men? If they don't like it, tough. Do you want to shower with Flitzerbeist?

[LiamOS]

But why should homosexuals have to give up further rights?

[cnorman18]

MODERATOR COMMENT

You can argue any case you want. What is absurd is that you wish to protest when people see bias and discrimination in your reasoning. You want to take a stand against equal rights? Fine, but you better be willing to accept the fact that readers are going to call you on it.

I agree with WinePusher, stop the smears and start debating the merits of this decision. I'm still waiting for an answer to my question of how this will improve the military. When you join the military, you give up a lot of rights, such as your freedom of speech.

To follow up on Micatala's comment; since flitzerbiest's remarks were clearly directed at the arguments here -- "when people see bias and discrimination in your reasoning" -- and not at the characteristics of the person making them, those remarks ARE concerned with "debating the merits of this decision" and cannot properly be termed "smears." Making that claim might be considered a personal attack itself; be careful here. There is such a thing as personal attack, which is prohibited here, but there is such a thing as being too quick to take offense as well.

[micatala]

Would you and/or East of Eden please acknowledge and address the fact that DADT is a discriminatory policy that targets only minority sexualities? This is a key part of the issue! If the policy was that no one is allowed to talk about it, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Will you acknowledge when one chooses to join the military you forfeit certain rights?

Whether anyone else does or does not, I would acknowledge this.

However, I think it has been pointed out that this is not the point.

One point is that only a minority is being asked to give up their rights.

The second is that the policy does not apply simply to behavior, but to orientation, in other words, who the person identifies themselves as.

Would it be OK to say to, say, Mormons that "you can be in the military, but you cannot acknowledge you are Mormon." Would it be OK to have a policy which throws Mormons out due to others providing information that they are Mormon?


Finally, one has to ask why a particular right should be given up to be part of the military or anything else. Is there a legitimate military reason for the DADT policy? It seems that the data indicates, primarily at least, no, and the negative aspects that might occur are due primarily to perceived prejudice. However much people object to the analogy, one has to point out that this is like the racial situation in the mid 20th century. One could make the same arguments against allowing blacks in the military as are now being made about gays (save the showering issue).

Would you acknowledge it is very uncomfortable to force people to for instance, shower with people who are openly potentially sexually attracted to them?

I can see some people being uncomfortable. However, it must be pointed out that gays have been in the military for at least decades, and the DADT policy allows them to be so as long as it is in secret. So, people have been showering in front of others who might be attracted to them for a long time now. I fail to see how keeping the DADT policy solves this "problem."

To be consistent here, in the name of equality why not force female soldiers to shower with men? If they don't like it, tough. Do you want to shower with Flitzerbeist?

First off, I think the "force" terminology is not appropriate, both because this is already happening and because people volunteered to join the military, and as you have pointed out, they give up some rights in doing so.

Secondly, notice you are only considering this one way. One might say it is the gay soldiers who are being forced to shower with people they might be attracted to, and that they would rather not be put in that situation.

However, I would grant this is a comparison that is legitimate to bring up. We could, for example, create "gay showers" as a way to address this.

I guess we have to ask, why do we have to solve this problem now when we have been dealing with it just fine it seems for decades? Why does the "gays don't have to keep their orientation secret" all of a sudden create a problem when there does not seem to have been a problem before? Note that this question could not be asked in the context of the male/female showering situation.

[McCulloch]

Of course when one chooses to join the military, certain rights are forfeit. But only those rights which are necessary for the effective completion of their duties. The reasoning about showers, merely exposes a prudish attitude. If shared showering facilities are unavoidable, then I would expect that soldiers would be able to focus on the task at hand, getting clean, even if the facility had to be shared with personnel of different genders or sexual orientations. If soldiers cannot handle the necessary occasional nudity of others without sexualizing it, then perhaps they are not fit to serve.

[flitzerbiest]

Would you and/or East of Eden please acknowledge and address the fact that DADT is a discriminatory policy that targets only minority sexualities? This is a key part of the issue! If the policy was that no one is allowed to talk about it, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Will you acknowledge when one chooses to join the military you forfeit certain rights?

Would you acknowledge it is very uncomfortable to force people to for instance, shower with people who are openly potentially sexually attracted to them? To be consistent here, in the name of equality why not force female soldiers to shower with men? If they don't like it, tough. Do you want to shower with Flitzerbeist?

I generally assume that people shower to get clean rather than to get off, but perhaps I'm missing something here. As for making an example of me, I fail to see the relevance. I am not attracted to men, so the worst they would have to fear from me is that I would hog the mirror when the shower is over. But honestly, what is there to fear?

