Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Gay rights activists have launched a campaign nationwide to get the military's ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces lifted. The timing is probably as good as it could be with recruiting shortfalls in the news and a military that is seriously stretched thin. And the fact that they keep throwing out Arabic translators, a specialty the Pentagon admits is in extreme short supply and is putting our soldiers at risk and impeding our ability to fight terrorism, for being gay just makes the situation worse. And naturally, the conservative press is not happy about it:
"I think the people involved here do not have the best interests of the military at heart," says Donnelly. "They never have. They are promoting an agenda to normalize homosexuality in America using the military as a battering ram to promote that broader agenda."
Except that the evidence is firmly on the side of the "gay agenda" in this case. Almost all of our allies, even Israel, allow gays to serve openly in the military with no ill effects on morale. And throwing gays out of the military, especially ones with specialties like Arabic language skills that are absolutely crucial to our success in combatting terrorism, is clearly harming national security. It is those who oppose gays in the military who must explain why someone with a vital language skill that the Pentagon admits we have a serious shortage of should be thrown out solely because a group of bronze age nomads didn't like their choice of sex partners.
And boy, you can't slip anything past Elaine Donnelly. She's figured out the whole thing:
The former Pentagon committee member says it apparent the visits to recruitment centers are coordinated because, as she notes, "these stories don't show up in major media repeatedly over a period of weeks by accident.""There is an organization called Soulforce based in one state, then there is another group that was based in San Francisco that showed up in Virginia," she says. "I do see the markings of a professional public relations campaign."
What was her first clue? Maybe the webpage announcing the national campaign that details exactly what they plan to do in 30 major cities? You can't put anything past these bloodhounds. The bottom line is this: the ban on gays in the military is harming military readiness and our ability to fight terrorism around the world. It is based solely on bigotry and it's time to change the law. Every single one of the young people going to recruiting offices to sign up genuinely wants to serve their country in the military. They should be allowed to serve.
Comments
Apparently they can't avoid blaming Clinton - at least in part.
It is unfortunate, she comments, that former President Bill Clinton blurred the law with his "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy -- a policy that Soulforce says is "rooted firmly in religion-based bigotry."
I, personaly, find Clinton's policy change to be more offensive than an outright ban. It's like saying, "come on, join - you just have to hide who you really are, live a lie and we'll be happy to take you."
Posted by: DuWayne | September 22, 2006 10:20 AM
And throwing gays out of the military, especially ones with specialties like Arabic language skills that are absolutely crucial to our success in combatting terrorism, is clearly harming national security.
So much so that, IIRC, the military has even tried to hire some of the fired linguists as civilian translators, because not only have our allies incorporated gays into their military structures, our own country has no problem with civilian employees in all sectors of the government, including the Pentagon.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | September 22, 2006 10:42 AM
Wow. A coordinated public relations campaign to push policy changes - the audacity! How dare they push corrupt policies using the machinery of PR instead of rational debate and substance over style.
Wait a minute, this is beginning to sound like the Discovery Institute. Egads! The liberals have learned to use the tools of the hard right.
The audacity!
Posted by: ZacharySmith | September 22, 2006 12:16 PM
To Conservative Voter:
-Which issue is more important to you: gays in the military or national security?
Conservative Voter:
-Why, national security, of course!
Q:
-Do you think gays should be allowed to serve in the military, even if they occupy integral/crucial positions to our security?
A:
-The homosexual agenda wants us to accept their lifestyle and validate it using the military -- I oppose that idea strongly -- kick them out!
Q:
-So in reality, then, you support the idea of endangering our country in order to discriminate against gays, and consider gays in the military a paramount issue to national security?
A:
-Uh...well...
Posted by: Daniel Morgan | September 22, 2006 12:32 PM
It's worth considering, if only as a hypothetical, that even if gays in the military had some negative effect on combat performance, this negative effect might not be the most important factor to consider.
It's conceivable, for example, that some very slight relative disadvantage in combat would be outweighed by the message that gays in the U.S. military would send to the rest of the world, and particularly to those who are marginalized in Islamic theocracies: "We are a tolerant society, and we will treat you like a full human being if we win. Oh, and by the way, we won't give in to the homophobia and sexism of Osama bin Laden and his followers. There is a better way."
Of course, at the moment there are some far more obvious places where that message needs to be sent.
Posted by: Jason Kuznicki | September 22, 2006 1:00 PM
I have yet to hear one actual reason why gays in the military would be harmful or dangerous. From a historical perspective one of the cultures with the strongest military tradition ever, Sparta, was also one that strongly encouraged homosexual behavior amongst their soldiers. Clearly alowing homosexuals into a military won't destroy it.
I think the problem comes because here in America many people equate homsexuality with uncontrolled homosexual lust (maybe because some of them are latent homosexuals who believe that they have "controlled" their urges, so everyone who comes out in the open is a sex-crazed pervert). They imagine that homosexuals will be unable to restrain themselves with so many hot bodies around (if this were true then how any college student would function... well I don't know). It all speaks to the silly ideas that many conservatives hold about homosexuals.
It seems that truly the problem is ignorance.
Posted by: Robert | September 22, 2006 4:04 PM
There's one group of straight people who would definitely benefit from the lifting of the ban: straight female soldiers, sailors and flygirls. For some reason, women are disproportionally targeted for suspicion of lesbianism, and that means many women have to worry about what will happen if they reject a particular man's advances. Or like to play softball. Or are the "wrong" race or religion. It's as if they're required to actively demonstrate that they're not gay, and having to prove a negative 24/7/365 is pretty draining.
Posted by: ebohlman | September 22, 2006 7:22 PM
There was pretty much the same resistance when they proposed letting women serve on Navy ships and subs.
I am a woman who served in the USAF in the early '80's and there were still more than a few old-school, brown-shoe officers and NCO's who were agaist women in the military (unless they were nurses or secretaries.) If it comes from DOD, everyone has to toe the official line, like it or not. I worked for at least two male NCOIC's that didn't like it one bit, but since there was no tolerance for sexual harassment, I had no troubles.
So, I don't know why it shouldn't work for Gays/Lesbians.
Posted by: twincats | September 22, 2006 9:12 PM