In fiscal year 2007, nearly one in five Army recruits were brought in under waivers for felonies and misdemeanors.
Enmeshed in two military occupations that have turned into well-publicized quagmires, the Army and Marines are understandably having trouble enlisting new recruits. Their answer: vastly increase the number of convicted felons and other societal miscreants accepted into their ranks.
According to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, from 2006 to 2007 the Army more than doubled its felonious recruits and the Marine Corps increased its share by more than two-thirds. For example, some entrants had convictions for crimes of dishonesty — including burglary, robbery, and grand larceny — crimes of violence — such as aggravated assault, arson, and “terroristic” threats, including bomb threats — and sex crimes, such as rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, molestation, and indecent acts with a child. In addition, the two services dramatically increased their “conduct waivers” for people convicted of misdemeanors. Astonishingly, in fiscal year 2007, nearly one in five Army recruits were brought in under waivers for felonies and misdemeanors.
The never-ending wars have also forced the Army to take larger numbers of recruits who are older and less physically fit, have lower education and aptitude, and have formerly disqualifying medical maladies. Also, recently President Bush reduced the length of combat tours in Iraq from fifteen months to twelve.
Although this latter measure may help somewhat with military recruiting and retention and gives soldiers a much-needed break from the stress of combat, it is detrimental to winning a war against guerrillas. In such counterinsurgency warfare, it is crucially important to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous people. To do this, personal relations must be maintained with the local leaders and warlords. Rotating people out of Iraq so quickly may boost morale and recruiting, but it destroys such relationships. The same happened with short tours in Vietnam.
One problem is that when the U.S. is not fighting a war against what the American public perceives as a dire threat (for example, the Nazis and Imperial Japanese during World War II) — that is, the war is one of choice, such as Iraq or Vietnam — the nation is unwilling to make the sacrifices needed to win. In World War II, serving more than twelve months overseas was not an issue.
Another problem is that recruiting societal miscreants might especially impair counterinsurgency warfare. Especially violent people, or those who don’t properly control their behavior, might be adequate for all-out combat against a conventional enemy, but would not be good at winning hearts and minds. In fact, when faced with guerrillas who attack and then melt back into the general population, these recruits might be more apt to commit atrocities against the population.
Finally, the military would rather have such miscreants — some of them violent criminals or felons who have committed sex-related crimes (as long as they are heterosexual offenses) — in its ranks than it would gays. The fact that openly gay people are still being kicked out of the military does not create an enticing climate for gays to join, at a time when the armed forces need every qualified person they can get. Similarly, excluding women from serving on submarines (because of the allegedly cramped quarters) and certain combat positions (because they are presumably too frail) deters some athletic and qualified women from enlisting in the ground and naval forces.
The obvious solutions to all of these problems are to avoid unnecessary brushfire wars and to change wacky military personnel policies that undermine the all-volunteer military.
Mr. Stapler – Here’s the key problem, I think. You state that gay behavior “represents a palpable threat to straights”.
Can you elaborate on this? That’s exactly what extreme feminists say about men – that all men represent a palpable threat to women. Why are the feminists wrong about that, but you’re right? That’s what I don’t get.
Are you suggesting by your comparison that homosexuals are all rapists? I find that difficult to credit – you mostly seem otherwise reasonable – but those “palpable threat” words do raise some doubt. I mean, most men want to have sex with women, but that does not make most men ‘rapists’. Comparing actual criminals with people who are, hypothetically and with no demonstrated evidence, potentially capable of a crime does not seem ‘valid’ to me.
I have no doubt that there are people who are positive that all gays think of nothing all day except attacking straight men. I’m even sure that there are many such people in the military. But the fact is, based on my experiences and that of other militaries that allow gays to serve, those people are wrong. I can’t see how catering to that prejudice serves anyone. I mean, someone with that level of prejudice couldn’t be trusted to, say, protect a group of civilians who happened to be gay.
I’m not asking people to like homosexuality. It strikes me as… awfully weird, myself. But being unable to function even in presence of a homosexual… I just can’t understand it.
Sedonaman, Mr. Adams – the problem behavior you describe is the favoritism, not the sexuality. You don’t need a sexual relationship to ‘take care of your own’. The sad details of the case of Pat Tillman don’t include, to my knowledge, any hint of sexuality (hetero or homo) on the part of anyone who tried to cover up what happened. I see no hint that the officers here had a homosexual relationship: http://www.officer.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=41399
No hint of heterosexuality or homosexuality in the death of the Afghan taxi driver, something worse than Abu Ghraib, though not as public because there weren’t pictures of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilawar_(human_rights_victim)
On the other hand, women in the military getting pregnant is, indeed, a serious issue. I’ve got no problem with dishonorable discharge in such cases, when it’s clear the pregnancy started on deployment rather than on leave. Even a pregnancy on leave can still affect promotions and discharge dates.
Mr. Ingles,
“you don’t need a sexual relationship to take care of your own.”
Agreed, so what’s your point? Mine was to limit setting up circumstances that would cause the kinds of problems we’ve been discussing. Those problems can be eliminated by policy – keeping sexual attractions out of the picture. I’m not sure there is a policy solution for controling people taking care of their own.
Sexual and romantic attractions are the dynamite. If you don’t believe me, you research instances of crazy events related to protecting one’s own and I will get you a pile of insanity related to relationships gone bad. Hollywood alone ought to keep me busy for some time.
The military has mechanism for controlling relationship problems. It’s easy to reduce pregnancy and other problems related to “couples” by not allowing them together in the field.
Reducing all manner of sex and relationship problems is easy if you ensure that the circumstances that would lead to soldiers getting involved don’t exist. What overriding factors are there that force the military to set up those circrumstances? How does it come to be that a Lynndie England was where she was?
It isn’t because the military didn’t know better. It had policy in place, but people throwing hissy fits about fairness, equal treatment and discrimination won out.
We have to get real, not real fair. The military can’t afford to be less effective and bend to an ideolgy focused on diversity to the exclusion of the job of maintaining and effective fighting force. When it comes to admitting transvestites, and it will sooner or later come to that if the don’t ask, don’t tell policy is dropped, the goal of the activists trying to get them in the military won’t be to improve the military. If the military bends and allows it, it won’t be doing it to improve the military. So what are we doing but playing some sort of silly game with our fighting forces.
Accommodating every social justice crusader who comes along leads to reduced performance – form over function.
Most fire departments in this country lowered the standards for firefighters in order to allow women to pass the physical requirements for the job.
Fantastic. Women do not have to be able to sling an adult victim over their shoulder and carry them out of a burning building, yet they still are allowed to rush into burning buildings to rescue people. So six male and two female firefighters only save seven of the eight victims inside.
What a victory for diversity. What a sacrifice for diversity the eighth victim made.
Mr. Ingles:
“You state that gay behavior ‘represents a palpable threat to straights’. … Can you elaborate on this?”
Allow me chime in and help Mr. Stapler.
First of all, we must realize that madness, once unleashed, knows no bounds. Recall that when this movement started, homosexuals said all they wanted was to be left alone. Therefore, when we consider the situation we are faced with today, we should rightfully conclude that gay “marriage” will not be the end of homosexual demands. Their ultimate goal, and I’ve heard them say it, is validation and acceptance. What greater symbol of the achievement of this goal than admittance to Catholic holy communion while being an openly practicing homosexual? Therefore, the next demand will be that Christian churches, especially the Catholic Church, be required not only to recognize homosexual marriage, but even to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexual couples. If you think this is unlikely, consider the past and current demands that Catholic hospitals perform abortions and Catholic pharmacists dispense the “morning-after” pill, all under threat of the government’s taking away their licenses to practice. If the Church begins performing gay “marriages”, there will be nothing left standing between practicing homosexuals in general and the communion rail.
The thought of submitting to Satan’s work will motivate the Church to respond to such an outrage, and that will be a sort of “surrender Italian-style” – surrender before they take it so it can be on the Church’s terms. What can the civil authorities take if the Church refuses to perform homosexual “marriages”? The Church’s authority to perform marriage recognized by civil law. Therefore, the Church will renounce that authority first. The Church would continue to perform marriage ceremonies for the straight faithful, but they will then become just like any other sacrament, meaningless under civil law; call it sacramental marriage, if you will. In the eyes of the Church, though, the couple would be married; but in the eyes of society, they would be merely domestic partners. Other Christian churches, along with conservative Jewish synagogues, would probably soon follow suit. If couples so desire, they could also get a civil ceremony to avail themselves of possible benefits, if any, of a marriage recognized by secular law. Since fornication and adultery are no longer crimes, and domestic partners are now largely recognized by society, there might not be any need for a civil ceremony at all.
