What a relief!
Decorated Army Sergeant Darren Manzella has been discharged under the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law banning lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans from military service, effective June 10. The Iraq war veteran was one of the first openly gay active duty service members to speak with the media while serving inside a war zone. In December 2007, Manzella was profiled by the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. He told correspondent Lesley Stahl that he served openly during much of his time in the Army, with the full support of his colleagues and command.
‘The discharge of battle-tested, talented service members like Sergeant Manzella weakens our military in a time of war. National security requires that Congress lift the ban on gays in the military and allow commanders to judge troops on their qualifications, not their sexuality,’ said Adam Ebbin, Communications Director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).
Stupidest thing ever.
Undefendable.
I still say allowing Teh Gay to serve openly in the military is a political winner. There really is no reason not to. No legitimate one anyway. It’ll happen sooner or later, but the person who makes it happen sooner will be correctly thought of as a true leader.
ed, this is one issue that is an absolute slam-dunk. I don’t get why openly gay people are allowed to serve in the military yet. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
Anybody care to enlighten me?
They gotta figure whatever is good enough for congressional Republicans is good enough for our troops. tap tap tap.
I was in the Army in the sixties. There were at least three gay men in my unit.
We survived.
I have no doubt that gays will be openly serving in the military at some point. The military was racially integrated almost a decade before the rest of society, and gender integration is mostly complete. Like Repack Rider I have known Soldiers who were gay, or knew about as well as I could without straight-up asking if they were (Don’t Ask after all). However I’m currently in. The simple fact is gays are serving in the military. That’s not going to change.
I’m no where near smart enough to figure out exactly why the policy doesn’t change tomorrow, but I’ll give it a shot. Gays are serving in the military. Most everyone in the military is aware of it, and despite the occasional bravado, most are fine with it. Honestly though, if gays who want to be in the military are currently in the military, is the military really depleting themselves of a huge market of people by maintaining the current policy? And is that market really worth the potential disruption such a change would cause?
Also, where is the line drawn. Will the entire LGBT community be allowed to serve? Will pre-op transsexuals be allowed in as long as they complete the operation before shipping to Basic? Command dining-ins will become far more entertaining when the XO shows up wearing his finest high heels and Mess White dress. Seems to me a whole lot of people just want DADT lifted because it would make them feel good to do so, and not because it would have any particular benefit to the military or the nation.
is the military really depleting themselves of a huge market of people by maintaining the current policy
Maybe not huge, but hugely important.
The bottom line is: If someone wants to serve their country and can do the job, why the hell would you stop that person - whether they are gay, transexual, black, hispanic, white, female, etc.?
Will the entire LGBT community be allowed to serve?
Why, barring physical or mental inability to perform the actions of a soldier, should anybody not be allowed to serve?
Why, barring physical or mental inability to perform the actions of a soldier, should anybody not be allowed to serve?
The bottom line is: If someone wants to serve their country and can do the job, why the hell would you stop that person - whether they are gay, transexual, black, hispanic, white, female, etc.?
The inner cynic is telling me that it would interfere with the military’s macho self-image.
Oliver, those were not trained linguists. They were students at the language school who had been attending for an unknown period of time. And since two of them were undisciplined enough to resist their wants until they could be together outside of the training enviroment, they probably lacked the discipline necessary to be able to complete the training anyway. So at least those two Soldiers would have faced discharge, or other sanction, had they been a male and female in a hetrosexual relationship for violating the fraternization policy.
As far as allowing the LGBT community to serve, where will they receive their initial training and where will they live?
All services have seperate living for the genders, partly because, frankly, if you’re going to force two people to live together, they should be relativly free of the worry that their roommate may be physically attracted to them. So, will newly arrived Soldiers have to fill out cards where they specifiy whether they are homosexual, or simply bisexual? That way the units can assign them to a room with someone who shares their orientation. Will leadership be required to search the rooms of LBGT Soldiers for items which would imply that maybe they’re not actually gay, but instead bisexual?
The USMC has gender-segregated basic training partly to reduce the distractions that are inevitable when you combine young men and women into a stressful, close quarters situation. Will the newly enlisted LGBT personnel have their own training pipeline? Where will the additional instructors and other support necessities come from?
The physical fitness standards are different for males and females in the services to account for the physiological differences between the genders. Will a male who became a female be required to meet the requirements of males or females? Is it really fair for the natural women in the services to have to compete for promotions against a woman who has the upper body strength and cardiovascular system of a man (military promotions are partly based on performance in physical fitness exams)?
There are several other, noninconsquential, logistical issues that would bee to be resolved, above and beyond the institutional issues of allowing a population to serve which is currently barred by, what is basically, a choice they make.
frankly, if you’re going to force two people to live together, they should be relativly free of the worry that their roommate may be physically attracted to them
Oh stop it. More hetero fear.
Train guys to shoot and kill people but they may be scared because a gay guy is in the same barracks? Come on.
“Oh stop it. More hetero fear.”
Way to go ahead and ignore the issue to try and make a snarky comment.
I don’t think that too many of our newly enlisted and trained LGBT servicemembers would be too keen on being forced to cohabitate with someone who disagrees with their lifestyle. In the civilian world you can simply move if your roommate is gay or a homophobe. That’s not a choice you get to make in the military when on base.
