DADT and States
DADT is going away. Good. Now, there’s a push for states to ban gays from the National Guard. This is dumb but will be interesting to watch from that whole state militia meaning of the second amendment mythology.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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December 21st, 2010 at 2:06 pm
We’ve been down that state militia mythology road before. The controlling case is Perpich v. Department of Defense (1990), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpich_v._Department_of_Defense
December 21st, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I am a born again full on Southern Baptist and don’t care where my trigger pullers put their puds during their off hours.
December 21st, 2010 at 3:18 pm
I don’t think that case will be controlling. I doubt that the feds can make states issue a state level commission or enlistment.
December 21st, 2010 at 3:41 pm
If a state can muster the votes, what’s the problem? The homos there might consider moving to NY or Sanfransicko. But no, that’s not good enough. They have to force themselves on whatever good-ol-boys are dumb enough to admit they may be the least uncomfortable with it.
December 21st, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I think that the various Militia acts will show that the Fed’l guidelines for recruitment and eligibility will take precedence.
December 21st, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Bingo trackerk
December 21st, 2010 at 3:54 pm
For a federal reserve enlistment or commission sure, but the states control state level enlistments and commisions.
December 21st, 2010 at 3:55 pm
If the state takes federal dollars, they have to abide by the National Guard act.
Some states have recreated state militias because of this. Oregon has a small state militia in addition to the Oregon NG … every time the feds make some kind of threat to override the Governor, the Governor threatens to disband the NG, and fold it into the state militia.
During the Bush admin, the feds tried to close the Portland ANG base as an act of political retribution, so the Governor did threaten to start an air militia. The Bush admin compromised by simply withdrawing funding, and leaving the aircraft that state funding paid for ( about 20% of the F-15s ).
December 21st, 2010 at 3:59 pm
I’m glad DADT is going away.
I’d also argue that the military is more about defending the country and our interests against foreign aggression and less about being an agent for social change. In that capacity, I’d say that DADT might just have been a good middle ground for the transition.
In light of that, I’d have to ask everyone if everyone has a right to serve in the various volunteer military service organizations, or does the military have the right to pick and choose from all volunteers?
December 21st, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I am guessing it would fail, since the guiding principle of law seems to favor homosexual expression above anything else.
December 21st, 2010 at 4:40 pm
If they don’t like the Virginian policies on gays in the VNG, they could always just take the subway to Maryland…
December 21st, 2010 at 7:13 pm
DADT is going away. Article 125 UCMJ however is not….
December 21st, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Brings a whole new meaning to ‘never leave your buddy’s behind’…maybe some could form a new unit, the ‘Flaming 69th’…Me? I’m just glad I retired; what is optional today may be mandatory tomorrow! Man, I missed all those old jokes from the 90s!
December 21st, 2010 at 8:24 pm
In 1948 President Truman integrated the military and the rest of the nation slowly followed…kicking and screaming. A senator from Georgia tried to get an amendment to a bill passed that would allow new recruits the right to request white only units. I wonder if this fine politician would like all hetro units? I don’t give a rats arse who serves as long as they do their job. Hating gays is as bad as hating people for their religion…Westboro Baptist is the exception.
December 21st, 2010 at 10:14 pm
What a douche Marshall is for proposing this.
December 21st, 2010 at 11:02 pm
In other news, the Washington Post (columnist) is calling for the head of the Marine Corps Commandant for giving his considered opinion as required by his duty. Unfortunately, his opinion wasn’t of the “approved” kind.
How long before they start going through the “anonymous” survey to ferret out those with inappropriate responses? A numbered response sheet sent to your home address is hardly anonymous.
December 21st, 2010 at 11:15 pm
States Governors can threaten whatever the hell they want. If any were to actually disband the guard, so what? Virtually all the equipment (especially all the useful stuff like aircraft, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, radios) is federal property. Uniforms and the like? Eh….
As far as homosexuals goes, I don’t care if the guy helping me defeat the enemy is straight, as long as he shoots straight. All the fing angst about gays is a) playing into the liberals hands, b) counterproductive to the mission and c) a waste of time. The ‘conservatives’ screaming about gays in the military are the ones who sound like drag queens making a scene….Man the fuck up, ladies….