What are liberal social engineers going to say then, that they no longer accept domestic partner relationships, after vigorously campaigning for their recognition for so many years? Also, the Church need not fear that this would run afoul of Christ’s “render unto Caesar” because “Caesar” has made it abundantly clear that he no longer has an interest in marriage and family. Thus, gays will have successfully destroyed marriage and with it a stable straight society.
“That’s exactly what extreme feminists say about men – that all men represent a palpable threat to women. Why are the feminists wrong about that, but you’re right?”
Does the extreme feminist get persecuted when she says that?
Nick Adams:
“Women do not have to be able to sling an adult victim over their shoulder and carry them out of a burning building…”
“Diversity is diametrically opposed to quality.” – Dinesh D’Souza
I once had to arrange for a fire inspection for the engineering compartment my group used aboard a Navy ship. The fire inspector was a woman, and she was in uniform, complete with a fireman’s badge. I informed her that the compartment was five levels up and to follow me. Stairs on ships are called “ladders” and for good reason. After climbing three levels, I could no longer hear the inspector behind me. I had to wait until she huffed and puffed her way up. I wondered how one could be a fireman without being able to climb a ladder at least as well as a non-fireman.
All these Leftist/liberal ideas work fine … in the heads of the Leftist/liberals. “Someone once defined a social problem as a situation in which the real world differs from the theories of intellectuals. To the intelligentsia, it follows, as the night follows the day, that it is the real world that is wrong and which needs to change.” – Thomas Sowell
Sedonaman – Ah, “slippery slope”. Got it. “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”. We’ve got to keep them out of the military because they might commit grand lobbying.
Mr. Adams – single question: Would the military have to lower standards in the way you decry to allow homosexuals to serve?
Regardless of the arguments, Raymond Ingles is still fighting windmills here crusading for a cause that’s already been “won”. Keep your mouth shut (oh jeez) and your hands to yourself, and nobody needs to know that you’re gay if you’re in the military. Homosexuals who desire to serve in the military and are capable of exercising restraint and professionalism – characteristics that Mr. Ingles acknowledges should be preconditions for their acceptance to military service in the first place (and characteristics that he is convinced, for lack of empirical evidence to the contrary, that all homosexuals intrinsically possess) – around their fellow soldiers can already do so! So what exactly is it that Mr. Ingles is arguing here? What is his objection to the current policy, and what is his solution to his objection? His objection is not that qualified gays who act responsibly and professionally around their heterosexual counterparts are not allowed in the military – or if that is his objection, it is utterly fallacious – because they *are* allowed in the military. So what is it that Mr. Ingles is actually objecting to? That open, “out of the closet” gays who feel compelled to share their sexual orientation with their fellow soldiers are not allowed in the military? That gays are not allowed to engage in homosexual activity while in the company of heterosexual soldiers? That gays are not allowed to engage in homosexual activity with other homosexual soldiers? What special accommodations need to be added to our current policy as it regards homosexuals? Should they be allowed to share their sexual orientation with their fellow soldiers? Should they be allowed to engage in homosexual activity while in the company of heterosexual soldiers? Should they be allowed to engage in homosexual activity with other homosexual soldiers? (Those would be special accommodations that are not afforded to heterosexual soldiers, by the way). Let’s narrow the focus of this discussion to what exactly it is that Mr. Ingles is so relentlessly defending here.
In the interest of equality, would it make any sense to deny male soldiers the opportunity to shower and fraternize with female soldiers (and vice versa) if we were to make those special accommodations for homosexuals? Would it be fair that homosexuals are allowed to get an eyeful of the sexual form that stimulates them at every shower, but men and women would be denied such accommodations? Would it be fair that homosexuals are allowed to engage in sexual activities that are denied to heterosexuals who must live in a gender-separated environment?
And what evidence do we have that there is an unfulfilled desire among “out of the closet” homosexuals to join the military in the first place? If we need empirical findings to “prove” that gays should not be allowed in the military because of morale, or sexual assaults, or whatever reason, why do we not need empirical findings to “prove” that gays should be allowed in the military, or that they even want to be allowed in the military? I’m afraid I need evidence please – data. Hard data. Statistics. Probabilities. Graphs and charts. A congressional hearing. And a public referendum.
Mr. Mulligan – Where, exactly, did I say that “all” homosexuals possess those traits? Specifics, please… it shouldn’t be hard to prove, right?
And, secondly, Mr. Mulligan: No, they aren’t: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iusf0qzmyeUxdw-9g2DKh42LzkNwD90QIVSG1
(Say… lesbians would appear to have a much lower chance than other women of turning up pregnant on duty, right? Scratch one objection…)
Mr. Ingles,
The entire premise of your argument vis-a-vis the shower example that was brought up and has become the central premise of this argument, has been that homosexuals in a heterosexual environment will act professionally and responsibly (to the extent of not sexually assaulting or “making advances” on their fellow showerers), or at least that there is no sensible reason to assume that they will not because there is no data to prove otherwise (presumably the logic here is “you never know until you try”). Consequently, it is merely the irrational prejudice of the heterosexual (like the irrational prejudice of the “white” in WWII) that would potentially cause friction or awkwardness in a mixed-sexuality environment. If you want me to pull a quote where you said “all homosexuals will act responsibly and professionally when showering with heterosexuals”, I can’t indulge you. I can, however, follow your logic to that conclusion at least as easily as you can infer that Bob Stapler’s objections to homosexuals serving in the military are synonymous with racial segregation (Post #26 “Go back and read your post, except substitute ‘Negro’ for ‘gay’. It sounds a whole lot like a segregationist in the 1960′s. E.g., “It doesn’t even attempt to explain the causes of anti-Negro violence; which I suspect are more often triggered by activism than out right discrimination.”"). You’re very demanding of “proof” from others, but you dole out heavy doses of inference, implication, cherry-picking, and one-off “examples” in your own writing.
That’s rather a trivial quote to cherry pick and latch onto given the content of my post, and I’ll note that you failed to answer even one question I posed to you (speaking of specifics, which appear to be of the utmost importance to you until it comes time for you to indulge someone else’s requests for them). You’ve been asking those of the opposite persuasion to clarify and narrow the focus of their objections throughout this entire discussion – the least you could do is extend the same courtesy. It is intellectually dishonest to engage only in the parts of a discussion that you like. Or to pull a quote: “if you’re going to argue with me, at least argue with what I actually write instead of what you seem to wish I had written.”
And secondly, Mr. Ingles, perhaps your frenzied desire for a big “AHA” clouded your reading comprehension, but Major Witt was discharged **after it was revealed that she was in a homosexual relationship**. That’s the “don’t tell” part of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. She spent the 19 years during which nobody knew she was a homosexual (because they “didn’t ask”) serving in the military, did she not? And she’s been reinstated nonetheless, has she not?
Mr. Ingles:
Words fail me when I try to express the immense ego and pride required to enable the members of a single generation to think they know more that the 800 combined that went before it. You will never have to live with the results of your liberal fascist ideas, as Goldberg calls them. Call it a slippery slope if you want, but it is more than adequately quod est demonstratum.
Mr. Ingles,
Would the military have to lower standards, you ask?
My point was to “policy” being changed to accommodate diversity and social justice rangers. It could be lowering standards, ignoring the concerns of the troops, grading on a curve, accepting increased liability, cost or legal problems; what have you.
I think only someone who has witnessed the egg shells today’s military members and leadership walk upon can appreciate how distracting the focus on sensitivity issues, diversity, political correctness and the like has become.
A single sexual assualt charge (real or fabricated) reverberates all the way to the Pentagon, and sometimes the White House these days.
These distractions are costing us time, money and probably lives, as the time dedicated to the myriad training courses and briefings on “awareness” issues take the place of combat and technology training. I can only imagine the gay sensitivity and respect training that would emerge if gays are permitted to serve openly.
The military pays a price on the battlefield whenever it has to dedicate so many of its resources to meeting the needs of people and groups whose goal is not to improve the fighting force, but to win ideological and social justice victories through inclusion strategies. Why does the military have to indulge such foolishness? We most certainly can afford to say no to avoid the problems.
Gay activists are working tirelessly to do away with don’t ask, don’t tell. Any they are quite right when they state that the policy is discriminatory. But it is discriminatory for a reason.
Women’s groups are right when they state that standards requiring women to perform a fireman’s carry of an adult are discriminatory. But there is an important reason for that discrimination, too. Yet despite the obvious, that discrimination has been done away with in many fire departments. I would guess that racial discrimination was used as a weapon by women’s groups to help win that battle.
It is the mistaken belief that discrimination has no place anywhere that leads to mediocrity and reduced effectiveness, something we can’t afford in our military.