I have showered with several people who, I found out subsequently, were gay. I personally can't imagine that knowing this prospectively would have made any difference. I have attended a transgender medical conference where the bathrooms were all designated Gender Neutral. Most of the conference attendees were gender normative men and women (TG's are even rare at a TG conference--a minority's minority). I thought, perhaps, that it would be uncomfortable to use a bathroom with women I didn't know, but it was fairly obvious once I did that the point of the bathroom was still to eliminate waste. As a bonus, the facilities remained quite clean through two days of heavy use. Honestly, guys, do you have to pee on the floor?

We all know this to be true. Make a move on the missus with a glass of wine by the fireplace, and the odds look pretty good. Make a move while she's sitting on the porcelain throne, and you're just going to end up with a bruise on your shin and an earful about your rudeness.

Bottom line: traditional social boundaries are just that: social boundaries. They don't serve a moral function and they aren't potent deterrents against bad behavior. I am not saying that we need to lose these boundaries, but in the rare cases where they are suspended, sexual attraction doesn't throw the whole thing into a catastrophic tailspin.

[nygreenguy]

I agree with WinePusher, stop the smears and start debating the merits of this decision. I'm still waiting for an answer to my question of how this will improve the military. When you join the military, you give up a lot of rights, such as your freedom of speech.

I think the onus is on you to show how having the policy in place helps the military. Shouldnt the default be to give as much freedom as possible and only take away rights as necessary/needed?

Would you acknowledge it is very uncomfortable to force people to for instance, shower with people who are openly potentially sexually attracted to them?

They can kill together, but not shower together? There has always been gays in the military, and straights and gays have always showered together. How does knowing someone might be attracted to you (which is a bit insulting by itself) make it suddenly disgusting or uncomfortable?

If they don't like it, tough. Do you want to shower with Flitzerbeist?

Id shower with anyone. I played football with openly gay people and I shower at my gym with friends I know that are gay and I just dont care.

It seems like you are insinuating that gays want to go around and hump anything with a dick.

[East of Eden]

Would it be OK to say to, say, Mormons that "you can be in the military, but you cannot acknowledge you are Mormon." Would it be OK to have a policy which throws Mormons out due to others providing information that they are Mormon?

Red herring. Are there large numbers of military personel who say that about Mormons?

Finally, one has to ask why a particular right should be given up to be part of the military or anything else. Is there a legitimate military reason for the DADT policy?

According to many in the military, yes.

I can see some people being uncomfortable. However, it must be pointed out that gays have been in the military for at least decades, and the DADT policy allows them to be so as long as it is in secret.

In other words, DADT worked.

First off, I think the "force" terminology is not appropriate, both because this is already happening

Not with openly gay people.

and because people volunteered to join the military, and as you have pointed out, they give up some rights in doing so.

Secondly, notice you are only considering this one way. One might say it is the gay soldiers who are being forced to shower with people they might be attracted to, and that they would rather not be put in that situation.

However, I would grant this is a comparison that is legitimate to bring up. We could, for example, create "gay showers" as a way to address this.

That's an idea.

[Darias]

However, I would grant this is a comparison that is legitimate to bring up. We could, for example, create "gay showers" as a way to address this.

That's an idea.

I'd be uncomfortable showering in groups, no matter who'd be in there with me. I prefer to shower alone. Here's a thought, instead of making a "gay only" locker room for homosexual men and homosexual women, (which by the way would mirror the separate but equal segregation laws "whites only," "coloreds") -- how 'bout we just create individual stalls -- partitions if you will.

If that would be too expensive -- then just put up some plastic shower curtains.

That would create a sense of privacy and perhaps help to minimize any potential inappropriate behavior/speech by anyone: gay, straight, and bi.

[East of Eden]

However, I would grant this is a comparison that is legitimate to bring up. We could, for example, create "gay showers" as a way to address this.

That's an idea.

I'd be uncomfortable showering in groups, no matter who'd be in there with me. I prefer to shower alone. Here's a thought, instead of making a "gay only" locker room for homosexual men and homosexual women, (which by the way would mirror the separate but equal segregation laws "whites only," "coloreds") -- how 'bout we just create individual stalls -- partitions if you will.

If that would be too expensive -- then just put up some plastic shower curtains.

That would create a sense of privacy and perhaps help to minimize any potential inappropriate behavior/speech by anyone: gay, straight, and bi.

That makes sense to you and me, but I don't know if the military would go for it as their stated goal in boot camp, etc. is to take away any sense of individuality and make soldiers part of a team. The whole 'unit cohesion' thing.