“Train guys to shoot and kill people but they may be scared because a gay guy is in the same barracks? Come on.”
Hell Mr. Willis, it would be great if the only thing to worry about was that some Soldier(s) would be scared of teh gay. I’d be thrilled if that was the only issue facing me as a leader with this issue. Scared is normal. Scared is easily dealt with. I’m far more worried about the possible negative effects on discipline and morale. You obviously have no idea how harmful fraternization, even the perception of it, can be on a unit. It can be hard enough to deal with it’s easily spotted, likes males and females sneaking off together. Now when you have no idea whether those two female Soldiers are simply good roommates or something more it will get ugly and fast.
I’m really, really sorry that I had to be kill joy and rain on the pride parade by pointing out that, it’s really not as simple as simply saying that DADT is gone and homosexuals are now fully welcome to enlist. While concepts like esprit de corps and discipline apparently mean nothing to y’all, they are critically important when you’re “Train(ing) guys to shoot and kill people”.
let me make this clear. im a pre op transgender female that served my country as a male. i identify myself as female and always have. i like any one else that loves this country that has any desire to serve in the military to protect the freedoms everyone in this country take so lightly that is not in the gender norm had to hide what i was just to be able to do this. i wanted to belong to something bigger than my self. being born intersexed and opperated on at birth to correct me male did noting to help me in the long run. anatomically speaking… mentally and physicaly i am female the genitalia is diffrent. i went through the same training as every other male and passed. and trans would in essence have to do the same traning as the gender they are identifying with. the idea that a woman and man have cant do the same physical equivlant based training is i stereotype. the woman i live with and am in a relationship with looks female in all aspects but i know she can bench press 250 lbs easy with out looking like Arnold. as for living arangments… if you through homosexuals all in the same barraks its no diffrent than if you inter mixed men and women in the same barraks. i myself am bisexual. all the homophobes out there ill fill you in on one thing you dont know. a dorm full of hetrosexual men all forced to live together do not mean that one will not seek out another for sexual release.
anyways. back to the subject at hand. i served for 10 years before they knew what i was and kicked me out with a dishonerable discharge and having to serve 3 years in confinment because they found out that i had sex with other consenting men. now tell me if that seems right to you. the militarys ideals of what is allowed and not is still set in the 1950’s to this day. religious freedom in the military is bull. if your christian, jewish, or chatholic…. well thats not a problem… but the rest of us are treated like crap. forced expermintation is still practiced in the military as well. ass any one from the gulf war how they felt testing out the new experimental anthrax vaccine… or the ones that got anthrax from it. or how about those that were peged as not hetrosexual like me and 25 others that were forced on high doses of testosterone to curb us into being male.
all you people that have never served dont know jack except what you see on cnn or told by the press. male… female, transexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, straight or not dont me crap in ones ability to preform there job. we need to get over the christian zelot ideals of what and how things should be. if you went by the bibal we would still be burning people at the stack and buying and selling people for slavery as long as they are not jews and stoning people to dealth for looking at another mans wife. life dont work that way.
i think its bs this guy was kicked out like i was. he did what most of you out there dont have the guts to do, to sign over there life, there rights and freedoms to make sure all you out there have those rights and freedomes… but of course, if your not straight or born in the broad spectrum of intersexed conditions… you arnt good enough to die for your country or… like me… labled as a sexual deviant?
gorw up… get your head out of your homophobic asses and look at the world around you.
you think we should be happy to serve but have to hide what we are every day or our lives for fear of being kicked out of the military, what ill tell you right now makes id damn hard to find any job….or being thrown in prison for an offence that you civilians have no fear of the like. let you through a cog your way for you straight people. while i was in confinment i had to friends i met there that were inprisoned for offences you would never see happen in the civilian world. one was caught having sex with his wife in his own house and reported by a peeping tom who was looking in there window through a crack in the curtines. he did 6 months for indecent exposure, and was treated as if he was having sex out on his front lawn in full view of public. did i mention the sick sob that was peping on him and his wife had no charges brough against him?…
my other friend had sex with his consenting girlfriend in a position other than misionary. a religious sob reported hearing about it and he served one year for sodemy. it wasnt even anal sex. look up the ucmj some time before you start bashing us LGBT people.
LGBT people just want to be treated like everyone else. not like outcasts or sexual deviants. we dont want seprate logging or any crap. if we are trans than we want the same logging as what we are… if we are MTF then we are female and treated the like…. if we are FTM then we are male and treated the like. if we are gay male… we are male…. if we are gay female than we are female…. simple…. straight or not make no diffrence. like in prison you froce hetrosexual men together long enough… chances are that will find a way to cope and though having sex with the same sex are not gay…. also gay people are the least likly to act like a sexual preditor than you straight people. we just are not geared that way.
as for the whole statement of the military was racialy integrated long before the rest of society?….. let me fill you civilians in on that. your idea of military ratial intigration came after the rest of society… black men were segragated away from the whites.. given jobs that were deamed more dangerous… and like in veitnam were placed in the front line more than white. all the while dealing with ratial prejudice. if you were black in a prodominatly white platoon…. look forward to being the one going out to check for snipers…. can you say cannon fodder. look at the tuskegee airmen and what they had to endure. and this went on until the mid 1980’s. get your facts straight.
welcome to the real world people.