Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The General and his Gay Soldiers

















So the Pentagon's top General thinks it's still a good idea to kick gay soldiers out of the U.S. military...and force tens of thousands of other gay soldiers to fight for their country...while hiding who they are and who they love.

And not only that....he insults them as well.... by publicly declaring that homosexuality is immoral.

"As an individual, I would not want (acceptance of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior...."

As if homosexuality was just a behaviour..... instead of an orientation. As if they didn't need all the good soldiers they can get. So they don't have to recruit gang members, racists and other criminals.

As if the General wasn't acting just like the religious fanatics his soldiers are fighting against.

Dave at the Galloping Beaver has written a good post about the absurdity of it all.

But my reaction is more personal. I know some gay American soldiers, including one who is presently fighting in one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq. So I know that gay soldiers can be just as good and brave as any other soldiers. And sometimes even braver...because some of them try so hard to be better than the others...so they can earn the respect they crave...and be treated as equals by the buddies they fight and die with.

That kind of devotion to duty is not something I approve of....not in a crazy war like Iraq....but I understand where they are coming from.

I also know how lonely gay soldiers can feel when they must say goodbye to their lovers and partners at home...instead of at the airport.The straight soldiers get to hug and kiss their girl friends and wives. But the gay soldiers can't show their feelings, and must walk to the gate alone.







I also know how hard it is after returning from some hellish patrol not to be able to share your true feelings in an e-mail or a phone call home. Because your e-mails and phone calls are screened. So you can't even tell the person you love how much you love them. Even though you could be killed the next day.

You've got to love your country a lot and really love being a soldier .... to fight for an army that treats you like that.

Fortunately more and more gay soldiers and their supporters are challenging the ban. And joining forces to try to overturn it. You can read about that struggle here and here.

It's a noble cause....I wish I could be as restrained and dignified as they are. But I can't. It just makes me so angry. And I'm so sick of homophobes spewing their vomit all over us...in the name of crazy religion.

I just wish I could pack all of these chickenhawk bigots into the back of a humvee, and send them for a little spin though hell ...the kind my soldier friend in Iraq takes practically every day...




Except I would hope that the bigots riding in the humvee....and the religious fanatics who set off the IED...wouldn't be so lucky...

Hope that because of all the gay lives they've destroyed...they would, fittingly enough, be blown to smithereens. Or at the very least....drown in their own blood....

Hey gay soldier boy! Semper Fidelis....hero idiot...

Wouldn't that be a beautiful day?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

my initial dumbass thought:

"Nobody dressed like that, wearing that much ribbon, has any business saying anything the least bit naughty about gays. I mean, Jesus, but that is seriously FEY."

:)

Methinks he needs to take some lessons from the ancient Greeks...

JJ said...

I heard (I should look for a link before I type, but oh well) that the army was firing arabic translators because they were gay. Apart from being bigoted, how stupid is that??? More than anything they need translators... one of the worst problems of that whole war right from the start was that none of the coalition forces spoke arabic, so nobody could talk to the people.

JJ said...

Here's a link about the translators:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6824206

Anonymous said...

this conjures up so many questions and thoughts about ANYONE being part of the system , striving for equality etc.. it's not to diss those who are a part of it, but i have to wonder, why does anyone want to be, no wonder what stripes they wear?

i think bringing about the new paradigm may mean saying, 'ok, we've had enough, we're not going to partake anymore'.

'love of country' is different then following it blindly. support of troops , even though it's been their choice to go over to iraq or afghanistan or wherever, is important...but perhaps the best thing would be for the able soldiers to 'just say no' and end their terms.

if recruiting criminals is what it takes, then at least they'll be fighting for the biggest criminals of them all....the politicians who continue imperialism.

simon, i know you love sebastien and he's a soldier, but sometimes i have to question a post like this because it doesn't jive in the spirit world. warrior energy can be put to better use then firing guns.

Lept said...

Having ended up pretending to have epilepsy to get out of serving my country (okay, it was apartheid South Africa, but an army tends to be an army... in attitude anyway) so I have little resonance with this issue.
However, I have been blown away by what I started to hear about the practices against gays in the notorious Ward 22 in the old South African Army.
(I blogged about it recently).

Simon said...

Hey Jay!! I want you to know that I spent a lot of time looking for just the right picture. And don't you love the way he's holding that
mike...like a lovely tulip... :)

Hi JJ...I knew about the translators...it's really nuts..They invade a country where the Chimp doesn't know the difference between the Sunnis and the Shia..and they couldn't even understand what the people were saying...or talk to them in the streets. mama mia what a mess...

Hi Scout!! I know what you mean...and in the larger sense you are right. But right now being allowed to sign up is like gay marriage. It's a mark of equality. You might not want to get married or fight but those who want to should be able to. But I really do know what you mean.Eventually we're going to have to stop killing each other or the planet is doomed. But I also believe that as long as there are some real bad guys, and we want a gentler kinder world and they don't...We can't be too gentle with them or they'll kil us all.But then I admit that I have been steeped in military stuff ever since I was a boy...so what the fuck do I know? :)

Hey Leonard!! I don't blame you...faking epilepsy is a good one!! But seriously... I read your excellent post on ward 22. It was really shocking. I'd say it takes a group that came up with apartheid to do something like that. But then I read the other day how Alan Turing...the guy who helped crack the Enigma code...and once of the inventors of the computer...was forced to take hormone treatment for his homosexuality...until he grew breasts and killed himself. These dirty racists and homophobes are all the same...

Lept said...

I didn't actually fake a fit but it was hair raising.
Ironically, the Canadian immigration act that I came in under stipulated seven (if I recall correctly) reasons for exclusion or deportation:
Prostitution;
Homosexuality;
Epilepsy;
Mental disability;
Membership in subversive/revolutionary group;
I forget the others.
I qualified for deportation under at least two of those 'categories'!