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The title is slightly misleading: "1,050 Officers Sign Letter Urging Obama to Uphold Law Barring Homosexuals from Military". The military really doesn't care what people (safely, legally) do in private in their off hours with their time, money, and hormones.
The March 31 letter to Obama and Congress was sent in response to legislation introduced in the House of Representatives on March 3 that would repeal the 1993 law (Section 654, Title 10, U.S.C.).Far from holding any negative interest in controlling private behavior, the military holds a positive interest in mission accomplishment. One hopes that the 111th Congress demonstrates more sense on this issue than it has on, well, almost everything else.
From personal experience, anyone with a non-command of leadership resembling that of this piece of work would be a severe detriment to a command.
Direct link to the celestial parade here.
You draw the very important distinction between the negative and positive rationale. The misunderstood "don't ask/don't tell" policy wasn't about permitting or denying gays in the military. It was simply that leadership is a requirement for service. If you can't lead, you can't serve. We won't ask about your orientation and place you in the position of lying. You don't tell us either by vocalizing or acting out then you won't have a problem.
ReplyDeleteFacts remain. There are gays in the military. That is undeniable. There remains in our society a level of prejudice against them, therefore if placed in a leadership role, they would be less effective.
And finally, the tired arguments about fraternization or unwanted advances are ignoring the fact that the prohibitions are in place against them either hetero or homosexual in nature.
I've no dog in the hunt and like Rhett Butler said, "Frankly, Scarlett..."