The system works now. No one has to “get over it” regarding gays, because there are no openly gay soldiers to worry about.
If that changes and openly gay, flamboyant types who want to play macho-macho man in the Navy, and who meet the physical criteria, can’t be turned away, there will be a breakdown.
Many servicemembers join to be part of something special. They are proud of the service, believe in integrity and moral staightness (no pun intended). How can the military maintain morale, and how can it attract new recruits who value these things if the force devolves into a joke?
Not to worry, there won’t be that many gays interested? That’s what they said about women in combat zones, thousands of whom are deploying every year.
Sedonaman – Don’t understate. There have been a lot more than 800 generations of humanity. But pride does goeth before a fall, like abolition and suffrage.
Mr. Mulligan – the point of Witt is that she served for nearly two decades with no problems. Quite the contrary, she received commendations. There was absolutely no evidence that she was causing any problems. Then, once the nature of her sexuality came to light, she was discharged, over the objections of many who worked with her.
There are other cases like this. Such cases make it clear that the fact of who someone wants to sleep with is not necessarily a determinant of how well someone will perform in the military. I don’t see how it serves any diagnostic purpose that actually looking at their performance doesn’t answer. Which is what I recommend to Mr. Adams, who seems to be very worried about ‘flamboyant’ people being discipline problems. But we have Mr. Stapler’s assurance, all the way back in comment #3, that “those with poor attitudes and little aptitude will get shunted where they are most useful and harmless”.
What I asked was: Why, assuming Mr. Stapler’s right, wouldn’t that apply to gays? I called “unwanted advances… a genuine, potential concern” (comment 17). I didn’t say that there weren’t ‘problems’ with the behavior of gays – I just questioned if it were we really true that there was more of a problem with gays (comment 7). I’d like to know how you conclude from that that I think “all” gays are fine, upstanding people that would never do anything wrong?
Discipline problems are discipline problems. But if someone’s not causing a problem, then getting rid of them for unrelated reasons strikes me as something that leads to what Mr. Adams is worried about – “reduced effectiveness”. The reason we don’t need studies to “prove” gays wouldn’t be discipline problems is pretty straightforward – the hallowed American principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. If they would be problems, let them prove it.
To redundantly reiterate again, that hasn’t been the case in other Western militaries that have dropped policies specifically targeting gays.
Mr. Ingles,
Either you are naive or plotting.
This is the United States of America, political enemy of many of its own by virtue of being a nearly 90 percent religious, capitalistic representative republic. The goal of hundreds of thousands of activists politically aligned with gay activist groups is to attack its institutions.
There are many dimensions to the ongoing political war, not the least of which is the socialist movement. One front of that war is destroying the “puritans” – everyday people who follow a religious morality and stand in the way of “anything goes” sexuality and the adoption of the general brand of realtavism that validates leftist ideas and facilitate its objectives.
You certainly would not make a odds maker if you are predicting that the U.S. military, a very symbol of our pride and strength, the protector of our system and way of life, would not become the target of activists who seek to change that system and way of life.
It would be nice if we didn’t have to contend with people so bent on change they don’t mind toppling our most important institutions. You certainly don’t mind advocating setting up conditions to help make that possible. But it’s so easy when one is sitting at a keyboard alone with his ideology, fantasizing about utopia.
I have already pointed out the amount of time and money spent on training servicemembers to be politically correct, and the overly cautious restrictions and demands that distract the force from its mission.
You keep asking why not, while the answer to that question is clear enough – not only for military leaders, but for the servicemembers who have to endure new rules, regulations, and retraining to accommodate the special needs and considerations the change in policy presents.
You keep focusing on the qualifications of the individual as if that is all there is to consider. To realize how selfish what you propose is, ask yourself a simple question:
Would military strategists and leaders having a conference on how to improve the force come to the conclusion that what the military needs is to open the door to gays, transvestites, people with gender identity issues and the like, allowing them to serve openly?
Not hardly, though that is the goal of activists, who like you, ask why not? as long as they are qualified. But the military’s resistence wouldn’t have anything to do with the fighting capability of the new recruits. There could be dozens of Audie Murphie’s among the gays and transvestites.
No, more than likely, that military conference will be called one day so leaders can work out a strategy for dealing with the fallout of having to admit any and all because of PC presure from elected leaders catering to their progressive constituents and liberal judges.
Imagine the nightmare (perhaps this is your dream scene of pride being destroyed, Mr. Ingles)of having to develop policies, contingencies and addressing the protests from thousands of soldiers exposed to all sorts of weirdness, and imagine the distraction from the core job of protecting the U.S. as we struggle to protect the rights and feelings of our wildly diverse new military, which by now is starting to look more like a sideshow act than a professional force.
The United States, with its well organized chaos machines on the left, is not like other western countries. We are at the top of the capitalist world and the most religious one at that. We are the biggest tree to fell in the struggle to achieve a socialist society of moral relativists operating under manmade moral strategies, as you call them.
Your arguments on many topics here involve swinging the axe at that tree, on the pretense that it chops away our bias and hate, foolish religious belief and all else that stands between us and harmony and peace.
But most of us know that Eden is gone and we will have to make due with what we can. Most of us know the road to heaven on Earth runs through Hell and does not emerge.
But “most” doesn’t count anymore, does it? A full 80-plus percent of Americans are opposed to the idea of gay marriage, yet every month we see the will of the people being ignored and overturned, even after they have voted.
About the same number were against allowing people who broke into our country illegally to be rewarded with citizenship – citzenship identical to those immigrants who came here the hard and legal way. And this minority idea almost won out over the majority. It may yet.
The minority and its intellectual academic cheering section know what is best for us, so damn the people. You do not care if you distract the military from its mission, perhaps because there is no worthy mission to start.
War is never the answer for leftist activists, right? Our military is used to oppress the world and impose our brand of freedom and democracy, and to expand capitalism. So whatever harmful policy can be put in place to bring us down to size, is a good thing.
You keep saying everything will be OK, but your soothing words to the frog are falling on deaf ears here. This country is too politically charged, and the movement to overturn it by a minority or unpopular revolution, with the help of pandering politicians, liberal courts and a supportive press and academia, is obvious.
We frogs also know that the minor increase in water temperature you propose we endure for our own good is the beginning of what is destined to become a roiling boil.
Connections, Mr. Ingles. This leads to that, that leads to this, and so on. I’m not saying change is bad, but the point of conservatism is to make changes that are consistent with certain realities, and regulate change so as it does not destabilize us. It is why we still stand today.
Meanwhile, leftists are at war with reality, and they know the only way to defeat it is to tear everything down and start over with new definitions for everything.
The friction and foolishness that results from trying to tople the windmills of reality may be our downfall, but there is nothing wrong with downfall when ideology dictates that everything there is, our military included deserves to fall.
The irony is that the utopia lefitst create will have to be defended by a military, and it will have the same challenges in creating and maintaining an effective fighting force that their Neanderthal predecessors faced.
They will have to either face those realities or risk being toppled themselves. But there is always hardline communisim to deal with such realities, isn’t there?
Mr. Adams – “Leftists want it, so therefore it must be bad.” Have I got the gist?
Actually, I’m not worried about someone who likes to cross-dress on their own time… so long as they show up in formation in uniform and capably fulfil their duties. The military already puts up with people who vote Democratic in the ranks, so long as they carry out their duties. I’m not in favor of lowering standards… but I’m in favor of justifiable standards (and yes, women who can’t carry the required weight shouldn’t be firefighters), and allowing anyone who meets those standards to serve.
If you think that I think “[w]ar is never the answer”, you should probably read this: http://mdlug.org/pipermail/mdlug-discuss/2007-March/000076.html
Then, we can talk about this weird implication that I’ve been advocating ‘utopia’…
Mr. Inlges,
“Leftists want it, so therefore it must be bad.”
“Ding, ding ding.” Give that man a prize.
Mr. Ingles:
“…so long as they show up in formation in uniform and capably fulfil their duties. The military already puts up with people who vote Democratic in the ranks, so long as they carry out their duties. I’m not in favor of lowering standards… but I’m in favor of justifiable standards (and yes, women who can’t carry the required weight shouldn’t be firefighters), and allowing anyone who meets those standards to serve.
The reason you detect a “weird implication that I’ve been advocating ‘utopia’” … is because you have. In real life, these ideas never play out like they do in your mind.
It all started somewhere around the time that women said they could do anything men could do. In their subconscious minds, it seems, that quickly got morphed into “any woman can do anything any man can do” – a virtual impossibility. Not only that, but another part of the reason it’s “Utopic” thinking is that the concept of “equal” [as in performance] must undergo a transformation the instant it fails. Examples abound, but space limits so I’ll mention just a few.
