John McCain stormed out of the Senate when DADT was repealed. John McCain will continue to be part of the ultraconservative movement to oppose the civil rights of anyone who does not conform to their narrow and exclusively heterosexual, bigoted and misinformed politics and/or religion. Some incoming candidates-elect in January want to stop LGBT equality of any kind. Like the right in Virginia when Governor Bob McDonnell back in February 2010 removed sexual orientation from discrimination protection. rescinded an earlier executive order from 2006, the new Tea Partiers and Republicans, and their supporters, are already talking about undoing critical protections for LGBT people. This includes a bigoted desire to reinstate DADT. I think we can look forward to John McCain leading this effort, in his dire necessity to appeal to the extreme right for his political survival.
Here are a few of the statements which illustrate that intention:
"We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military... If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it." – Bryan Fischer, American Family Association"The consistent characteristics that are common to both racisim and sexual orientation bigotry are the claims of perversion, of decadence, of deviance. There was a time when it was important to conservatives that they not shower with people of 'degenerate races', by which they meant blacks, hispanics, native americans, or asians. They took every measure, legal and illegal and quasi-legal, to oppose racial desegregation.
"The American military... has now been hijacked and turned into a tool for imposing on the country a radical social agenda." – Tony Perkins, Family Research Council.
"This action will be overturned in the next Congress." – Matthew Staver, Freedom Federation
"The repeal of the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' law is a disaster of historic proportions and it must be reinstated. My organization and others will to fight to make sure that happens." – E. W. Jackson, Stand America PAC
One of the more commonly advanced 'myths' about the repeal of DADT is that the military will now be forced to provide separate shower facilities for gay and straight soldiers. This is not true. One of the funniest comebacks I have seen so far in the DADT repeal controversy was the interview where that issue was raised with openly gay congressman Barney Frank and CNS News 'reporter' Nicholas Ballasy; you can see the video here. CNS is another right wing pseudo-news source, possibly worse than Fox Not-News.
Here is the thing. We have all showered in our past with other people, without first knowing their sexual orientation. We don't get to know that information before showering at a health club, gym, or growing up, in school locker rooms. It was not, is not, a problem.
If there IS a problem with sexual orientation and sexual misconduct in the armed forces, we should be looking at a different problem entirely. We should be concerned about the heterosexual rate of rapes in our military of female personnel by their male soldier counterparts - despite women and men showering separately. The rate for women to be raped in our military is 1 in 3, while in civilian life it is 1 in 6. Both numbers are too high. But the issue that should be concerning us is why we have this heterosexual male problem in our military, and have had for decades. This is not new, it is not recent. It is news, like this STrib article.
A real concern of morality and sexuality in our military is the rape of our female military by our male armed forces personnel, but not news which has received nearly enough attention in the discussion of sexuality, 'deviance', and soldiers. This is not nearly as hot-button an issue for making changes in our military that the issue of DADT has been, especially not for the right.
When we have statements by members of Congress, like Rep. Jane Harman, D. CA, of the House Homeland Security Committee, "A woman who signs up to protect her country is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.", I would argue that the spokesmen bigots from the intolerant, discrimination-promoting groups with the virtuous sounding names like the American Family Association, the laughably unscientific homophobic Family Research Council, and the pseudo-patriotic Freedom Foundation and Stand America PAC don't seem to be all that concerned about the heterosexual 'virtue' of our soldiers in the United States military. They sure as hell don't seem terribly concerned about the sexual deviance of heterosexual soldier rapists attacking women.
Or maybe, since it is heterosexual activity, they just don't find it as offensive, or as sinful, or as objectionable?
I'm feeling a lot more safe with the 14,000 soldiers, many with critical skills, many who are decorated multi-combat tour veterans, now eligible to serve openly. The status quo in the military, relating to the status of heterosexual safety of women, about that I am feeling far less confident - with good reason.
I can't wait to see John McCain speak out in righteous indignation about the atrocity of heterosexual rape of our soldiers, by our soldiers. I can't wait to see John McCain speak out on the floor of the Senate about the importance of safeguarding the lives of our military personnel, after he recently was in favor of the stripping out of programs from legislation that would help reduce the suicide rate in our military among serving reservists, a group which had 'fallen through the cracks' of mental health coverage. John McCain's actions speak every bit as loudly as his words. McCain's words and actions say he doesn't give a damn about the safety of the United States, the safety of our military, or preserving the lives of our military. John McCain's words and actions say everything about his sucking up to the Right, to gain the support of the fanatics and fools of the right extreme who hate gays, and who believe they have a monopoly on virtue.
Some virtue. John McCain and his pseudo-patriot right wing supporters can keep it, to themselves. I hope their financial support shrivels up like their hearts and brains and other body parts.
