Thanks for writing about this. As a gay servicemember it sure seems like DADT doesn't get the same kind of respect as an equality issue as marriage, employment, adoption, etc.

Thanks again.

"social conservatives have been wrong, all along, about everything, forever."

A-frickin'-men. Wouldn't it be great if one of the Dem pres candidates could stand up and say that?

Wouldn't it be great to have an actual dem pres?

People listen to social conservatives, because they speak in a manner that makes a particularly bigotry sound logical, an intellectual fig leaf. "I think man on man buttsex is gross," doesn't carry the same weight as, "I believe it would be detrimental to unit cohesion."

You are absolutely right Dan! Love this post! Thanks!

They should study history. Alexander the Great’s elite troops were all gay men in committed couple relationships. History indicates they were an effective military force.

People listen to social conservatives because most Americans are just like them: ignorant, hateful, hypocritical, illogical and self-contradictory. That’s the real Inconvenient Truth. A quick review of an American history book confirms that hypothesis, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. It’s especially appalling considering how out of step we are in relation to the rest of the Western world, such as Canada and Europe.

That said, there is no logical reason for gay men and lesbians to serve in the military. I get that people need job training and so forth, but we shouldn’t serve a right-wing kakistocracy like the US that hates us, condemns us and denies us equal rights.

I’ve read that as many as 40,000 healthy young gay men and lesbians would join the armed forces if DADT were repealed. Keeping the ban in place saves their lives and prevents them from becoming accomplices to this country’s lies and despicable war crimes.

ah, how little you understand the conservatives. while i am all in favour of civil dialogue, in some cases you have to frame the issue, or understand the what is at the root of it.

here are two (of many) examples of negative consequences some religious conservatives see:

1. slippery slope. if you let gays in the military, then government is accepting the homosexual lifestyle (whatever that means), which will lead to gay marriage, etc... they see each small step as leading to another small step. in this way they are correct.

2. unrelated disasters. if hurricane katrina and 911 can be blamed on some sin -- and people actually believe it -- then allowing gays to serve in the military will most certainly be linked to some other catastrophe.

you see, for many, the root issue is that if america pleases god, she will be blessed. but if america does not please god, she will be cursed. that is a primary motivation that probably shouldn't be overlooked.

@7 - I'm against the huge majority of what our military is doing in the world, and wouldn't join for a six-figure salary and all the Mighty-0 Donuts in the world, but that's my choice to make, and it should be any person's. There are plenty of gay people that want to serve their country in that way, and they should be allowed to.

good points original andrew. however, it's still not right to not allow someone to serve based on orientation. you might as well make the arguement there is no good reason for women to serve. or men for that matter!

"The Royal Navy ... has allowed gay sailors ... to march in full naval uniform at a gay pride rally in London."

Real gay sailors! Fuck yes! Go Britain!

#8 that's Fred Phelps argument already. God hates American because she is tolerant of the mo's.

Being gay is what kept me out of the Air Force. I really wanted that free college education, but couldn't see hiding myself for 8+ years.
Soon enough though, Bush will be gone, the policy will reverse, and I may be able to get a free gradutate education.

exactly! i've found that if you are talking with someone who seriously wants a theocracy, then there isn't much point in attempting to continue the rational dialog. you might try to talk to them about religious freedom (for all religions), or maybe demonstrate how even american's founding wasn't entirely christian or their denomination... but with that type of person you cannot argue gays in the military because the base logic is so far off.

#8, you are right. I would add though that the social conservatives also point to the many ills that we currently suffer from in America (crime, drug use, poverty) and say the reason we have these problems is because we allowed "_______" to happen, where "______" is integration, women's equality, etc. Note, I do not agree with these people, but the reason the rants of the social conservatives resonate with so many every time they choose to rant is because THEY believe it. And the Republican party, which thrives on fear, abets them every time. People like to say that the GOP succeeds by scaring us about terrorism. That is only part of it. A still very real part of it is pointing to all of the gays, the brown-skinned people and every other "different" group in the country and saying: "if you don't do this, these people will overrun us." It is clearly an effective tool.

