Troop shortages? Don't ask. Putting politics ahead of security? Shhh...don't tell.
ABC SAN FRANCISCO June 21, 2004 Brian Muller, an Army bomb squad team leader who served on a security detail for President Bush, said he was dismissed from duty after deciding to tell his commander he's gay.
"I didn't do it to get out of a war I already served in a war," Muller, 25, said in an interview. "After putting my life on the line in the war, the idea that I was fighting for the freedoms of so many other people that I couldn't myself enjoy was almost unbearable."
770 gays were discharged last year, down from a record 1227 discharges in Bush's first year in office. The argument against gays in the military is that somehow gays sexual urges get in the way of readiness and make fellow troops somehow less able to accomplish their duties. But why is this argument never made against hetero soldiers whose sexual conduct interferes with their duty?
Charles Graner is accused of adultery for making it with America's kid sister Lyndie England. Ms. England is charged with "indecent acts with numerous soldiers". Prostitution, the military and criminal abuse are a trifecta that unfortunately appears in every military theatre from Japan to Korea to Kosovo to the Phillipines and Iraq. These problems sure as hell hurt readiness but no one is suggesting we ban heterosexuals from the military.
The US Military has all kinds of rules limiting sexual conduct between adults. They have good reasons for these rules. Conduct that prevents you doing from your duty in life and death military situations should be controlled. So why not make the rules asexual, make conduct the guideline, not sexual preference and get back to the fighting terrorism?
Because people like Elaine Donnelly don't want gays in the military, not Arab speaking linguists, not intelligence experts, no gays allowed. She also wants to severely restrict the roles of women in the military. Don't we need everybody in the struggle against terrorism? Not according to Ms. Donnelly.
ABC story cont'd: Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, a conservative advocacy group that opposes gays serving in the military, said the loss of gays and lesbians serving in specialized areas is irrelevant because they never should have been in those jobs in the first place.
"We need to defend the law, and the law says that homosexuality is incompatible with military service," Donnelly said. "There is no shortage of people in the military, and we do not need people who identify themselves as homosexual."
Elaine Donnelly is obviously on top of current events with her "no shortage of people in the military" analysis. Apparently she missed the stop-loss orders issued by the DoD and knows more about troop strength than John McCain and John Warner. I don't know why I'm so upset about this story this morning...I guess it's a bit unbelievable that for some people no circumstance (9/11, Afghanistan, 130,000+ troops deployed in Iraq) ever supercedes the desire to exclude others from serving their country.
Any thoughts?