I think that part of the problem is with the units in combat. The big survey you gave an award to showed some interesting things. only 20% of the military had a problem with open homosexuals in the military but 60-70% of combat units did. When you consider that combat units make up about 10% or so that would mean only about 10-15% of the rest of the military had a problem. Combat units usually have the more aggressive males from boot camp so it is not real surprising they are less accepting of homosexuals (think high school football jocks). Also combat units are not in a cubicle where you don't notice or care about the sexual tendancies of the guy a cubicle over, they tend to be in close quarters sharing small tents and small facilities.
ReplyDeleteI have a close friend who left the marines after 20 yrs. The only combat he saw was the first gulf war but he told me that after 6 months in a war zone he would not let a female reporter interview his men without an officer present. He said that on a base he would trust them to walk his wife home alone but a war zone was different. In a war zone there are no laws except what you get from your officers and after asking him men to set aside morals to kill people for 6 months he needed to be present to remind them that some laws still had to be obeyed. Not a very pretty picture but I think it is a realistic one and I think our policies in the past of not allowing women in combat zones were for that reason.
Tuck,
ReplyDeleteWe had similar problems when Harry S. Truman integrated the armed forces after World War II. Sexual assault, whether it be M-F, M-M, F-F, or F-M, is a serious violation of the UCMJ, and I have no doubt that it will be treated as such. The same will be true with sexual discrimination.
When Truman integrated the armed forces, there were anecdotal stories of white soldiers not trusting black soldiers to be in their unit, etc. The armed forces are not in a position to dictate to civilian authority who is in the forces, nor are they (or should they be) able to say "no" to civilian directives on their conduct. The law now allows LGBT members of the armed forces to serve without having to live a lie, and I think the US will be better for it.
While I know you well enough to know that you are not bigoted in any way, this is exactly the kind of attitude that bigots such as John McCain seize upon as justification to continue their bigotry and homophobia.
Tuck, I was struck by something with this study; the difference between responses to actual people, contrasted with responses to hypothetical people of different sexual orientations.
ReplyDeleteThe gay marine I mentioned in my reponse to Pen's post, who did the one man show about his service in Iraq (Semper Fi), the first significant injured soldier in Iraq, Sgt. Alva, and all of the other actual people who came out or were 'outed', who spoke publicly against DADT - including a multi-tour decorated West Point officer who was a linguistic expert, for example.
No one among the soldiers who served with these actual individuals objected to them being gay, despite the close quarters you mention. In fact, many came forward to speak in their defense, both in court, and in the media. This was demonstrated over and over.
We have had same-sex oriented people serving in our military going back to the army of General Washington in our revolutionsary war, serving in EVERY war, both men and women. Check out for example, Eisenhower, WWII, and lesbians.
In actual practice, combat units overwhelmingly don't care about their colleagues orientation, regardless of what the study says. Ultimately, like desegregation, this is about what is right, and those who don't like it will just have to adapt and change. A much higher percentage of the military objected to desegregation, yet that change worked out far better than those stats would lead people to expect.
As to rape - as Pen has noted, it is far more a crime of violent domination than itis one of sexuality. I would argue to you that this is not so much about levels of aggression, but suggest to you that it is probably in part a reflection of naturally fluctuating levels of testosterone. Women have taken a lot of flack over the years for the supposed effects of hormonal cycles. The truth is that male levels of testosterone (women have testosterone too,just 50 to 60 times lower amounts)rise and fall, sometimes dramatically, every day. Part of what contributes to that roller coaster rise and fall are the activities men engage in. I would remind you of what I wrote some time back about the study of testosterone levels in financial traders fluctuating wildly, depending on their success or failure rates. That is also true of certain physical activity. Military combat would reflect concentrations of both the physical and psychological triggers for that kind of testosterone increase. Testosterone levels that are high, in humans and in animals, tends to equate to high levels of aggression. So, I would argue to you that it is the reaction of testosterone increases to combat (and sometimes to high school sports) that leads to the aggression response, as much or possibly more than the other way round, alhtough both premises may be true. But I would expect those heightened levels of testosterone to equate to greater violence, including against women comrades.
One of my thoughts in musing on this is that testosterone levels can be measured by a simple saliva swab test. I wonder if men were able to check those levels, to know rather than rely on subjective perception in at-risk situations what their levels were, if it might provide them greater insight, and through insight and hard information, greater control of their responses and emotions?
And in case you missed it, yesterday, Mr. Kline voted on three amendments on DADT and DOMA … tying those issues to the Defense Authorization bill.
ReplyDeleteBut the most interesting comment during the debate was by the Amendment’s author – Duncan Hunter, Jr. – who suggested that Adm. Mullin was not qualified to approve the repeal implementation since Adm. Mullin did not serve on the ground during the current Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.
And in case you missed it, on May 11th, Mr. Kline voted on three amendments on DADT and DOMA ... tying those issues to the Defense Authorization bill.
ReplyDeleteRead the details at http://mnpoliticalroundtable.com/2011/05/12/mn-02-kline-votes-to-maintain-dadt-again/
The Delay tactics are still en vogue.