The reason for most of these sorts of regulations is that a huge percentage of the people who serve in our armed forces are of the Devil-fearing baby-microwaving persuasion, and it is entirely reasonable to assume that, even if they could be restrained from committing hate crimes against queer soldiers, they might still fail to support them in combat.

This is sort of the inverse of another bit of conservative military philosophy, which is that women shouldn't be allowed to serve in combat. The IDF, which is generally very progressive about this kind of thing, has barred women from serving in combat since 1948 because they discovered that male soldiers would compromise combat operations in order to try and rescue wounded female soldiers. So the problem had nothing to do with whether or not women could fight-- it was about the fact that most Israeli soldiers are men of a certain sort, and that those men can't be trusted to serve effectively alongside women.

Or queers.

* obviously I'm not defending this, but I think the basic assumption is accurate and addressing it would require changes in our military system that would be much more far-reaching than the relatively simple question of allowing queers to serve.

Whenever a necessary social change is proposed, that change is resisted by social conservatives.

Funny thing: that's why they're called 'conservatives'. The word conservative in itself means a slow resistance to change, even a fear of change or doing things differently. It is life through predictable status quo.

Also, I love how it took 16 comments before someone mentioned that obvious fact, given so many of you were too busy foaming at the mouth with the usual left-wing wank.

And most likely the Social conservatives are going to blame the Cicada( insect brood generation XIII) Brood as some Biblical revelation come to pass. Scientific fact, not just Scientific social issues, which proves that the way things are is just the way things should be, don't mess with mother nature and humans humanity to just fade away. To all conservatives out there and the Nihilists as well, we completed the human evolution and I guess unbeknowedst to you all, we have succeeded where your gods have failed.
Welcome to the 21 st century America. Don't get left behind.

Here's the thing.

They aren't always wrong. They are in this case clearly as the issue of gay soldiers wasn't an issue at all in WW1 and WW2.

They were right when they said said giving women the right to vote would lead to trouble (Hello prohibition! Hello flappers!), which it did from the average conservative white male perspective. It was of course the right move anyway but social upheaval did follow, the argument of causation vs correlation is valid but wouldn't fit here.

They were right when they said that welfare helped reinforce the cycle of poverty. They were ignoring the fact that unplanned pregnancies were a huge root cause and that they were actively trying to undermine family planning. Should welfare have been eviscerated like it was? No, but elements of it weren't helpful.

They were right when they said you can't always get what you want, that attempts at socially engineering a utopian society lead to disaster.

They block attempts at long term progress by screaming about the short term problems because they're comfortable in the status quo. They'd rather have things not change at all than try to marginally "improve" things.

We should really call them socially lazy.

oh blahblah to all of you with the time to draft out fully cited seven paragraph rants. there are more urgent issues for the gays than being accepted into one of the world's more backward and harmful institutions (i mean the military, not marriage).

i have to add my two cents though, and say that one of the fabulous things about being gay in 'dont ask dont tell' times is that if ever a draft were introduced, we gays would have an easy 'out', so to speak. i take comfort in that.

FYI - being color blind is another easy out. If they show you a piece of paper with a bunch of colored dots and they ask you what you see (usually a number or letter) pause for a moment then say all you see are dots.

@20,

How was giving women the right to vote related to Prohibition? It was the 18th Amendment that enforced Prohibition. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. If anything, it was rural America forcing their morals on the rest of the country that gave us Prohibition. (Why does that sound familiar?)

How was giving women the right to vote related to Prohibition?

That really is an astounding question. If you honestly don't know the answer-- I mean, if you honestly think that votes for women and prohibition weren't intimately connected political movements --then there's about 50 years of US political history you don't know the first thing about. Just use wikipedia. It should fill in most of the blanks.