The first thing attacked were the standards you hold so dear. Why, “they are arbitrary so women can’t meet them.” Whatever they are, they are invariably higher for men because we can’t politically have an all-male workforce.
Women have demanded equality before the law for decades. As soon as they got it in family law in my county, what did they do? Why they complained that “equal” wasn’t really “equal” and demanded more.
Some legal advocacy group wanted to force its will on the Citadel Military Academy some years ago, so they found a willing 18-year-old girl plaintiff to represent in order to allow them to wage cultural jihad against the academy’s sex barrier. It went all the way to the Supreme Court which sided with the advocacy group. The very first thing the girl did upon admission is file another lawsuit asking not to be made to have her head shaved [which was required of all freshmen cadets]. My thought was, wait a minute – wait just one cotton-pickin’ minnit. In her original lawsuit, she claimed she could “do the program” and shouldn’t be discriminated against because she’s female, and now the first thing she does is say in effect, “You can’t expect me to do that.”
A female student aid hears her supervisor over the partition say, “I love you” and promptly files sexual harassment charges against him. He was talking to his wife on the phone. Nothing happens to her.
A supervisor in my office had a performance problem with a woman employee. As soon as he raised the issue with her, she filed sexual harassment charges against him. After making life miserable for him for over a year [he had to hire an attorney at his own expense], they transferred her and declared it a he-said-she-said.
Personal honesty is a job requirement wherever. A woman rings up $13,000 in strictly forbidden personal [as in consumer] charges on her employer’s credit card. All they do is take away her card, even though it made national news. So where was the enforcement of personal honesty? I’ll tell you where: it was busy firing a male employee for wracking up thousands in 900-number phone-sex charges. It would seem that holding only the male responsible is politically costless. In fact, it might even be sacrilegious to hold a woman responsible for any wrongdoing.
A woman who files false charges against a male on the job suffers no adverse consequences. Why? For three reasons: 1) the sex fascists don’t want to discourage other women from doing the same thing [more justification for the fascists’ existence]; 2) they don’t want more sex charges to defend against; and 3) “invariably we find the woman feels she was wronged in some way.” Notice there is no reasonableness requirement on the part of the woman?
The fact that a woman can and does retreat behind her petticoat when things get tough has begotten what I call the “Doctrine of Equal But Special”. Like Orwell said “some are more equal than others,” and Jim Crow made separate but equal – women have become equal but still special.
All you care about is “…so long as they show up in formation in uniform and capably fulfil their duties.” Well, what if they don’t. Would you be willing to spend 110% of your time as a supervisor to step through all the legal hoops to fire them? No one in his right mind would be that willing.
And that’s why your ideas are Utopic.
P.S. I was referring to the 800 generations of Western Civilization.
Sedonaman
Good points. What you describe is the reality that there is no end and there is no victory for activists, who must forever be active.
Admitting all brands, no matter how strange, into the military will happen through a process of struggle and hell raising by the “victims” of discrimination. Once inside, they don’t settle into military life and become one of the boys. They go to work on all the institutions that do not suit them. The dynamic is not much different than a hostile company takeover.
The usual progression, as you point out, is to want more than equality and to begin raising hell for “parity.” That is achieved by getting special exceptions and accommodations. This always leads to resentment by everyone else, who stand by and watch as they have to adjust to not only changing environments and policies, but policies that favor the newcomers’ to avoid the “discrimination” charge. And there is no end to it.
It is at the core of the gay marriage drive. Gays already have “equality” with heterosexuals – they may marry one person of the opposite sex. Thus it isn’t equality they seek, but an expansion of rights and a correpsonding expansion of the definition of marriage that would make marriage what they want it to mean.
The problem is marriage already has a definition. Married men and woman everywhere have an historical and moral interest in preserving what they have between them. It is what makes it special to them and they are invested in what marriage is and means. What right has anyone to come along and tell them that marriage as it has always been, as it was when they entered into it, must be taken away from them and returned the next day to mean something else in order to please homosexuals.
Civil unions? Of course. But marriage is marriage. It’s one man, one woman. Take it or leave it. If you want parity with marriage, whether it be a union with the same sex, a zebra, or what have you, go create it. Heck, feel free to define it in a way that even makes it seem better than “marriage,” but marriage is already taken. Look it up.
The Boy Scouts are a good example of a group standing its ground these days. It has standards and a right to keep males sexually attracted to males away from the children in its charge. The group is not willing to abandon its traditional values but even if it were, it would make perfect sense to avoid putting boys who like to play with other boys in the same pup tent. No?
There is nothing wrong with discrimination for the right reasons. When it happens to you for those reasons, the best thing anyone can say is, “oh, well, that’s the breaks. Who said you get everything you want in life?”
I can piss and moan all day that the local theater group will not cast me as Alice in the play. I can protest that I ought to be allowed to join the local chapter of a women’s group. I can rightly claim discrimination in both cases.
Nick Adams:
“There is nothing wrong with discrimination for the right reasons.”
Exactly. The problem you hit on here is that the word has shifted meaning over the years. In the 1950s, there was a TV ad that claimed its cigarette was for the “discriminating smoker.” A person who discriminated was one who could observe differences, ostensibly in quality. Once the civil rights movement took off, “racial discrimination” got shortened to just “discrimination,” which people tend to do to language. This led to the gross misunderstandings we have today. I overheard some secretaries at the office, and one said, “That’s discrimination.” I asked her the following question: “When it’s time to decide employee award bonuses, don’t you want me to discriminate between your excellent performance and another’s poor performance?”
“Well, yes,” she sheepishly replied.
“The usual progression … is to want more than equality and to begin raising hell for ‘parity.’ That is achieved by getting special exceptions and accommodations. This always leads to resentment by everyone else, who stand by and watch …”
I have noted that the “everyone else” are the ones doing the work while those making demands are less productive because they are too busy being activists. An observation from Auster comes to mind: “… what started as a demand for basic civil rights has mutated into a [Leftist] demand to overturn the whole society, along with its traditions and norms, its standards and laws, its history and heroes.” His solution? “The indispensable condition of any conservative or traditionalist movement, as well as of our personal spiritual survival, is that we say NO to the prevailing values of the liberal order and that we keep saying NO.”
Mr. Ingles,
I’m still not sure you understand the questions I’m asking you. The example of Witt serving honorably for 19 years without anyone knowing she was gay is proof positive that gays are not barred from military service as long as they follow the protocol of our current policy and act professionally on the job. These are the metrics by which any soldier should be judged, in your opinion. You have been decrying the policy of not admitting qualified gays into the military – the “qualified” being those gays who act professionally, don’t make sexual advances or commit sexual assaults against their fellow soldiers, and show up and do their jobs competently. It seems Major Witt managed to not only join the military, but serve for 19 years under the conditions I just described. Had Major Witt’s sexuality remained out of public knowledge as it had for the previous 19 years, she never would have been discharged. So your problem, then, is not that “qualified” gays – in the sense that I described above – are being prevented access to the military, but that you believe gays should be allowed to serve in the military while openly practicing homosexuality, or at least that their homosexuality should not be prevented from being revealed to their fellow soldiers. Now, getting back to the original article from whence this rather off-topic discussion sprung, the basic point Mr. Eland was laboring to make is that the military would be better off admitting “out of the closet” gays into the military than allowing in certain types of felons on special waivers (evidently Mr. Eland is presuming, though without any evidence of such, that there is a massive glut of gays who would voluntarily join the military en masse if not for the fact that they cannot serve while “out of the closet”). I don’t know for sure, and I welcome a correction if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the military publishes the criminal records of the felons it admits on waivers to the rest of the soldiers with whom they will serve (on a side note, discriminating against felons who wish to join the military has noticeably failed to draw the ire of anyone from either side of this discussion); it would be at least as awkward, and probably more so, to sleep next to a guy who had committed a violent assault or rape as it would be to shower next to a guy who may be waiting to strike at the first sign of a dropped bar of soap. This policy makes sense. If these felons have not committed violent offenses, or are not recidivists, it would not be prudent to cause undue distress or create an atmosphere of suspicion by making it publicly known that they are former criminals. Apply the same logic to homosexuals and suddenly this becomes an egregious injustice. If you’re gay, but you don’t have any intention of trolling for dates among your comrades or getting giggly at the first sign of shower nudity, then what reason is there for the rest of the people with whom you will serve to know that you are gay? That’s the gist of the military’s policy as it stands today. Going back to your real life example of Major Witt, the reason she “wasn’t causing any problems” is because nobody knew she was gay! That’s why it wasn’t a problem. Nobody asked, and she didn’t tell. Once that situation changed, she was discharged. The military reserves the right to do that in the interest of “morale, discipline and unit cohesion”. Had the people she worked with known she was gay, it may have caused all or none of those problems. But it’s the military’s call. Or at least it has been consistently until the Major Witt case, which was decided by the 9th circuit appeals court – a court famous throughout the country for its judicial activism and utter disregard for the law as it is actually written, not to mention an arguable bent against the military.
