The Pentagon has sent out a questionnaire for troops, including questions on how they feel about the lifting of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban. The questions have been challenged as homophobic and designed to enrage the troops. The military insists that it is merely trying to gather data on the views of the troops and was not trying to trigger a backlash.
Troops are asked the following question and given the following choices:
If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are assigned to share a room, berth or field tent with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member, which are you most likely to do? Mark 1.
— Take no action
— Discuss how we expect each other to behave and conduct ourselves while sharing a room, berth or field tent
— Talk to a chaplain, mentor, or leader about how to handle the situation
— Talk to a leader to see if I have other options
— Something else
— Don’t know
Here is another one:
If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and a gay or lesbian Service member attended a military social function with a same-sex partner, which are you most likely to do?
— Continue to attend military social functions
— Stop bringing my spouse, significant other or other family members with me to military social functions
— Stop attending military social functions
— Something else
— Don’t know
Such questions have been criticized as fueling resentment and anger among the enlisted members over the lifting of the ban. Consider this one:
If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are assigned to bathroom facilities with an open bay shower that someone you
believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member also used, which are you most likely to do? Mark 1.— Take no action
— Use the shower at a different time than the Service member I thought to be gay or lesbian
— Discuss how we expect each other to behave and conduct ourselves
— Talk to a chaplain, mentor, or leader about how to handle the situation
— Talk to a leader to see if I had other options
— Something else
— Don’t know
What exactly is “something else”?
Heteorsexual’s feelings about the issue don’t count.
Henry: You’re right of course but I can’t help thinking that the military will sabotage and stall for as long as it can. Maybe I am just depressed …
Nate Silver over at his site:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com
has these two main observations:
1) The questions are based on asking about whom you “suspect” to be gay, not if you have any reason to “know” that this person is homosexual, like, oh say, you’ve had sex with that same-sex person, or that this person has told you directly that (s)he is homosexual. As a result, this is likely to tell us more about units with low morale and/or the attitudes of paranoid members of the armed services.
2) The survey doesn’t ask the main question: “What is your opinion of DADT?” How did they miss the #1 most important, most obvious question?
Is the survey “homophobic”? Who knows. Is it a waste of time and money? Apparently, yes. Will it provide the information needed to make better decisions about the repeal of DADT? Probably not, and that’s the real problem with this survey.
“If it were there would be, AT MINIMUM, comparable questions about ‘straight’ service members”
I’m not sure if it was from an official survey or just informal discussion, but my brother (in the Marines) reports that, if it were a choice between sharing tents/showers/squads/you-name-it with homosexuals or women, most male Marines would choose the gay guy every time. The women are far more distracting.
This is exactly why I’m for small government. I can’t get married, enjoy equal employee benefits, or fight for my country, but they still want me to pay the same taxes as my straight counterparts. Too bad gay taxpayers could never get standing in a suit….
I find it interesting that the questions seem to be phrased without any possibility that the person is either gay themselves, or approves of the repeal. For example, the second question doesn’t have a ‘be more likely to attend military social functions’ or the last question have a ‘Use the shower at the same time as the person that I suspect to be gay or lesbian to show the other people in my unit that I’m not afraid of them’. When the ‘best’ option is neutral, and all the rest are negative, then that looks like a poll which has been engineered to produce a result saying x% of people feel that the repeal would be negative.
Attitudes are changing very quickly, as Henry notes. Among twenty-somethings they have already changed.
Once DADT is lifted I expect few issues aside from some manufactured events early on.
Like the political sphere, actions against gays and lesbians in the military will largely be the province of those who are themselves conflicted.
Harry Truman’s Executive Order: 9981
The White House
July 26, 1948
WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country’s defense:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/fahy.htm
DOD should begin testing for homophobic leaders. Discharging those of every rank who disagree with equitable treatment for all who serve in uniform.
Woosty
Unless you’re speaking from your own experience, I suggest you were wrong when you “…said it before…” and you’re wrong when you “…say it again”. The three gay men I know who have served in the military (two under DADT rule) enlisted because of either the same sense of patriotric duty &/or family tradition as many of their straight counterparts, college education payments and training for future job opprotunities (primarily TI).
I’ve said it before and I say it again….gay men join the military because THAT is where they meet other gay men.
And that questionair? Well now I understand $500 faucettes and $50 tacks.
Yissel, the military does not have the final say on this; civilians do. Attitudes are changing, not as fast as we’d like, but faster than we would have expected a few years ago.
Just a small and effective act of sabotage.
It is totally naive to expect that the armed forces will ever allow openly gay people to serve. I hate to say it, but the army, navey, air force, marinesand coast guard are not liberal organizatoins.
The questionnaire plays on the same attitudes that produced the DADT policy in the first place. They should scrap it entirely, cut to the chase and ask a single question, as follows:
If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are assigned to share a room, berth, field tent, bathroom or shower facilities with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member, which are you most likely to do?
(a) Conduct myself as a disciplined, mature adult.
(b) Conduct myself as a moron.
Anyone who checks (b) can be discharged and returned to civilian life.
Consider the hidebound source. Would you really expect something more enlightened?
I think I have a problem with how they are asking the question(s). I do think that they are taking precaution against the gays being assaulted by friendly fire. But then again, I think that maybe its just noboys business if they are gay or not. Just don’t feel the need to inquire.
“Something else” indeed.
Where did you clowns at the Pentagon learn to write questions? The interrogation room or from PsyOps? Maybe propagandists?
Oh. That’s right.
Nevermind.
Was a questionnaire such as this distributed before DADT was instituted?
“something else” is a euphemism for corporal punishment enforced by troops. It is human nature if you are fighting for your life, literaly, then your patience level might be strained so that the simplest solution to a complex problem, is to beat the hell of your problem.
What a crazy time we’re living in.
How hard is it for people to see other people as just people?
The military / pentagon asserts they are;
“… merely trying to gather data on the views of the troops …”
This is NOT a ‘survey’! If it were there would be, AT MINIMUM, comparable questions about ‘straight’ service members, those who the respondent was unsure about, AND about the respondent’s values / opinion about interpersonal relationships of all types.
While the survey may (or may not) be “homophobic”, it clearly is NOT objective and therefore another waste example of wasting the tax payer’s money!
After reading the whole ‘survey’ I am comfortable saying it is a joke – useless – a waste of each service member’s time.
All be WELL & be SAFE!
Mrs. R A-W