The cost benefits – suggested by the Zogby poll – are zero.”

July 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

So, we keep a ban in place to keep enlisting 4,000 close minded idiots?

Consider how many more people were complaining about racial integration of the military! Your argument indicates you believe we never should have integrated the military!

Why do you support racial segregation of the military, Bitbit?

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=17967

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The report also mentions the results of a Zogby poll conducted for the Palm Center in 2006. That poll, which surveyed 545 military personnel who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, found that only 37% of the respondents opposed open gay military service. More important, of the 125 survey respondents who knew for sure that at least one person in their unit was gay or lesbian, 64% said it had “no impact” on the unit’s morale. Three-quarters of the total sample said they were “comfortable” in the presence of gays and lesbians. One assumes that, despite Senator Nunn’s fears, they had not been groped in the shower.
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Recently, conservatives have made the argument that if Americans like Stephen were allowed to serve openly, young heterosexuals from conservative families would stop enlisting. “Would we risk doing away with this system that works, where American families sit around the dinner table and they make a decision that their young man or young woman is going to go into this military because they share the values of that military?” asked GOP Congressman Duncan Hunter on 60 Minutes last year.

But the Zogby poll has an answer to this: only 2% of respondents said they would not have joined the military if gays were allowed to serve openly. That translates to a loss of about 4,000 service members per year — the same number of gays and lesbians who decline to reenlist because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or who are discharged under the policy. That calculation means keeping or repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would be a wash in terms of numbers. It forces a question we have postponed for 15 years: do we want a military where Americans are not forced to lie about their most important emotional bonds?

Believe the numbers here mean that there are no benefits that contribute to the mission of the military.

The cost benefits – suggested by the Zogby poll – are zero.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1204/p03s01-usmi.html

“A Zogby survey of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan found that 73 percent reported being “personally comfortable in the presence of gays and lesbians,” and only 37 percent want to keep the current policy.”

July 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 am

A little lower than the percentage of active duty members who didn’t want the service integrated in 1948.

MUCH lower than the number of active duty members who supported the draft during Vietnam.

Your point?

According to a recent Military Times poll, less than a third of active duty personnel think openly gay individuals should be allowed to serve in the military.

from

http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000007864.cfm

To die for a country that considers them to be marginal. Disgusting.”

July 21st, 2008 at 9:23 pm

I respectfully disagree. Gaining the right to serve openly in the military will continue to fight for equal rights for gay Americans.

In 1948, the military was officially “integrated” for black service members. It was the first step of the civil rights movement. When the average white service member learned that blacks were just as good a soldier as they were, it was much more difficult to continue the racist practices of the time. Of course, it took another few decades to roll back the rest of the racist laws, but it did happen.

I believe it will be the same way with gay Americans, and the fight for equal treatment by laws. It will take time, but the tides are turning against the regressives who wish to keep gay people as second class citizens, and the regressives see it. That’s why they’re fighting so hard to KEEP all the anti-gay laws in place. They hate equal rights. so they fight against them.

To die for a country that considers them to be marginal. Disgusting.

July 21st, 2008 at 11:29 am

Hmmm. . . . For decades, the heterosexual leaders in “positions of responsibility and authority” have created environments that were openly hostile and dangerous to gay people.

Considering history, the answer to this would be a resounding “NO!”

I guess we could go to the other nations that recently opened their ranks to gay people:
Canada
Great Britain
Germany
France
Spain

Not one of these countries report any widespread problems with openly gay members of the military serving alongside their heterosexual counterparts.

And, of course, this query needs an answer: “How many homosexuals want to serve in the military?”

What are the costs associated with openly homosexual service members?

What about the claims – from either homosexual or heterosexual – service members that they suffered sexual harassment because of their orientation?

Are the costs worth the benefits? Probably not.

For instance, what is the negative inducement for service because there are homosexuals serving? Many men join the military because of the strong traditions. How many prospective service members would find “having to serve with homosexuals” an end to these strong traditions?

How should the brass respond when two uniformed, openly homosexual service members – in uniform – participate in a pride parade? Does this create an image of the services that make the populace want to respect and support the military?

Could homosexuals in positions of responsibility and authority be trusted to act in the interest of all service members? IOW, what would prevent the creation of a “gay battalion” or discrimination against heterosexual service members? If the San Francisco board of governors – or whatever the city’s board is called – is used as an example of how those in responsible positions will behave, then the answer is obviously that the gay agenda will be put first.

Daryll will complain loudly, and point to very carefully chosen verses of the Bible that support his prejudices (while ignoring other verses of the Bible that are inconvenient to his argument), but did Daryll serve in the military?

No, he didn’t.

It doesn’t mean Daryll is any less patriotic, nor is he a coward for not serving in the military. There are hundreds of millions of Americans who nerver served in the military, who are very patriotic.

Using the Bible to support your prejudice towards others is, howver, the most hypocritical thing one can do. The Daryll’s and Bitbit’s and others who claim that that some very carefully excised verses of the Bible support their regressive morality that they wish to enforce on everyone else makes a mockery of Christianity.

It is beyond time for DADT to be removed and allow equal rights for anyone who wishes to serve in the military.

We are becoming more tolerant of homosexuality.

Here’s a video clip of the Iranian president suggesting that Iran doesn’t even have gays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_3RUwAJ_MI

The late Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, “Mr. Conservative” himself, said, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” Those were the kind of Republicans we used to be able to get along with once in a while. Too bad the Religious Right drove them away.

My father was an Eisenhower Republican. He is an atheist, and the influence of the Christian Right on the Republicans drove him away from the party back in the 1980’s.

Politically, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He woke up to all the horrible things the right wing had been feeding him.

Now, he is a progressive Democrat, just like his son.

You imply that all Christians are Hateful Bastards and I don’t…I speak only to the Hateful Christian Bastards and that’s not all Christians as you would like to imply with your superb, first-rate, ignorance!

Good luck with your stupidity there…Jebus Troll!!

Glad to see you are above hate. Unless you consider these “Christian bastards” separate from the less vocal moderate Christians you are painting a rather large swatch of the world as ignorant.