“The reason we don’t need studies to “prove” gays wouldn’t be discipline problems is pretty straightforward – the hallowed American principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. If they would be problems, let them prove it.”
That “hallowed tradition” applies to criminal prosecution in a strictly legal context. You were referring to emprical evidence – observational studies specifically. In that context, there isn’t a question of “guilty” or “innocent”, but of “likely to do x” or “unlikely to do x”. You’re always the first one to beat the drum of the scientific method and the need for scientific “proof”, even as it applies to extrascientific affairs such as social, ethical, or moral issues. Science does not accept that something is valid or true simply because it has not been proven otherwise – the burden of scientific proof is always on the untested theory. Here you demand scientific “proof” that something will not work before it can be disregarded. It hasn’t been proven false, therefore it is true. This is the very same logic you’ve accused and castigated “intelligent design” proponents of using in other disucssions. If that logic is faulty in one case, it’s faulty in all of them.
Mr. Mulligan
If not mistaken, Mr. Ingles is asking that we conduct the experiment on the military and see what happens. “Why not,” he asks.
Well, it is one way of going about it, but it is odd a guy with such an allegiance to scientific method has not proposed a limited or controlled experiment.
I have to make certain assumptions about his motives when he proposes simply throwing the doors open. He’s made it clear any blow to antiquated notions about morality and homosexuality need to be struck down.
He’s already labled any heterosexual who doesn’t want to shower with a gay man a homophobe and an idiot akin to racists of the past.
It’s funny how secular scientists really get so much use out of the racisism charge. I recall one anthropologist explaining that labeling child molesters as bad people is backward, misguided and akin to racism.
She predicted that one day, like those who claimed blacks were deficient, we will all realize how wrong we were about pedophiles.
Heaven help us if we ever do.
Mr. Adams – Allowing gays in support positions (comment #4) in facilities with separate showers (comment 20) is not a limited or controlled experiment?
Is it truly possible you’ve gotten this far without actually reading what I’ve written? I mean, sure, it’s seemed like this whole time that no one was actually conversing with me but only someone they wanted to discuss this with (like, for example, some alleged ‘anthropologist defending pedophiles’), who took not my positions but ones they wanted to argue against, but I didn’t think y’all were really that out there.
I was still hoping there was a point to this, but yikes…
“The problem is marriage already has a definition. Married men and woman everywhere have an historical and moral interest in preserving what they have between them. It is what makes it special to them and they are invested in what marriage is and means. What right has anyone to come along and tell them that marriage as it has always been, as it was when they entered into it, must be taken away from them and returned the next day to mean something else in order to please homosexuals.”
Heterosexuals have many reasons for entering into marriage; sometimes it’s for love, sometimes for convenience, for security, for standing in society. The argument that it must be one man, one woman to qualify is missing the point of what society conveys in terms of benefits to married couples, which takes into account joint sharing of monies, property, and home as well as often raising of children. These basic considerations could just as easily apply to homosexual couples.
Why should other marriages be threatened? This “obstacle” you raise is ridiculous. If your marriage with your spouse is going well or having difficulties, that status has absolutely nothing to do with how other people’s marriages are progressing.
AMA,
You left out the most important reason for marriage: a man and woman joining in holy matrimony.
Marriage by definition is one man, one woman. Because that’s what it is – something for men and women, it has great meaning to men and women. I realize some people, including you, don’t care about diminishing or diluting that meaning. But you do need to respect that others do care.
As I stated, gays are free to create whatever it is they would like to have and hold dear to them to represent their bond and provide equal benefits to traditional marriage, but marriage is not available. It is already taken.
Civil unions seem like a pretty good solution. They are working out very well in other parts of the world and have been for a while now.
I am not sure why it is so hard for people to understand that there is great and important history and meaning to marriage. It has tradition spanning the ages, has been recognized by dozens of religions for centuries and is in complete accordance with nature in that it recognizes the union of the complimentary sexes, which together are one by God’s law and codified by man’s law.
Marriage can no more recognzine an unnatural bond than the ancient Yin and Yang, the male and female, can represent anything but the harmonious and natural order created betwteen the bond of male and female, the hard and soft, the black and white.
There’s no Yin and Yin or Yang and Yang, and there’s no gay marriage. It is a contradiction in terms.
Mr.Ingles,
My miskae. You recommended setting up experimental gay/heterosexual showers and bunking quaters in the military.
My “alleged” anthropologist is Gayle S. Rubin (b. 1949)”a cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and influential theorist of sex and gender politics.”
She’s required reading for gay and lesbian programs at many universties, including Conrnell, Princeton, etc.
Just a quick quote from her writings included in the “The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader”:
“Like communists and homosexuals in the 1950s, boy lovers are so stigmtized that it is difficult to find defenders for their civil liberties, let alone erotic orientations. Consequently, the police have feasted on them… .
She continues: “In twenty years or so, when some of the smoke has cleared, it will be much easier to show that these men have been the victims of a savage and undeserved witch hunt.”
She also said, people who oppose sex between children and adults have “more in common with ideologies of racism than with true ethics.”
Wikipedia says she currently is a professor at the University of Michigan. Isn’t she a peach?
But how can you blame her? She might be a radical, but the great and respected scientist Alfred Kinsey tought us that there is nothing unnatural or wrong with adults having sex with children.
It is only a problem because children are conditioned to have an irrational fear response to adults having sex with them. That fear is irrational, the same way heterosexual men are irrational idiots when they don’t want to shower with gay men, I guess.
Hush little baby, don’t you cry. What the nice man is getting ready to do to you is OK and even beneficial for you. All you have to do is get all that bogus social programming out of your little head.
And for the parents who still object, “get over it.” It’s a new age and what we used to believe is taboo, is really quite natural. No less a scientist than Kinsey and his fair and exhaustive research, still taught at every university and carried on at the Kinsey Institute, says so.
Mr. Adams – read the last paragraph of comment #34 again for what I’ve actually said about people who don’t want to shower with gays. Then you might understand a little more about what I’m actually proposing.
I really don’t see the point of continuing here. I can’t tell if you really can’t see the difference between what I’m saying and this Rubin person, or if it’s just a debating tactic. Either way, nobody’s actually arguing with me, just strawmen they want to knock over. I mean, if I wanted to debate the way y’all have, I could say something like, “We’ve seen where homophobia leads – straight to the gas chambers of Nazi Germany! Why do you want to exterminate anyone who isn’t a strapping macho football player or demure southern belle?”
Mr. Adams, if civil unions really offered the same benefits, they would work here too. But they clearly don’t. In any event, you have yet to explain why other people’s relationships have any bearing on yours. Why are YOU threatened? Why does someone else’s desire to be married have any effect on your reason for getting married? Are you just as frightened of polygamous marriage? I suppose you must be. Where is the tolerance?
AMAI,
You can make a civil union do whatevver you want it to. So do it and leave marriage alone.
I doubt you will ever understand the power and significance of holy matrimony to men and women. It is part of their identity as a male-female couple and you want to dilute that meaning.
Your question might is we be what difference does it make to my relationship if marriage also means a hamburger and a beer?
If it helps you get your mind around it, imagine what the Nike logo stands for. It doesn’t say Nike, it is just an elongated, skewed teardrop of sorts. But when we see it we know exactly what company it represents.
Now imagine Shell Oil came along and asked that its company also be symbolized by the Nike logo. Why should Nike mind? Do gas sales interfer with sports clothing sales? Hell no, not a bit. Likewise, Shell isn’t going to lose sales because someone is buying Nike tennis shoes.
But the Nike logo and image and its symbols belong to Nike. It is important to the company, is protected by the company and they certainly wouldn’t want to give anyone the idea that it is free for the taking to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean, no matter who that someone is.
The logo belongs to Nike, just as marriage belongs to men and women. It is thus entirely up to men and women if they want marriage to mean something other than what it does. It is not up to you, gays, or Shell Oil.
So far men and women have spoken by their vote and have told gays to go to their elected leaders to get them what they need in the form of civil unions. If that isn’t happening, then their leaders are letting them down.
Marriage is not available for dilution of meaning and diminished “unique” importance to men and women. They have a vested interest in it, just as Nike has a vested interest in the meaning of its logo. Is Nike intolerant when it come to this. Most certainly. Are men and women intolerant when it comes to making marriage mean anything than what it means. Certainly. But both have a right to protect what they have, whether you like that decision or not.