December 22nd, 2010 at 12:17 am
I’m ready to move on from Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to Don’t Care, Don’t Shove it in my face.
Surely Uncle Sugar is going to take a dim view of anyone wearing a uniform in a (fill in the blank) Pride event.
At the same time, Uncle had better take a fine comb to those who are distributing disease and/or pregnancies among his ranks or using sex organs to undermine good order and discipline. Hetero or homo doesn’t matter.
The NG is a Federal entity. The money to pay their salaries is Federal and comes with Federal strings attached. Bring that case on (again) so we can put it to rest (again).
Hmm: did Heller speak at all to the relevance of the National Guard to RKBA? Seems that the whole “collective right” argument is off the table, so the NG’s role in that collective right is moot.
December 22nd, 2010 at 11:43 am
I couldn’t care less about the sexual preferences of my co-workers. But that’s easy when you don’t share the same living spaces and bathrooms with your co-workers.
Having served in during the aftermath of all of the Tailhook stuff, I can say with certainty that the Navy is going to screw this all up somehow. The only question is if it will be straight guys being groped by that one gay jackass being told to shut up, or gay guys being harassed by some straight jackass that will be told to just shut up and not stir the pot.
As it is, I still haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer as to why a woman shouldn’t have to shower with men, even if no one wants to see her naked, but straight men can’t expect the same with respect to showering with gay men. I honestly think at this point that they should just go with coed berthing spaces with private shower stalls. Anything else is really just hypocritical.
December 22nd, 2010 at 11:45 am
Wait for the mandatory sensitivity training and lawsuits. Unit cohesion will suffer when everyone has to pussy-foot (can I say that?) around to keep from offending someone.
December 22nd, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Gender isn’t the same as orientation.
Next.
December 22nd, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Regarding my earlier comment about my certainty that the Navy will screw this up somehow, a little summary of some of my experiences in the Navy in the 90s.
Male has chronic sea-sickness issue. He’s told to quit whining, suck it up, and get back to work. “Just carry a plastic bag so you don’t make a mess”. Woman has less severe sea-sickness issues. She’s given bedrest.
Male complains about being harassed because of his race, with witnesses to the frequent instances. Because the victim is white, he’s told to shut up. Woman complains about being harassed, with no witnesses. The person doing the alleged harassing finds his career over.
My best guess is something like the following will happen. Sooner or later, you’ll get a gay guy that is a complete pig (because in any group of 18-22 year old men, at least a few are complete pigs/jackasses). He’ll harass some younger and/or subordinate guy on board. The younger guy will complain, and be blown off because he’s not part of a protected group. The harassment will continue until that younger/subordinate guy either kills himself or the one doing the harassing. Oh, and working with the Navy daily, I am very confident that this is more likely than the “gay guy harassed by his shipmates for being gay” scenario. More than one carrier has men in one of the departments that are out to the entire department. No one cares. They do their job well, and make an effort to not make anyone feel weird when they’re in the head.
I’m not saying that gays shouldn’t be able to be openly in the military. I’m saying that it’s a mistake to let the branches figure out how to handle it for themselves. They still haven’t figured out how to handle the male-female thing. So I have little hope that they’ll not fuck this all up as well.
Either it’s reasonable to be able to take a shower without being made to feel like a sex object, or it isn’t. Either being harassed is wrong, or it’s not. The race/gender/sexual orientation of the victim should not dictate whether or not corrective actions are taken.
December 23rd, 2010 at 11:59 pm
LD, your best point was “protected class.” Gays could always serve, and rightfully so, but now a subgroup of people will have a system to manipulate where one did not exist earlier. Everyone’s always known who the queers were, and any harrassment that would take place already has/is. I’d have a harder time squaring that with my philosophical concerns if it WASN’T THE FUCKING MILITARY WHERE YOU’VE SIGNED YOUR LIFE AWAY FOR A GIVEN TERM OF SERVICE.