Jack Ohman for October 08, 2009

If your an illegal immigrant and you join the military we will reward you by making you a citizen.

If you are gay, well you can’t join because, well because the Bible says you are abomination, and we all know that the Bible is always right. Usually Far Right.

If your an illegal immigrant and you join the military we will reward you by making you a citizen.

If you are gay, well you can’t join because, well because the Bible says you are abomination, and we all know that the Bible is always right. Usually Far Right.

Don’t have the link, but read about a far-right religious organization that is now producing its own version of the Bible to remove all that awful “liberal” bias. They apparently only believe in a literal translation of the bible when it suits them.

You’d have a very small army, Edgar Bumpers. Please don’t pin this all on “religion” generally. I’m a very religious person who believes that homosexual persons should either be allowed to serve openly in the military or be exempt from federal income taxes. My religion is the very thing that informs this belief. And I am not alone in this.

bcs, it’s Conservapedia. (http://tinyurl.com/ykq8pez) I’ve read excerpts, and it does things like soften the language around the “camel passing through the eye of the needle” to make rich people okay, despite Jesus’ words. Some want to rename the Pharisees “liberals” or “intellectual elites.” What I have not heard is any shred of evidence that this effort is based on genuine Biblical scholarship, or whether it is the same approach the Bush Administration took to scientific reports, i.e., changing it to suit their own prejudices. Their own statement – see the link – is “the rules guiding this translation are to use and be informed by conservative insights and terminology.” It is based on the King James Bible, which is a warning right there (cdward, you there?), since despite its beautiful language it has numerous well-known translation errors.

motive, thanks for the link. Truly amazing the boundless hypocrisy of those who believe they know and should dictate God’s will.

If you get the chance watch “Outrage” the documentary that enlightens us with all the closeted gays who help run the government, many of whom are publicly very anti-gay because they pander to the right Christian conservative base.

charlie555, you have either rewritten history or have never served in the military.

Curious point, your same comments were used, replacing “homosexiual tendencies” with “negro”, as a basis for aginist intergration the Army.

charlie, that’s been gospel in the armed forces for years. Trouble is, it isn’t true. After all, closeted gays have been there for centuries now, remember? And in fact, a few of the most successful military units in history actively practiced homosexual acts to bond. The Greeks, for example, had no inhibitions about this, and the Spartans were pretty doggoned good soldiers. Besides, there are reasons to think that “sexual tension” can lead to improved performance. When women were allowed into the military academies, it was found that they would challenge each other, and it raised overall performance. This also feels like an extension of the old sexist arguments that “you can’t trust men to control their impulses,” which leads to women being blamed for their own rapes. In this case it is the presumption that a man interested in other men has to disrupt an entire troop. Nonsense. Esprit de corps is more powerful than that. Controlling impulses is what being a professional soldier – or an adult – is about.

If you think you are a “Good Christian” remember you don’t get to make that judgement – your church does.

No, Ken, God does.

We don’t have low expectations. We wouldn’t believe in gay marriage if we didn’t believed they could be faithful to each other.

Right now, many gays are not because all they have as role models are the party animals you see in gay pride parades.

Also, if any potential sexual partner ruins a military unit, women would be the downfall of the military.

As Motive noted slightly, the movie “300” brought all the right-wing anti-gay, “draft dodger type”, pro-military to the theaters to watch those Greek warriors kick Persian butt, without the slightest knowledge that that Spartan line was gay.

We had gays in the military in my time, and though they weren’t all totally in “the closet”, as long as they didn’t “bother” anyone, nobody bothered them either, and they did their jobs effectively.

Those who want to truly serve their country, by serving, rather than by waving flags at every opportunity, talking about it, and finding “better things to do with their time”, should be allowed to.

motivemagus – True, very true, but, sadly, God judges you after you die, the Church judges, and may perscute you (as many “Christians” do) while you’r alive.

dtroutma,,that’s why gays love the movie “300”. Isn’t that ironic?

Charlie 555, read about the Spartans.

charlie, you’re making *my* point. Why do you think gay men are less able to control themselves than straight ones? As you note, “So from whence came the soft bigotry of low expectations aimed at men with same sex attraction?” I don’t have one. I think we should admit that many fine soldiers are homosexual, and quit this “don’t ask, don’t tell” nonsense once and for all!

If gays want to join the military I’m okay with that. It shouldn’t matter what their sexual orientation is. The fact that they want to defend their country is good enough for me. God bless them. I’ve always thought that “don’t ask don’t tell” was a foolish idea.

It’s no one’s business!

Yep, and gays in the priesthood worked so well for the Catholic church too …

Gays ≠ pederasts, nomad. And I live in Boston and send my kids to Catholic schools, and I assure you I am enraged by the Church’s lack of response to these scandals. But you are talking apples and oranges.

