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What comparison CAN you make, then, Darkatt? If we can't compare the US military to the most equivalent other militaries that actually do allow gay service members, what can we compare? Seems like the most relevant comparison to me....
It's not about discrimination, as if being a gay man is the same as having a different color skin.
If you fling open the door and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, then you have just created a logistical nightmare. How long have women been a part of the active duty Naval forces? And only just now, we built a submarine with birthing and shower areas for women. Why do you think we bothered doing that? Now tell me how we address the life on a submarine when we go from having only two sexual variations of sailors, to having six? No, it is not about bigotry.
It is and you have an ill informed vision of gay men and women. These fears come down to a fear about sex, you see gay men and women as sexual animals not as human beings with the same love of their nation as any straight man or woman. Gay men and women serve in all of our Nato allies armed forces and in the IDF with no problems. Gay men and women serve as police officers and firefighters in close quarters for extended periods of time in confined spaces.
The arguement against gays is much the same as the arguement against intergration, white males feared for some strange and perverse reason black men. Now they fear gay men and women. Fears and phobias are not valid excuses to deny anyone their right to serve their nation.
I was not a Marine. I was however a member of the U.S. Submarine forces. I respect what the Marines do, (I couldn't do it), while all of the Marines I have met, respected what I did, because most of them stated they could not do what I did.
I also understand what unit cohesion is all about. Just like Marines, we on a sub have to work together, in very close quarters. After 6 months at sea, pulling back into home port, puts tensions very VERY high. (Sailors call it channel fever). I have seen fistfights over a dirty look, I can't even imagine throwing any more tension into that. Let's magnify that by introducing that into a group of people trained to kill...
No one has answered my question.. What if the Commandant is right?
Unless our NATO allies and the IDF are dramaticaly different, he is wrong.
Having served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam I know a little bit about unit cohesion and morale. The last thing you want to be thinking about as you're trying to patch together a buddy who is wounded is whether you need to worry about contracting AIDS from his blood. Is that nitty gritty enough for you?
Because the only people that gets AIDS are gay right?
Why can't homosexuals comply? What makes them want to talk about, or behave like homosexuals? If they were dedicated soldiers then they would just shut-up and comply.
An old arguement. I remember growing up the segregated south. The arguement was why can't they just know their place and be quiet.
For all of you who do not understand the Marine mentality I will help you a little bit. As a former Marine and child of a father who chose the gay lifestyle, I share my point of view.
The Marine Corps is the elite club designed for one purpose and that is to kill the enemy without having to think about it. You may not like this club because we are designed for a purpose you can not understand, but we exsist for a reason.
The problem with gays or women in combat has less to do with the surface problem and more to do with one simple thing, CHANGE. Injecting anything that is percieved to be a threat to the trust level is a threat to the unit.
To be a MARINE you have to trust, and have the trust of each and every member of your unit. If you have one homophobe in that group that cohessive nature is lost and that is the true threat the Marines face with this.
I would ask the question of gay Marines, would they tell if they could, I would say that for all the reasons I have given here they would answer NO 9 out of 10 times.
I will openly admit, I am not a Marine nor in any area of the military. But, shouldn't they get rid of the homophobe if he/she is threatening the cohessivness of the unit rather than the person who is gay?
it means when I was ten my father decided to choose a homosexual relationship, in some way I guess I believe I can relate to both the Marine and the gay in this arguement LOL
I will openly admit, I am not a Marine nor in any area of the military. But, shouldn't they get rid of the homophobe if he/she is threatening the cohessivness of the unit rather than the person who is gay?
thats one idea but it would probably eliminate most of those men who defend your freedom for a while. You really dont want that do you?
The answer is a need for some sort of peacetime training on handling sensative issues and dispelling the common myths associated with homosexual behavior before you go and out everyone in the world.
The bottom line is you see a problem with the gay issue. I see a problem with the fact that a destraction of this type will cost lives and I am not talking gay men. The destraction will effect the ability of the unit to function therefore the destracted U.S. American will become less effective and loss of life will increase. Not because Marines kill Marines rather because they suddenly have a new problem to worry about.
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How'd that work out?