You may continue to try to change the minds of men and women, but why not just go draft the civil union laws you need to get the job done? It appears most Americans would support that.
Mr. Ingles,
What is a “Rubin person?” Is that a University of Michigan professor who shouts racism when we “discriminate” against and persecute pedophiles?
Why yes it is.
It is a matter of degree, that’s all. By lobbying for showering with sexual opposites, you are an asset to Dr. Rubin. Your work, and those who will follow you to break down the net taboo, are why she can predict that one day we will realize we have been wrong about pedophiles.
And how do you argue against her? Scientific evidence? Science says man is causing global warming, and each week we see a retreat from that position. Now I hear we’re headed for 10 years of cooling. Who the hell knows? And until we do know, what is it that allows us to know pedophila is a bad thing?
Our morality, sacred and stamped with God’s approval? Or “moral strategies” developped by men and based on science, which you say are a perfect replacement for religious morality?
I realize you are in the awkward postion of being between religious folks and Dr. Rubin. She’s a nut, says I. She’s a nut, says you. But she will she be a nut to you if her data proves her theory “correct” by scientific standards?
How far will you go, Mr. Ingles? If Dr. Rubin proves Kinsey was right, it is peer reviewed and her method found solid, then you are bound to accept pedophilia, are you not? And if you don’t, on what grounds would you resist it?
That is the difference between someone who relies on science and manmade morals and people who believe in a higher moral law. I do not have to bend to the science, no matter how conclusive the evidence, not if it conflicts with a higher law. You, Mr. Ingles, don’t have a higher law, just a morality based on scientific principles and backed by data.
I will not accept pedophilia, despite the scientific evidence that says it is not a problem, nor will I be pressured by those who tell me to “get over it.”
You, however, a victim of your own system, must accept it. Again, if not, on what grounds would you resist?
Mr. Adams, religious morality is a contradiction in terms. Just out of curiosity, what age is the young person in your pedophilia scenario?
Nice try with the Nike analogy but no. Clearly atheists are more tolerant of other people’s desire to be married and all that that term means in reality. I’m a woman married to a man and I do not feel in the least bit threatened or upset by homosexuals’ desire to be married. Each couple’s definition of marriage and what it means to them is what should count, not some ridiculous tradition that can’t stand a little revision.
AMAI,
All you have established is that marriage has no special meaning to you – and that you have no problem expanding it to male-male, female-female unions (antyhing else you’d like to expand it to today)?
Unfortunately for you, the vast majority of American voters do not agree, even in liberal California.
If you are really interested in helping gays unite, you may want to help them achieve civil unions that meet their needs rather than trying to wrestle away something that obviously means a lot to hetersexuals and very little to you.
Even a good number of gay activists are against expanding traditional marriage to gays, seeking instead a specialized law to better serve the unique needs of gays, including the sticky question of child custody when one of the parents is not (cannot be) a biological parent.
You tip your hat when you declare marriage a ridiculous tradition that needs revision. Your suggestion that millions of men and women are making vows to serve something “ridiculous” reveals your contempt for the institution.
So basicly you are slamming marriage as something not worthy of respect, something myself and others should have no reason to selfishly protect, while simultaneously you argue that the bankrupt tradition is something gays absolutely must have.
Please make up your mind. If marriage is what you say it is, why would gays want it? If all the sentiment and meaning is hogwash, then gays should be more than happy to pass on all the hype and bull and go straight to civil unions that provide all the advantages and protections they could ever need without all the ridiculousness, as you call it.
As for my Nike analogy, generally when someone has a case against an argument, they present it. I’m not sure what to say to “nice try,” other than is that your entire rebuttal on the vested interest argument?
The person in my pedophilia example is 6. Dr. Kinsey reported that children are sxual beings capable of orgasm as young as 6 months old, the implication being that they must be able to orgasm for a reason.
Most groups promoting pedophilia or man-boy relationships point to Kinsey’s findings and conclusions when “proving” that nature intended young children to enjoy sex – with the loving supervision of an adult, of course.
If civil unions as presently set up DID provide ALL the benefits, then there wouldn’t be a question. Obviously they do not. We’re going in circles here. Each couple has their own reasons for getting married. I do not yet understand your problem with same-sex marriage. How does that truly alter what you and your wife have as a couple? How does it denigrate from it?
As for children being able to experience sexual enjoyment, the reason is clearly for its own sake. I disagree that that fact implies that adults need or should be permitted to be involved.
How do you overcome the problems Norway is experiencing?
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/FrankTurek/2008/05/26/gay_marriage_even_liberals_know_its_bad
AMAI,
I can’t help you any further. I pointed out in the Nike analogy that Shell Oil does not alter Nike products just because it adopts its logo/symbol/tradition. So why should Nike care?
Vested interest in preserving the meaning. Marriage means something to a lot of people, and that meaning is the sanctity of a man and woman in holy matrimony. That meaning is why they take solemn vows to serve marriage.
Your lack of caring obviously is a barrier to realizing that others care deeply. You do not care about their feelings, and you would glady ask them “to get over it” and make vows to something they feel has been corrupted in meaning to recognize something they feel is an abomination.
That abomination would have a name. It would be called marriage, and for millions, only those who took their vows before gay marriage would not be party to sanctifying what they consider a sin, or just plain wrong.
Marriage would go from a sacred thing we serve, to something we’ve twisted to serve us and our political and politically correct desires.
Just how would you expect people to value and respect something they don’t believe in – to make solemn oaths to something they cannot accept by definition?
Would you swear an oath to something you found morally repugnant? You seem to have no problem asking others to do just that.
Whatever marriage is now, it is not morally repugnant. The worse thing that can be said about marriage if you are a gay rights activist or supporter is that it is a very old and honored tradition with deep religious meaning, and that it has a specific meaning that doesn’t suit me as a gay person. So what to do?
So far the answer for some has been to embark on a strategy of trampling the tradition, the meaning, the feelings of those who respect the sanctity of marriage and who believe homosexual marriage is morally wrong.
Take their definition of marriage away from them and change it to suit homosexuals. Force themselves in and bust appart all people believe is sacred and worthy of protecting.
Work toward forcing the religiously devout to make vows to the new institution of marriage – the institution that sanctifies what they devoutly believe to be wrong.
Gay activists would look them in the eye and tell them to “get over it,” for while they could have pursued the different path of asking the government to create something that would provide homosexual couples the legal benefits of marriage, they chose instead to hurt by taking cherished institution and making them what they declare they should be.
Why? Because the goal isn’t just to achieve equal protections, it is to be accepted, by force if need be. Resentment? Sure, there will be plenty. But tough. Get over it, because it isn’t about what we want, it is about what gays want.
Activist seem to be saing, We don’t want the “same” thing you have, you oppressive fools, we want “what” you have. We want to teach you the lesson that you cannot have anything that excludes us.
But fortunately the aggressive offensive approach does not appeal to many gays. They see no reason to be callous and inconsiderate to people who, obviously, whether they agree with them or not, believe strongly about protecting the definition of marriage.
Instead, they work to establish specialized laws and protections for gays who seek marriage benefits from government. That is legitimate. Government may award benefits, but it cannot award what does not belong to it. Marriage belongs to men and women.
And trying to take it from them by force is counterproductive, and considering that about 80 percent of the country is opposed to “marrage” for gays (not nearly as many opposed to civil unions), it also is the longer path to helping achieve real benefits for homosexuals.
Millions of people care about protecting marriage. It is the height of arrogance to assume that because you don’t care, they have no right to care, no title, no vested interest. The question these millions of people ask, is just who do you think you are to be telling us we have no right to care deeply about this?
It’s a damn good question.
Nick Adams:
“The question these millions of people ask, is just who do you think you are to be telling us we have no right to care deeply about this?”
Not only that, but as I replied to Mr, Ingles above, these are all demands that we accept gay behavior as normal. So what right do they have to make such demands on our consciences?
The law requires marriage to be a monogamous relationship. If gays are allowed to marry, will they be monogamous? No. It’s been almost 40 years since the infamous Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York, the Lexington and Concord of the gay liberation movement. During that time, homosexuals have carved out for themselves public spaces in every major American city, and many of the minor ones as well. They have had the chance to create whatever they wanted in those spaces, and what have they created? Stable neighborhoods that anyone would like to live in? No. New spaces for locating sexual partners, and nothing else.
Also, as I have stated before, the burden of proof is on the advocate of change, not the defender of the status quo. All we have gotten in the way of proof from the advocates of change here is the question “why not?” when they should have to answer “why?”. But I will offer one reason why not: Straights do not want to live in a society ordered by gays. That’s why not. If gays want to live in a society of their own order, why don’t they go live in one of those spaces they created since 1969?
