What fun it must be to be gay and in the military.
February 15, 2002 11:08 AM   Subscribe

What fun it must be to be gay and in the military. Seems like the military can't make up its damn mind about whether or not gay people are ok to serve.
posted by 4midori (16 comments total)
 
Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd said soldiers who make admissions of homosexuality may be required to provide proof.

?????? what in the hell would proof be? kissing? heavy petting?
posted by th3ph17 at 11:14 AM on February 15, 2002


Sounds like the setup for a gay porn film ... Prove it, Soldier!
posted by bclark at 11:25 AM on February 15, 2002


Maybe the armed forces need a few good men whose job it is to verify these claims. Sign me up!
posted by anapestic at 11:29 AM on February 15, 2002


First off, why does this man want to get out of the military so badly? I don't understand, but it sounds like Corp. Klinger on MASH, desperately trying to get a section 8 by dressing like a woman.

Second, there was a ray of light for a moment after September 11th when the US military suspended all the anti homosexual regulations, meaning you could enlist or serve even if you were openly gay. Unfortunately, this policy was rolled back again not too long after.

Why oh why shouldn't gay men and women be allowed to serve their country without fear of reprisals, both personal and legal? I've heard the arguments and their unconvincing.

Plus, I know several Marines and several sailors, a couple of them still active duty, who are gay. Their sexuality doesn't affect their service, and they don't mix their sexuality with their duties, which is bad whether you're gay or straight. But they also fear being subject to reprisals if the wrong person found out their orientation.

That said, many military people are much more open minded and flexible than people seem to suspect. One of my Marine friends goes drinking with his straight buddies who all know his sexuality and don't care.
posted by evanizer at 11:49 AM on February 15, 2002


You know gay men in the navy?!
posted by dong_resin at 12:02 PM on February 15, 2002


I don't understand this guy either, evanizer. He's only got three years left until full retirement and yet he's willing to give up his pension, benefits, and repay all his loans so he can get out now? Something else is going on here that the article doesn't tell us.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:15 PM on February 15, 2002


Did somebody say M*A*S*H? Section 8 attempt #100:

posted by Keen at 12:31 PM on February 15, 2002


My home town....if I hear any behind-the -scenes stuff I'll let you know....but we are all scratching our heads, to be honest with you.......
posted by bunnyfire at 7:36 PM on February 15, 2002


Sadly, there's nothing new about the US military's on-and-off attitude toward gay and lesbian personnel. Look at what Perry Watkins was put through.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:54 AM on February 16, 2002


First off, why does this man want to get out of the military so badly?

Maybe he's tired of being harassed by peers who are well aware of his sexual orientation. Maybe he's tired of having to be officially in the closet, or the continual keeping of a big secret to protect his job and, given the anti-gay sentiment that often runs rampant in military circles, his safety. Maybe he wishes to live openly with a male companion. Perhaps he's just sick and tired of being a part of an organisation which states that his "lifestyle" is incompatible with everything he's done -- presumably well -- every day of the last seventeen years.

Why he wants out is his business. That the government is keeping him against his wishes and in violation of their own rules is the business of everyone who recognises that whole "of the people, by the people" ideal.
posted by Dreama at 6:38 AM on February 16, 2002


Dreama, being in the military is not like other jobs, and it's certainly not an environment for slacker snowboarding types who show up for as long as they feel like it. It's a term of enlistment, for a reason.

The rules were designed so that the military could, at its discretion, discharge people who it didn't feel fit. They are not "get out of jail free" loopholes, like the old draft dodge of shooting oneself in the foot. And now we're in a period where the military is seeking to discourage almost everyone from leaving. Perhaps his skills are needed in the war. Well, tough luck there. He volunteered.

"of the people, by the people"??? dreama, are you serious??? Least of all is the military a democracy.
posted by dhartung at 8:25 AM on February 16, 2002


Why he wants out is his business. That the government is keeping him against his wishes and in violation of their own rules is the business of everyone who recognises that whole "of the people, by the people" ideal.

He agreed to a contract so the military does have the right to keep him "against his wishes" as it was presumably in accordance with his wishes when he signed up. The part about it being in violation of their own rules is the questionable part - it sounds like they don't believe he's queer. He's claiming to be bisexual, which is less common than gay, probably especially among career military men. He's lived with that scenario for 90% of "his time" so it does seems strange.

However, I can't really think of a scenario that would explain why someone would fake being bisexual to get out a situation where he'd retire with a nice pension soon, so it just doesn't make much sense from any angle. The possibility of him being in love seems as believable as any other, but if that's the case it should be easy for him to prove his case, and if they won't fire him for it, all the better for him. Maybe he's worried about actual combat - though if he's up for a pension he's been in the military long enough to get used to that, you'd think...
posted by mdn at 2:55 PM on February 16, 2002


Late, great comedian Bill Hicks' take on gays in the military:

"Excuse me, aren't y'all hired fucking killers? When we need you to go blow up a country of little brown people, we'll let you know...but until then shut the fuck up. Yeah, I can't kill women and children with all these gay people around me!"
posted by tiger yang at 5:14 PM on February 16, 2002


Ok, being ex-military, I'll bite. Personally, if someone does their job, I don't much care if they sleep with sheep -- and there were a few guys who I suspect may have before enlisting. And as evanizer, my experience was that, for the most part, individuals in the military are pretty open minded. The institution is not. In fact, the institution of the military is pretty closed minded even for straight men and women.

