Don't Ask Don't Tell going Away? How do you feel

Originally Posted by perna

I have no idea how you can guess at the age of someone by word choice or sentence structure. I have no idea what you are judging my reasoning by, or why you think I am naive.

I still stand by my statement that most of the people opposed to this are older than I am. With your cranky, intolerant posts which lack any resemblance of humor I would guess your age to be 65.

I'm sixty five and, after reading your posts, I doubt you've reached puberty yet.

I live in a conservative rural area in north Georgia and I've raised two sons. One of which is in school, tracking to be an Army officer. I'm very interested in this and have been tracking this topic for years. I've no empirical proof but my sense is that these rural conservative 17-21 years olds who I have been around for years could hardly care less who is gay and who isn't.

My primary concern is that whichever policy is in effect - it doesn't screw up this incredibly capable Force that our country has amassed. I just don't know with certainty, which policy could hurt the Force more.

If DADT is officially repealed, then I hope there are tight rules regarding "professional" conduct around this. Because "acting out" won't be good for anyone. I also fear some fine soldiers could be ruined careerwise for trivial horsing around comments or behavior if a tidal wave of PC follows a policy change.

Originally Posted by THE FROG

I'm sixty five and, after reading your posts, I doubt you've reached puberty yet.

That makes sense, since at your age you consider guys in their 50's as "young guys".

Belmont31R. You're entitled to your opinion but I see some logical fallacies in your statement.

I agree with you that we're way too PC and that some women try to use their gender to get out of work. Women that get pregnant to avoid deploying should, in my opinion, be chaptered out or face UCMJ. Women and fatties are kept out of combat arms units because physical fitness is directly related to survivability. Women, in general, aren't as physically strong as men when it comes to carrying a 120lb ruck and people that don't meet APFT standards can't keep up with the rest. Drug addicts are a liability so they're out too. It's all related to unit readiness and survivability.

So anyway with that out of the way we're left with "the majority of the military is made up of white males from conservative states which traditionally are not very accepting of gays." At one time blacks weren't allowed to serve in most units for the same reason, was that right? If someone is professional and physically able to do their job is someone else's bigotry a valid reason for barring them?

In fact, in my unit, which happens to be combat arms, the general attitude is "it's a free country". Most guys, myself included, are grossed out by the thought of gay sex but if it's not in front me then I don't really care. If a gay person can come to work and not bang anyone in front of the formation then it's not going to be disruptive. If members of the unit choose to make it a disruption then it's their issue, and them making the disruption. Furthermore, I think would-be gay recruits know what they're getting themselves into and are presumably willing to accept some social hardship. Like I said before, if a hate crime is committed, then it should be punished under UCMJ just like it is now. That's nothing new.

The most important thing is readiness. In my first post I wrote about gay soldiers being chaptered out. If I'm in an infantry squad and they boot my terp for being gay has that helped or hurt my squad's readiness? That's the issue the proposed legislation addresses, not social engineering by some pro-gay conspiracy.

Well said. I would add more but belmont is just going to come back with "but women and men dont shower together" so it would be pointless.

I'm Nick the Newbie around here so I hope I don't get stomped on too hard for opining here, but I just had a couple points to bring up- I'm honestly undecided about DADT and before a couple days ago didn't really think it was that big a deal until we had an enlisted PME where one of our senior enlisted asked us "what if they decide to get married? Is the Chaplain required to perform the ceremony?" and "What about base housing afterwards? Do you think they rate it, and would they be mixed right in with 'traditional' families?" His questions were greeted with a bunch of blank looks as most of us hadn't thought about this yet. But that was his point, this could be a pretty big can of worms and even though you personally don't have a problem serving with gays, there are a lot of things to consider. And you better start figuring out how to handle these problems if the policy changes.

As far as I know gay marriage isnt recognized by anyone, so that is not even an issue.

Originally Posted by mkmckinley

Belmont31R. You're entitled to your opinion but I see some logical fallacies in your statement.

I agree with you that we're way too PC and that some women try to use their gender to get out of work. Women that get pregnant to avoid deploying should, in my opinion, be chaptered out or face UCMJ. Women and fatties are kept out of combat arms units because physical fitness is directly related to survivability. Women, in general, aren't as physically strong as men when it comes to carrying a 120lb ruck and people that don't meet APFT standards can't keep up with the rest. Drug addicts are a liability so they're out too. It's all related to unit readiness and survivability.

So anyway with that out of the way we're left with "the majority of the military is made up of white males from conservative states which traditionally are not very accepting of gays." At one time blacks weren't allowed to serve in most units for the same reason, was that right? If someone is professional and physically able to do their job is someone else's bigotry a valid reason for barring them?

In fact, in my unit, which happens to be combat arms, the general attitude is "it's a free country". Most guys, myself included, are grossed out by the thought of gay sex but if it's not in front me then I don't really care. If a gay person can come to work and not bang anyone in front of the formation then it's not going to be disruptive. If members of the unit choose to make it a disruption then it's their issue, and them making the disruption. Furthermore, I think would-be gay recruits know what they're getting themselves into and are presumably willing to accept some social hardship. Like I said before, if a hate crime is committed, then it should be punished under UCMJ just like it is now. That's nothing new.

The most important thing is readiness. In my first post I wrote about gay soldiers being chaptered out. If I'm in an infantry squad and they boot my terp for being gay has that helped or hurt my squad's readiness? That's the issue the proposed legislation addresses, not social engineering by some pro-gay conspiracy.

Jesus Christ. Being gay is not the same thing as being black.


Like I already said TWICE now if they keep it down low, and don't make an issue out of it they will probably be ok but it wont be easy.


If they are flamboyant, and prance around the barracks in assless chaps and pink bunny slippers then they are in for a world of hurt.


What I mainly disagree with, and the vast majority of straight males do as well, is the shower/barracks issue. No one on the other side of the argument has come close to coming up with an answer to this besides hinting that gays and straight males should just shower and room together.


I too do not care what people do in their own homes. I dont care if people **** each other in the butt, smoke pot all day, inject heroin into their arms, whatever. Just don't force your shit onto other people. Don't inject your gay lifestyle into straight people's lives by expecting them to take showers with you, and share a barracks room. Don't expect them to be accepting of being gay when you are flamboyant about it. Is this really that hard?

Don't inject your gay lifestyle into straight people's lives by expecting them to take showers with you, and share a barracks room.

Please explain how showering or sleeping in the same room is injecting their lifestyle into straight people, unless this is your way of insinuating the whole gay rape thing again.

We have already established that there have been and will continue to be gays in the military, and they have been and will continue to shower and sleep in the same room as straight people whether this is changed or not. So what is the difference?

this thread was highly interesting for several pages.. the last three pages or so have been pretty redundant.

how about this:

what, exactly, is wrong with DADT, and what exactly is the benefit of changing it?