Nomad, not all gays are pedophiles AND girls also get abused, by men. How do you explain that?

Actually, they are not extinct, just a part of Greece.

Charlie555 Should we suggest a soldier who is attracted to children ignore “don’t ask, don’t tell?”

Again equating homosexuality with paedophilia. Homosexuality is not a disease nor a perversion.

“All the military asks is that they control their impulses while in service to their country which in their case includes not labeling themselves by their sexual predilections in order to receive affirmation from others .”

As far as I know, soldiers have no problem labeling themselves by their sexual predilections when they are heterosexual. What they might get in trouble for is if they can not adequately control those predilections and let them interfere with their job.

When you say “We expect men with married woman attraction to control themselves” you probably mean that they shouldn’t have affairs with married women. Do you think a soldier should be excluded from the army for saying something like “Man, look at the bleeep on Jack’s girl!” ? I doubt you do - as far as I know such words are considered fairly harmless, and not exactly a rare thing. Admission to being a homosexual is no worse (or better).

Now, if being homosexual was illegal, like paedophilia or drug use, I can see the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (although in those cases it probably would be a “don’t serve” as well). However, under the current laws admitting you are gay is no more illegal than admitting you are a smoker. a Methodist or of Pacific islander descent.

Uh-huh, except we didn’t do that in WWII, one of the things that impressed the world with us.

It’s silly subject, but the fact is that, in the long run, demoralizing and terrorizing doesn’t work. The Germans paided dearly for this in WWII, and it was part of why the Russians were kicked out of Afghanistan.

Burning villages didn’t help us in Vietnam.

As a side note to those who want us to stay in Afganistan remember the Russian military was given a free hand to do what ever they wanted – they still lost.

Thanks Striper, I am sure none of us knew that, no wonder you are so angry.

Ncm:

One crazy mutha!

;-D

neoconman must love Polanski

Oldlego, technically you are right, it’s not that they disliked women. However, homosexual relationships in their military were quite common, if Xenophon was to be trusted. To be honest, this was not unique to them in any way - it was a common thing in Greece at the time. Such relationships were as often physical as mental, and this was widely accepted (sometimes even supported).

The most curious thing is that the Thebans, who eventually mopped the floor with the Spartans in the 4th century, were even more known for this practice. One of their elite units, the Golden Band, was practically based on it.

MAKE EVERYBODY HAPPY LET THEM IN AND SCREW THEM

“It’s more complex than this. The courts have engineered rights for “gays” for which the people have not voted. The ultimate recognition of “gayness” - “gay” marriage - has been rejected by most states. The people have proved by this rejection that they prefer “don’t ask, don’t tell.””

Ok, let’s set the stereotypes aside. Courts don’t “engineer” rights. They are not the legislative authority and do not make laws. They interpret the existing laws, and in particular the constitution, and are the experts in what they state and how they should be applied. While it doesn’t always work out perfectly in practice (then again, what does) their interpretation is on average much better that most laymen’s.

As for gay marriage, it is not a “recognition” of homosexuality alone, but how it interacts with a specific social institution - marriage. Marriage is an institution with a lot of history and meanings, both symbolic and material. As far as I know, very few states have said anything about gay marriage, or the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in particular - voting for this party or that ties this issue to many others, and is not the be-all, end-all indicator.

Frankly, I wish there would just be a referendum to decide that issue and let it be done.

charlie, striper, et al.– The point that psychologists thought homosexuality was “abnormal” longer than they have otherwise is irrelevant. People thought the Earth was flat and that lice protected you from disease, too. We’ve learned better. (And striper, the DSM is preferred to the dictionary if you are referring to mental abnormalities. And good dictionaries refer to it.) “Reprogramming” doesn’t work, by the way. And what does “normal” mean, anyhow? Are you abnormal because you are a Republican? Only 30% of the US self-identifies as such right now. Or to take a better example, how about left-handedness? Evidence suggests that homosexuality is part of the human genome, and exists in about the same percentage of the population as left-handedness (which some have also considered a dysfunction!). It has existed throughout history; some cultures embraced it (like Classical Greece - read Plato’s Symposium); some tolerated it or ignored it; some rejected it – but it was always there. We are not the only species by far to demonstrate it – various ape and monkey species, dolphins, and others have shown homosexual behaviors. “Found consistently in ten percent of the population” is different from “screwed up.” It may be unusual, but not abnormal. If you want an evolutionary justification, E. O. Wilson provided one in one of his books on sociobiology.

Again Stripper with his 597 positions.

This is like the “I’m not old enough to drink, but old enough to go to war.”

So someone has to be less gay in order to go to war.

WTF?!?!?!?

charlie, you cited two examples, and then claim it is different. Humans did it to prove dominance, too: the Romans, to be precise. And yes, homosexuality has been found in multiple species - mostly the primates and the smarter mammals.