Ah, now I see your problem, Mr. Adams. Homosexuality is morally repugnant and a sin and just wrong. It’s just not normal, per your view. And therein lies the difference between us. “Normal” does not have to be the majority to be valid and natural. Since you don’t accept it AS normal, even for a minority of people, you cannot deal with them. Gays will always be a minority, it’s the nature of things. But repugnant? How depraved of you.
“Is it truly possible you’ve gotten this far without actually reading what I’ve written? I mean, sure, it’s seemed like this whole time that no one was actually conversing with me but only someone they wanted to discuss this with… who took not my positions but ones they wanted to argue against, but I didn’t think y’all were really that out there. I was still hoping there was a point to this, but yikes…”
Mr. Ingles,
I did not make any moral arguments or even address who should shower with whom. I commented on your argument, and only on your argument. And yet you utterly and completely ignored my comments, except to interject briefly and dismiss them out of hand as if your proclamations on the matter were the final authority. Is it possible that you are only interested in castigating those who disagree with you as irrational Bible-thumpin’ Neanderthals and that you aren’t actually interested in having a serious discussion on the matter? I think so. In fact, your arrogance and refusal to acknowledge any thought deviating in any way from your own as valid for discussion permeates your posts on every topic you join in to discuss on this website. For being atheistic, you certainly do place a religious level of authority in your own thought and opinion.
“It’s just not normal, per your view. And therein lies the difference between us. “Normal” does not have to be the majority to be valid and natural.”
Homosexuality as a practice wasn’t a topic of discussion in the article or ensuing conversation, so sidetracking the discussion by bringing it up was rather stupid. But biologically (or “naturally”) speaking, homosexuality in a two sex population is indeed “just not normal”. I know it’s hard to imagine in our enlightened modern era, but the actual biological function of sex is reproduction. Sex with no possibility of reproduction would be of no evolutionary/biological advantage, and therefore serves no biological purpose. Whether your moral judgment of homosexuality is that it is “valid” or not, using the term “natural” to describe it as a “normal” biological activity isn’t strictly correct when you’re talking about a two-sex species that cannot reproduce homosexually or asexually.
Obviously this rather inane discussion has finally exhausted itself, since even the original antagonist has abandoned it. I have to again scratch my head in wonder as to how such a drawn out and heated argument could have been generated by such a fluffy, pointless article. For that Mr. Ingles deserves congratulations. I hope we can all just pack it in now so that every new discussion post on the main page isn’t a link to this now two week old, banal article. It gives the false impression that there were something in it worth discussion.
AMAI,
I think you finally got it. Many people do not want to share or lend one of their most cherished instituions to facilitate something they find morally wrong, repugnant, against God’s law, what have you.
Based on what you have written, it appears you find certain sexual relationships repugnant, even though some say they are natural and should not be judged by you or anyone.
Pedophilia is described by Dr. Rubin and Dr. Kinsey as an acceptable and expected form of human sexual behavior, misunderstood by people like you and me, who wrongly think it is repugnant.
So I ask, how depraved are we – you and me?
So you are too tolerant by the standards of some, and intolerant to the point of being “depraved” to others.
Obviously you believe, like Momma Bear, you are just right.
It must be very comforting to be “just right.” If I may ask, by what authority do you make your moral judgments?
I know religious folks take their guidance from the Bible, which helps them determine what to think about things like homosexuality and pedophilia.
I realize that may make them “depraved” in your mind, but what code is responsible for you being “depraved” in the eyes of someone like Dr. Rubin, who promotes the idea that pedophilia is OK?
By what authority? By my right and responsibility as an individual. By the very necessity of life that demands we make value judgments each and every day.
We agree pedophilia is wrong. I say it is wrong because children are vulnerable to abuse. For an adult to take advantage of that vulnerability is wrong. Children should be left alone as they are perfectly capable of discovering the wonders & joys of their bodies for themselves.
As for marriage, you said something else that I’ve been thinking about. You said that “we serve marriage.” In what way do you serve it? I think of it the other way round, you see. Marriage serves me. It serves a purpose for me and my husband. When I look at what marriage means to us, I recognize that the basic tenets of marriage can apply to any adult human relationship, whether it’s a man & woman, two men, two women, or even a polygamous relationship. It is for the people involved to define what their marriage means for them. Security, commitment, tax benefits (lol), the knowledge that there is an automatic acceptance by the government that the property we bought together will remain with the surviving spouse when one of us dies. And many more reasons.
Why do people wish to marry? If you polled even a handful of people at the mall, say, you would come up with an astonishing array of answers. My husband & I actually lived together for many years before marrying. So why bother with the formality of paperwork? It is something between us – to make a firm commitment to each other, to declare to ourselves and the world that we are a couple. That desire is one shared by many people of different sexual orientations – they wish to declare themselves a couple. Or a set, as the case may be, haha. But the bottom line for me on this issue is, the kinds of marriage others choose for themselves does not alter the reasons my husband and I chose to marry.
I would say I find arranged marriages to be more repugnant than same-sex marriages, because the couple is being forced to marry. But… in those cultures, the concept of arranged marriage is at least accepted with resignation. The idea of breaking away occurs with only a few people to the point of acting on the idea. Most accept their fate because the alternative is to be shunned from their community. But that does not make the concept a good one.
You also mentioned the concept that where children are involved in a same-sex relationship, at least one of the people won’t be a biological parent. True enough. But the same holds true for many marriages these days. One person brings children to the union from a previous relationship. The other person isn’t biologically related to those children. So what difference does it make in the end, if the children are raised in a loving caring home?
I hold that homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomena, one of nature’s ways of providing built-in birth control. It comes from the very earliest days in our development before we had man-made methods of birth control. By building into the chemistry of some people the natural inclination to be attracted to the same gender, that would act as a method of curbing population explosion. Not by a lot, it’s true, but just enough. These days, of course, one can have a child and have a same-sex relationship too.
My point is, I view the phenomena as natural, and also as an unchosen one. It is genetically built into some people. I’m sorry but the authority that declares it unnatural or worse, is simply ignoring some facts here.
But I also said it will never be a majority group. Nature ensures that the occurrence of true homosexuality will be around 10% of the population. Even if it seems that “everyone is gay” these days, it isn’t true. LOL!
AMAI,
You did not cite a moral authority, or upon what values you make your judgments. That was my question. You seem to think you possess a moral truth that makes what you say worth listening to. I dind’t challenge your right to speak out, I asked where did you get the morality you are asking me to accept?
It is only fair if you want me to change my mind and agree with you about homosexual marriage that you tell me where you well of morality resides, so that I may drink from it once I convert to your way of thinking. Who or what is your authority?
Mine currently is Judeo/Christian ethics and morality. Now point me to your truth so I can sample it for myself.
We have a different concept of what marriage is, but that is not surprising, because you don’t believe there is anything holy about matrimony or that it is a covenant between more than two parties. You think less of marriage that I do and that is clear.
All it is to you is what it can do for you, not what you can do for it. Unfortunately, that is why in this age the meaning and importance of marriage is slipping way, and along with it families and social stability and harmony. The less marriage means, the easier it is to throw away, or to give away to whatever group of political activists who want to redefine it to suit them.
You might as well be colorblind while I try to describe “red,” as you clearly never knew, or have forgotten the meaning of marriage.
A few years ago I met a young man who wondered aloud to me about the odd coincidence that Jesus was born on Christmas. It was quite funny, but also very sad.
He had been celebrating Christmas whithout ever connecting the dots to what it really means. Lots of married people are married and don’t know what it means. Like Christmas, they have made it what they want it to mean and value it for nothing more than the benefits it provides them.
How does one get to the point where they think Christmas is for us? What leads one to believe marriage serves us, and is nothing more?
I would suggest you or anyone who feels as you do get in touch with the complete meaning of marriage. It isn’t about the tax benefits and legal advantages anymore than Christmas is about the shiny new things you net.
I’ve already spent too much time on marriage here, when the topic is the military. Feel free to respond, but I won’t respond unless there is a military connection.
AMAI:
“…a firm commitment to each other, to declare to ourselves and the world that we are a couple. That desire is one shared by many people of different sexual orientations – they wish to declare themselves a couple.”
That is pure, unadulterated bean dip. What have you been smoking?
James A. Clifton wrote once about the concept of noble savagery in his book, The Invented Indian. Indians, as the myth goes, were spiritual, egalitarian, innocent people living in perfect harmony with the earth. They welcomed the white man, taught him the secrets of the wilderness, and shared with him the wisdom of their social institutions. In turn white men tried to destroy them. Like all myths, this one leaves certain things out: in this case, high infant mortality, low life-expectancy, human sacrifice, cannibalism, infanticide, ritual torture, geronticide, slaughter of prisoners, slavery, and the like.
