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Obama signs 'don't ask, don't tell' repeal

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"he urged those kicked out under the old law to re-enlist", your country needs you as cannon fodder.

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"he urged those kicked out under the old law to re-enlist", your country needs you as cannon fodder.

Arent we clever . "Cannon fodder" ? Like the US sailors who raced to Aceh to help after the Christmas Day Tsunami? Like the soldiers building schools and hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan? The US military in the most "color-blind", truly equal opportunity employer in America.

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This "law" being signed doesn't make it right. Just as "laws" in countries that legalize forced marriages don't make them right.

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"he urged those kicked out under the old law to re-enlist", your country needs you as cannon fodder.

Yes sensei I suspect a conspiracy against the gays.

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Oh well, it's time now to push for separate facilities for heterosexuals. With the new policy, it makes no sense to separate men and women but not separate gay men/women from straight men/women. Or alternatively, just get rid of separate facilities for men and women and just put everyone in the same barracks, berthings, bathrooms, etc.

Give credit where credit is due, gay rights advocates have made a huge social change with far reaching implications for American society - all negative in my opinion. Gay marriage will be next as there is no legal reason to prevent it given the Federal governments endorsement of homosexuality. After that, anything goes! Brothers marrying sisters, sons marrying mothers, two women marrying three men and any other polygamous combination. Whose to say those types of relationships are any less legitimate than same sex marriage? If they are consenting adults and you love one another... gotta let them do it. Then the age of consent will have to be lowered so adults can get married to younger and younger 'spouses'. Age is just a number when love is concerned. Besides, adults mate with adolescents in nature all the time so it's got to be okay for people. The best thing is that we can get all of these folks in these non-traditional relationships into the military - it's what is right for our country and our national defense...

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Time for Republicans to cry and say they'll block everything else because they didn't get their way again. It's a shame they can't see that stepping out of the dark ages is a GOOD thing.

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"This "law" being signed doesn't make it right."

Yeah. All the Supreme Court has to do now is declare it unconstitutional. I encourage you to hold your breath.

"conspiracy against the gays"

The gays? The gays? I have heard this phrasing twice in my lifetime. In Texas and in Nigeria, but it was decades ago. I think this is part of the dark ages that Smith is referring to. Thinking of homosexuals as a monolithic group with some solid agenda has never been realistic. It is like thinking that all women are feminists.

"Oh well, it's time now to push for separate facilities for heterosexuals"

Oh brother. Thanks Mr. Plessy vs. Ferguson. I have another prediction. I predict people are going to shrug and go back to work. Face the facts. People who type pages of text on JT about what they think the military could and should do are the kind of people who could argue endlessly about angels on the head of a pin. Real military people are going to see that this does not change their resources or their mission one bit. The issue is settled now once and for all. The only way to repeal this would be to actively discriminate against someone and take their job from them. And that ain't happening no matter what law gets passed.

I was wondering about this Obama guy, but I think that this gets him a lot of support with a lot of people.

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Wolfpack:

...gay rights advocates have made a huge social change with far reaching implications for American society - all negative in my opinion. [Blah, blah, blah][Slippery slope, slippery slope, slippery slope]

I see the typed words after his name in the post but all I hear is blah, blah, blah - the same old bullshit.

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The gays? The gays? I have heard this phrasing twice in my lifetime. In Texas and in Nigeria, but it was decades ago. I think this is part of the dark ages that Smith is referring to.

Oh pardon what politically correct term must I use in this decade? "Gays", "Queers", "Homos"? Which word is ok in your opinion? Making something out of nothing seems to be your specialty.

You know I still call Negros, "Blacks" and think the term "African American" to be a stupid word. That would make me a "European Canadian" of which I'd NEVER refer to myself. I'm white. If I were gay I'd say that I were "gay" instead of some kid glove term that YOU think is better than my word. Get over yourself Kleininjapan.

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@ SolidariTea and mikehuntez - do I really have to explain? I used the "cannon fodder" comment because Obama is trying to be all warm and fuzzy towards gays and lesbians so that they too will enter the military. Once in, they'll likely be sent to a foreign country to be shot at (cannon fodder). It was not an anti-gay or anti-military comment(I spent 22 years in the service).

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Ok sensei no worries. But I wonder if any Obama lovers will come up to the plate and accuse him of trying now to send these poor innocent "gays" off to Iraq and Afghanistan to be slaughtered. I bet they would if it were Bush who uttered those words.

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Wolfpack: Oh, yes, it's a slippery slope isn't it first it's men marrying women, then women marrying women and men marrying men...then hamsters marrying chickens and then hamsters marrying hamsters!! Then the whole society will be a real mess. And all because we allowed gay people in the military to not fear being open about their sexuality!

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To read most of the commentary on this you would think it was the military,not the govt, who first ' oppressed ' teh gheyz (hows that, Professor Klein2?) by not allowingg them to serve in the finest military in the world.

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"Oh well, it's time now to push for separate facilities for heterosexuals"

Heh, segragation-like?

Obama's already turned the US into a marxist state and now he's made the miliatry gay!! Do you people even realize how you sound?

Heh, and more importantly what does the hysterical palin have to say on the matter? Have the Republicans finally managed to get it to shut-up?

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Um, gays in the military exist whether there's a law against it or not. That didn't change and it will never change regardless of what's written on a piece of paper. In the end the fact that there even was a ban will be completely forgotten.

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"Um, gays in the military exist whether there's a law against it or not."

Well, even the intolerant homophobes (present and correct) have apparently grasped this simple premise.

From what little scientific research that exists on homophobes, nearly all of them were turned on by gay pornographic imagery when presented with it.

Let them have a wide stance in the john.

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Um, gays in the military exist whether there's a law against it or not. That didn't change and it will never change regardless of what's written on a piece of paper.

