Second Post!

I hope that my titling of my posts doesn't become a tradition...

But holy crap, a second post in a single day!  I'm on a roll.  Now I just have to make sure this doesn't become like all those journals I tried to write when I was a kid.  Anyways, since my first post was wholly for fun, I thought I'd make this second one a bit more serious.

If you didn't already know, the law colloquially known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is facing a possibility of repeal in this congress.  That's quite a laughable statement, as Conservatives are dead set on DADT staying in place.  They've also de-funded the entire US military to delay and kill a repeal so far, and it looks like they'll be successful.  How brilliant of them.

When I say "de-funded the military" it is because the repeal for DADT has been thrown on the Defense Authorization Bill (don't ask me how the hell that makes sense, because I don't know).  This means that Conservatives are so against gays serving in the military, that they're okay with not paying for the military if it means that gays won't be able to serve.

My question is why?  This makes no sense to me.  In this post, I will try to examine the various reasons that I've heard used in defense of DADT.

1. We're in two wars right now and we can't shake things up by letting the gays in.
This is, quite frankly, moronic.  It seems to me that if we're involved in two wars, we should be letting as many people into the military as possible.  I know that winning with superior numbers isn't exactly strategy, but losing because we've decided to exclude everyone from a certain minority isn't what we want either.  I think.  Maybe the conservatives do want to lose?

2. People shorter than a certain height aren't eligible for the armed forces either.
People who say this are quite right.  People below a certain height aren't allowed into the military.  Of course, they haven't had to hide their height to be allowed into the military only then to be kicked out when someone finds out.  That would be stupid.  Nor can they be booted out of the military if someone 'outs' them as being too short.  Argument #2 meet thy doom.

3. Allowing gays to serve openly in the military would hurt unit cohesion.
Interesting.  So allowing people of different races, religions, and creeds should then also hurt unit cohesion.  Oops, they don't.  This alone should be enough to prove that allowing we gays into the military won't hurt a damn thing, but there's always cold hard fact too.  The UK began to allow gays to serve openly several years ago.  There was no great exodus of servicemembers.  There was no loss of unit cohesion.  And a great deal of people in the US military say they have no problem with gays serving alongside them.  SHOCKER!

4. The Marines have said they don't want to serve next to gays.
Erm.  Right.  The new guy in charge of the Marines say that he's heard Marines don't want to serve next to gays.  The problem here is that they already have.  Gays HAVE served in the Marines, and those that got outed got kicked out.  That doesn't mean there aren't gays still in the Marines, it means that they're hiding.  Also, DADT makes it against the law for gays to serve OPENLY.  It doesn't make it illegal for gays to serve at all.

5. But if gays serve openly, we'll have to get them different housing facilities and showers!
Hmm.  I do go to the gym quite often, and I use the same locker room as the heteros.  They don't seem to have a problem with it.  I also have two heterosexual roommates.  They don't feel afraid that they're sleeping in the same room as a homo.  So why would we need different housing and showers?  The counter-argument of course, is that there will be sexual harassment.  I'm pretty sure there's a procedure to kick people out of the military if they sexually harass their subordinates/comrades/superiors.  So... continue to kick them out?  It's not like letting the gays serve openly would suddenly mean that every single one will start to sexually harass others.  I wouldn't be surprised if there's a very few that do, but we have to remember that heterosexuals harass others too.

I've run out of pro-DADT arguments, but I'm sure there's more.  I'm equally sure that they're all just as wrong.  Perhaps I'll make a "Second Post 2.0" and examine the rest.

As I said in the beginning, the likelihood that DADT gets repealed now is very slim.  The Republicans can continue to block it at every turn, and President Obama seems to have no plan to counter them.  And as the Republicans won pretty big in the House and Senate, it's likely that we won't see a repeal anytime soon.  Unless of course they see reason.  I don't suggest you hold your breath.  For now, I rest my hopes upon the military's study of repealing DADT due on December 1st.  Perhaps we'll see this mistake of a law repealed then.

-Kevin

P.S. As always, constructive criticism is appreciated!  For now you can only comment if you are a registered user.  I might change that later, we'll see.