As I posted above, homosexuals have had 40 years to create whatever they wanted in the places they carved out for themselves and have created places only for locating new sex partners, not places where long-lasting relationships could flourish.
Male homosexuals are highly promiscuous. One study in San Francisco showed that 43 percent [that’s not just one or two cases; that’s 43 percent!] of male homosexuals had had more than 500 sex partners. Seventy-nine percent of their sex partners were strangers. Only 3 percent had had fewer than ten sex partners. Lesbians are less promiscuous than male homosexuals but more promiscuous than heterosexual women. If homosexuals of either gender are finding satisfaction, why the search for sex with a disproportionately high number of strangers? Needless to say, sexually-transmitted diseases and drug abuse are also disproportionately high among gays, as they are in promiscuous straights. Stable people at peace with themselves do not do these things.
If gross promiscuity and drug abuse are not indications of a disorder, I’d like to know what your idea of it is.
In view of this evidence, it is clear that homosexuals do not even want to establish monogamous relationships. New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan, a more conservative homosexual advocate of gay marriage, says that for them, “fidelity” does not mean complete monogamy, but just somewhat restrained promiscuity. In other words, they admit that “to declare themselves a couple” is not their wish. He also argues that marriage civilizes men, but it’s the woman who civilizes the man. A man does need to be civilized, but that lesson is taught by women, not by other men who need to learn it themselves.
So where do you get this idea that gays are interested in “declaring themselves a couple”? Like the invented Indian, this is the noble homosexual who has also been invented to fool a gullible public. Why don’t you just listen to what they are saying?
Mr. Adams – I think we’re officially done here. I’m talking about adults joining the military, and you’re talking about advocates of pedophilia, and you apparently can’t see the difference. I could just as easily reply that “By lobbying for [excluding gays from the military on the sole basis that they are gay and not their performance of their duties], you are an asset to [Fred Phelps].”
Ms. Rubin’s free to do research (within the law, of course) and publish it. As I said about your apparent wish that the military should admit “girls 7 to 10 years old” – it’s going to need to be an awfully good case to convince anyone that pedophilia isn’t horribly damaging. Roughly at the level of what it’d take to convince me that sharia law is a good idea.
But even that’s entirely beside the freakin’ point here. Since you seem utterly incapable of addressing the point – at most, you argue that it’s ‘kinda sorta like some other thing’ that’s not really related, but is easy to refute – I can’t see a point in continuing.
Mr.Ingles,
I agree. But I think you lost track somewhere along the line.
My comment about pedophila was a response to Mr. Mulligan’s post regarding science, and the use of the racism comparison to those who might challenge the science/conclusion of the progressive idea – in this case the very “progressive” science that there is nothing wrong with pedophilia, which is well ahead of the, “there is nothing wrong with homosexuality” science.
You sparked the continuation when you suggested that the anthropologist to whom I referred did not exist. I can understand you getting confused in a long exchange like this, but not sure where you got the idea I wanted 7-year-old girls in the military. That’s an odd conclusion.
Point was, Dr. Rubin compared people against pedophila to racists, and you did the same referring to some military members. Are you similar to a racist, as Dr. Rubin suggests? Are our soldiers who have a problem with homosexuality like racists as you suggested?
Both homosexuality and pedophilia are sexual deviations from nature. I just think it is funny that you and Dr. Rubin employ the same tactics to overturn conventional thinking about acceptance of these deviations, including calling opponents a “phobe” of some sort, akin to racists.
No, Mr. Adams, I do not believe in God, so there we go. It’s funny that you cite how marriage seems to mean less to more & more people and yet, the vast majority of people say they have some kind of belief in God or a “higher power.” It’s clearly not helping them in their marriages.
As for the morality I’ve studied, put me down as an Objectivist, then.
As for gays in the military, Mr. Adams, sure, why not? If they want in, what’s the problem? Pedophilia is a sexual deviation; homosexuality is not.
Sedonaman, the fact that some gays are highly promiscuous does not mean they all are. You like the sweeping generalities, don’t you? Just dismiss everyone based on the behavior of some. Then again, it’s not like 100% of heterosexuals are fully monogamous, now, is it? It’s simply a matter of degree, but there are plenty of unfaithful husbands out there (and wives too, for that matter.)
AMAI:
“As for gays in the military, Mr. Adams, sure, why not? If they want in, what’s the problem?”
You’ve never been in the military, so you have no right to force your views on them. The military is not there so you can perform your social experiments. Plus, you need to stop asking “why not” and prove your case, IOW, answer “why?”. As I posted here before, the burden of proof is on the advocate.
“Pedophilia is a sexual deviation; homosexuality is not.”
It would be difficult to find a more relativistic statement. Why do you judge pedophiles harshly and give gays a pass? What right do you have to judge pedophiles at all? Isn’t judging contrary to tolerance? You can say every day and twice on Sunday that homosexuality is normal, but that doesn’t make it so.
“…the fact that some gays are highly promiscuous does not mean they all are. You like the sweeping generalities…”
I never said they are, but you have shifted the discussion from the aggregate to the specific. We cannot tailor society to suit the whims of a quarter of a billion people. We have to look at what society will be like after gays reorder it, and judging from what they have created for themselves where they are a significant percentage, it doesn’t look pretty.
“…it’s not like 100% of heterosexuals are fully monogamous, now, is it?”
So? You are again shifting the argument away from gays. Speaking of fallacies, you have used the fallacy of tu quoque [two wrongs make a right]. Monogamy is the law. That’s the standard they would have to meet; and there is little, if any, evidence they can, will, or even want to meet it. Besides, straights don’t establish societies for the sole purpose of finding new sex partners like gays do when they have the chance.
“It’s simply a matter of degree…”
And when 43 percent have had over 500 different sex partners, I’d say that’s a significant deviation. You refuse to listen to what they are telling us. Why don’t you just admit that you’ve swallowed The Big Lie?
AMAI,
You joined the exchange late, but I pointed out several reasons why gays serving opening in the military could be a problem, and also pointed out there is no overriding problem that compells us to allow gays to serve openly.
As for your declaration that homosexuality is not a sexual deviation, you are kidding, aren’t you?
The natural condition is male-female sexual attraction. I am sure you would agree that heterosexuality is the normal condition. It is afterall, the reason there is human and animal life on Earth.
It follows then that we evaluate sexual behavior by measuring it against the normal condition – heterosexuality.
Heterosexual behavior is missing in a minority of people and in some animals. Obviously that condition is not normal, and it goes without saying that not only is attraction to the opposite sex not present in homosexuals, there is in its stead a sexual attraction to members of the same sex.
That sexual attraction “deviates” from the standard for normal human sexual behavior outlined here. Unless you can argue that heterosexuality is abnormal and is less frequent than homosexuality, homosexuality has to be a deviation from the normal, prevalent natural condition.
All sexual deviation is defined by the degree to which it “deviates” from the natural. I don’t want to talk down to you, but would remind you that male and female sex organs are compatible for a reason.
But, if you are right, then some interesting arguments are raised. For one it suggests that a homosexual pedophile who molests a young boy is a deviate, but only because his victim is too young and because of the coercian/force factors.
In other words, while the boy may believe a homosexual rape is more traumatizing than being raped by a woman, it is only because society has conditioned him to believe that homosexuality is a deviant act. Our best advice to the boy then is, that he needs to “get over it.”
If you contend that the problem isn’t homosexual sex with the boy, but that it wasn’t between consenting homosexual adults, then you suggest that deviant sexual behavior of any kind does not exist where there is consent among people who have reached majority.
But that argument still doesn’t recognize nature. People may consent to all sorts of weirdness, and they may defend their weirness as much as they like, but don’t expect to convince people who can measure it against natural norms and see how far outside the lines it is, to decalre it anything but a deviation from the norm.
That is where the argument that soldiers should just “get over it” doesn’t wash. It not only ignores their feelings , it ignores their objective case that homosexuals and heterosexuals are different and have different expectations. Homosexuals don’t have a problem with heterosexual men showering with them, for example (big surprise). But many heterosexual men do have a problem.
It won’t hurt morale? Well, lets look at it this way: would it be good for marale?
Imagine the officer who comes up with the idea that if his troops do a good job, complete the duties and walk a straight line, they will be rewarded with showering with gay men. Would that be a morale booster or an embarrassing punishment that ends up hurting morale?
I do admit that rewarding gay soldiers with showering with the heterosexual men could be a morale booster for them. In fact, in the name of equal protection, heterosexual soldiers would have to be rewarded with showering with the ladies.
It doesn’t matter what they ladies think, as showering with people sexually attracted to you is something they clearly have to “get over,” just as the men had to get over it with the gays.