Yup

In the end the fact that there even was a ban will be completely forgotten.

Never was a ban, see you first statement. Issue now is how to integrate open ones.

No Offense to all here, but that is not going fall not on to the Senior Officers they are going to delegate it to the E-5 thru E-8 community and say make it happen, The deck-plate level. That community has some serious issues with this as in how in the hell they are going this work.

I have had some serious feedback of late from the folks in that community that will now have to deal with " openly gay Seaman recruit Smith" and his "special needs" and what they will now have to do balance that and still accomplish the mission of putting ordinance on target and the it boiled down to this........We already know that we serve with guys and gals that are gay, shut up keep your Private life sex quiet and do your damn Job.....Is that so much to ask from anyone?

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Special needs group get equal rights now is all. Send the cannon fodder off and make it quick. Dunno why the gays have to make such a big song n dance about it all the time, we dont care if you are gay just keep it to yourself we dont need to know. Sheesh.

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"Never was a ban"

Heh, so forcinbg people to hide who they are or face dismissal (as more than 13,500 people were since 1993) is not are ban?

Living in Denial, on both sides, is un-healthy.

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"we dont care if you are gay just keep it to yourself we dont need to know"

I doubt most gays serving in the military will be wearing rainbow undies and ogling fellow soldioers in the showers.

I've known a few people that have done prison that have shared cells with people that turned out to be gay on the outside. They certainly kept it quiet. Since the army is a similar institution, albiet it volunatary, I can't imagine it being different.

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Separating gays from non-gays is stupid. The only time I showered in open bay showers in 14 1/2 years in the Navy is the 6 months or so that I spent on JMSDF ships. I've seen less than 5 naked Americans in all my years at sea. It just doesn't happen all that much.

Some people need to calm down. There will be one or two "incidents" that will be handled with wrath of God type punishments, just like there were when females were introduced to sea duty, and then it will be business as usual.

Taka

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sailwind at 10:56 PM JST - 23rd December

Never was a ban,

Before 1993 gays were prohibited from serving in the armed forces. Clinton wanted to lift the ban. A compromise call DADT was made at that time.

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Harvard has already announced plans to allow the ROTC back on cammpus.

Let's hope other universities honor the principles they claimed to uphold in banning military recruiters because the military supposedly oppressed homosexuals.

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Before 1993 gays were prohibited from serving in the armed forces. Clinton wanted to lift the ban. A compromise call DADT was made at that time.

First off a Nations Military is nothing more than a reflection of the society at the time. When civilians look at the military it sees more or less its self in the reflection. America had codified segregation against blacks and the Military reflected that accordingly. Was it wrong? Of course it was but was it what the greater society saw as acceptable at that time in our history? The answer without the emotional shreiking and posturing was yes it was acceptable to segregate at that time, and if not through the courage of a lot of good men and women who sought to change that acceptable mindset such as Harry Truman and Martin Luther King might well still be the standard today. Our society changes our Military changes with it and in some ways actually leads the way forward more than the civilian in ensuring fairness of treatment for all (pretty much equally miserable for everyone if you ever had to go through boot camp).

There was an official ban on Homosexuals from serving but that did not stop Homosexuals from serving if they chose to and could hide their sexual identity to conform with the acceptable social norm. That has been true ever since their was a military and that is the context to which I refer to when I say there never was a ban on Homosexuals to serve if they wanted to and played by the rules of society at the time as to acceptable behavior.

As our society became more tolerant towards (and I'm going to use the word gay now because just on my on a personal level I always found the term Homosexual rather sterile and sort of demeaning toward a person who had those proclivities )Gay folks the hardcore official aspect of the ban was lifted with DADT but the behavioral aspect remained in place and person who was gay would still be expected to keep his private sex life under wraps.

It wasn't perfect but it did keep it did allow the Military to take a neutral position on the subject and preserve a uniform standard of expected behavior throughout the military organization on accomplish the mission given to it by higher civilian authority.

Now that DADT has been repealed and gay person can serve "openly" that controlling of carnal desires is still not going to go away and will still be an issue, perhaps now on a scale since it is now out in the "open" that it may actually harm the overall effectiveness of a Military unit instead of enhancing it and improving its ability to go do whatever our nation tasks it with.

Again without the emotional shreiking if the policy was unfair and unjust to homosexuals, I would counter nowhere near on the level of segregation of the Armed forces for African Americans but rather on par with controlling a persons carnal desires in a way that is acceptable to all. Was it fair that a a Gay person had to hide his "real" identity? People hide their real identity all the time that is why we call it our private life and I will be honest and I have a hard time working up a whole lot of sympathy for someone who now has just made his or her private sex-life my business without my bothering to even ask him or her about it.

One benefit though I think it is actually negative in the Military in the long run. If I know a person is gay right off the bat I'm going to modify my behavior, I will be professional, courteous and keep my interaction with that person on a pretty sterile level. I will not be as friendly as I would normally be such as inviting that person out to see a movie with me or go hit a bar after work for some drinks if I had not known about that persons sex life, before I get flamed I believe that is a pretty standard response most folks would have, I'll just say it right out.

I also think this policy now will magnify that in huge way as there will be some who would have no problem doing that if the person sex life remained closed but will now not because they don't want the possible stigma of also being thought of as gay, and we may well end up in a situation were we have "De-Facto" segregation again as the open gay folks are more or less isolated in subtle ways from the mainstream norm in the Military culture.

I'll just end with this on the subject for now. The Military is going to deal with and integrate this new policy it and make it work. And it will be done in a way that is going to in the long run make a Liberal cringe (be careful what you ask for you just might get it) and the rest of the Military miserable.......Because when it comes to making people miserable the Military and my old branch the Navy has got that down to an art form.

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