Now two points:

1. Dreama, I'm not sure which military you're familiar with but the one I know tends to frown on people trying to get out. You also have to prove that you're crazy if you want out for being mentally unstable and a lot of guys try that one in basic training and almost every single one of them ends up serving a whole tour. Let's see . . . in my BT class we had one guy try to OD on asprin (if he was crazy, he was obviously an idiot to boot), one guy got up in the middle of the night and took off naked (ran right past the guards at the front gate who had to hunt him down), one guy who went AWOL and was later found a couple of states away, and you know how many of them completed a full tour, ever single last one of them. You don't get to quit the military until you've fulfilled your obligation.

2. Bring on the flames but while I, personally, don't care about someone's sexuality, I agree with the military's don't ask, don't tell policy. The military isn't and shouldn't be a place for expressing yourself. There's a reason everyone wears a uniform. You're supposed to be uniform! Your sexuality is not supposed to be something that is worn on your sleeve. If you are gay and can be as uniform as any other soldier, then, officially (I use the qualifier only because there are exceptions), the military has no problem with that. That's the don't ask part. The don't tell part is whether you feel that you have to share your sexual preference with the world. At that point you go from being a solider who happens to also be gay, to a gay-soldier. And the thing is, the military doesn't want hyphenated soldiers. There are no black-solders, or white-soldiers, or latin-soldiers. There are only soldiers. And any soldier who tries to hyphenate themselves, is going to be singled out. I know someone can come up with a case (or cases) of racism or sexism or ??-ism that have occured but what I explained is the policy of the military and what I mostly saw practiced.
posted by billman at 9:53 PM on February 16, 2002


The don't tell part is whether you feel that you have to share your sexual preference with the world.

straight soldiers "share their preference with the world." Gay soldiers aren't asking for the right to flirt with their sargeants or dress in drag; they simply don't want to have to pretend to think the playboy model other soldiers are ogling is hot, or change the pronoun of their significant other in conversation. Black soldiers seem to manage not to be so-called hyphenated "black-soldiers" even though they aren't forced to camouflage their skin color - so why couldn't gay soldiers avoid being "gay-soldiers" without hiding their sexual preference?
posted by mdn at 10:05 PM on February 17, 2002


Dreama, I'm not sure which military you're familiar with but the one I know tends to frown on people trying to get out. You also have to prove that you're crazy if you want out for being mentally unstable and a lot of guys try that one in basic training and almost every single one of them ends up serving a whole tour.

I'm familiar with the military in which my husband served to become a combat-decorated veteran. (USMC, Desert Storm.) I'm also well-familiar with the the fact that now more than ever, there is a move to keep everyone on board, period.

However, a soldier who is mentally ill and has evidence to support that fact will be discharged, and without any criminal penalty. I know someone who was Section 8'ed out of the Navy during basic training after attempting to assault someone with a butter knife (the second time she'd tried that stunt, the first was prior to her enlistment) and not only was she not punished for the attempted assault, she was sent home on a commercial airliner with all of the salary due her for her six weeks in service happily stashed in her pocket.

But a gay or bisexual soldier who offers enough "proof" of this fact is not guaranteed discharge, and can in fact end up being brought up on charges under the UCMJ. A soldier seeking separation on these grounds is forced to "incriminate" himself and risk penalty -- it is the only such situation in the military, and the only framework in which an American citizen is made to incriminate himself without any consideration.

Our military members do cede many applications of their constitutional rights, but they do not cede them in whole. And this is the point I was getting at in my comments about the citizens of this nation becoming aware and acting accordingly. (Inasmuch as we can press for change to military policy through electing officials who are interested in forcing change via legislation.)

Under the current system, sexual minority soldiers are denied equal protection, they are denied due process and they are denied their right to avoid self-incrimination, all the while serving in a situation where their presence alone can be enough to imperil their health and safety, if not their very lives. That's a pathetic -- and morally reprehensible -- way to treat people who volunteered to serve their country.

Your sexuality is not supposed to be something that is worn on your sleeve.

But it is something that you're allowed to wear in your heart and also on your finger, even in uniform. My husband was in no way prohibited from telling those he served with that the ring he wore did, indeed, indicate that he had a wife waiting for him at home. That had nothing to do with his service, but there was no penalty to pay for saying so. But what if he'd had a male partner waiting for him at home? All things being equal, admitting that fact alone would have left him in violation of military regulations and opened him to dishonourable discharge or worse -- especially if his male partner were another military member. I'm continually flabbergasted at the leaps of logic status quo defenders have to make to justify that bigoted, senseless standard.
posted by Dreama at 1:44 AM on February 18, 2002


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