I have gotten two emails over the last twelve hours at my @military-history.us address from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network(The Gays in the Military Advocacy Group), I don’t for the life of me know why. I have never supported the repeal of DADT and was sure happy that I retired from the military less than a month after its official repeal. I am guessing that since I have a military themed site and have not really commented on DADT they thought I might support them. They could not be more wrong.
I have strong moral reservations to homosexuality in general and personal objections to homosexuals serving openly. I generally take a live and let live approach in my personal life, I do not go out of my way to preach to gays that they are wrong. If asked however, I will explain that I find their lifestyle repulsive and simply cannot understand their choice. This has led to some lively conversations/arguments. I don’t approve of homosexuality, I am willing to tolerate it however. My biggest problem with SLDN and other supposed Gay Rights groups is that they don’t want toleration, they want acceptance and affirmation. That they will never get from me and millions of others that think the way I do. That push for acceptance is at the heart of their assault on marriage. It is not about civil rights or legal protections, it is about making marriage as an institution meaningless.
I have replied to SLDN asking them not to pollute my inbox with their emails, I am curious what will happen next. Hopefully, they will cheerfully remove me from their mailing list. If they do not, then the fun begins. I do not want to be associated with them in any way, even passively.
30 March 2013 at 20:02
Your statement that being gay is a choice is imperically false, and I disagree with you 100% about what gay rights mean for marriage, but the issue of gays serving in the military is, of course, a legitimate issue of discussion. It should be a question of effect: Does allowing gays to serve openly in the military have an effect on combat effectiveness? If the effect is negative, then even in my most liberal moments – and I am clearly more liberal than you – I would have a hard time making the case that equal rights trumps that. I could not ask our men and women in uniform to increase their risk to life and limb simply so that some vision of equality could be achieved in the armed forces career path. If there is no measurable effect on combat effectiveness, then I don’t see any reason to ban gays from anything that heterosexuals are permitted.
Now, if the reason that combat effectiveness is lower – if it is lower – is because of the attitudes of the heterosexual members of the military, then there is a conundrum. A comparison to the race issue is potentially informative here. People were probably arguing that a desegregated military would be less effective because of attitudes in the military. Was that problem ever overcome? I have the impression it was, but I am not 100% sure. My impression is that there is racial harmony on task in the miltiary (black officers are completely respected, for example), but that there is an informal, voluntary segregation socially, reflecting the semi-permeable social separation in society in general (students in my classes on base sit sorted by race, for example, and I’ve been told the same thing happens in the mess hall). Something similar might happen with gays in the military.
30 March 2013 at 20:17
Feel free to disagree. You will not change my mind.
2 April 2013 at 13:51
I am not sure that we disagree on gays in the military. I’d need more data. My default position is to permit, but if there is a negative influence on combat effectiveness, then perhaps I could be pursuaded. People will disagree on whether combat effectiveness should be the ultimate arbiter and perhaps on what the various effects might be. I can see reasonable people disagreeing here.
2 April 2013 at 17:19
I cannot think of any other measure than combat effectiveness to use when evaluating policy changes. Anything that negatively affects combat effectiveness should be actively shunned regardless of the perceived social justice issues involved. If we mess around with social engineering to the point that combat effectiveness is compromised then that fits the category of active-stupid. Not that there are not plenty of idiots in positions of authority and/or influence. One would think that the leadership of both the country and military would attempt to objectively asses any proposed changes instead of continually trying to pound round pegs into square holes. I don’t see that changing anytime soon though.
I am perfectly willing to tolerate gays, I just will not affirm them and fervently believe they have no business pushing their supposed “equality” agenda at the expense of the combat effectiveness of the nation’s military. They are willingly negligent in their attempts to socially engineer the nation as a whole through imposing their progressive views on the military and society in general. Gays in the military i just one facet of a much larger agenda.
25 January 2013 at 04:54
A quick update on this. SLDN quit sending me emails about 2 weeks after this post went live.
10 February 2012 at 17:34
Mr. Shrier – I ran across your post this morning. I am contacting you on behalf of SLDN and would be happy to remove you from our email list. Every person who receives emails from us has signed up to receive those emails in some way; I apologize that you are receiving these in error.
If you would please email me directly I will make sure to process your request. I would also like to hear more about the emails you received from us in the last 48 hours. As the person who sends emails to our list, we have not sent any emails since Tuesday morning, so this is a bit confusing.
Thank you for your service to our country.
Semper Fi, Danny Hernandez
11 February 2012 at 12:04
Mr Hernandez,
I sent you an email with details of the communication I received.