There was a moment this week that many thought they would never see. Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor rose to address a major conference and introducing his spouse. However in this case his spouse was his husband Lucas who was sitting in the same row with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter Army Secretary John McHugh and other senior officials. Taylor has served 27 years through the ban on gays, the “don’t ask don’t tell policy,” and now the new policy of openness. He and Lucas have had an 18-year relationship.
Taylor discussed the sacrifices that Lucas made for his career and how they both bet everything on the Army. The bet paid off.
This week also saw the adoption of a new policy barring discrimination against members of the U.S. military based on their sexual orientation. Sexual orientation now joins discrimination based on race, gender and other protected categories.
The event itself is notable as the Pentagon’s 4th Gay Pride celebration that featured a gay Marine officer, a gay Army sergeant who is a criminal investigator, a lesbian chaplain and a transgender, Amanda Simpson, who is executive director of the Army’s Office of Energy Initiatives.
Carter set the perfect tone and told the crowd that “We need to be a meritocracy.” Indeed, our military will only stay competitive if we take the best and brightest from our ranks. Many gay and lesbian citizens have answered that call throughout history and they have now achieved true equal status with their peers in service.
Source: Washington Times
Wadewilliams
Ignorance, phobias, hypocrisy, religion, etc. The world is improving. The tail is disappearing. The residue is fading. Darwin is happy.
As time goes by the picture gets larger and more clear, if one chooses to take a look.
Darwin is dead. Hard to be happy.
Given bam bam’s concerns, it is obvious that anyone who is HIV positive must be banned from law enforcement or any employment where one may suffer a scrape or bleeding injury. Let’s start working on a list…
issac
The last popes (not Francis) played a role in the spread of HIV, too. The popes insisted that Africans not use condoms even though HIV was exploding in Africa.
There is, not there are.
I. Annie
You mention that the military tests for blood-born pathogens. Do you have any idea just how often this is performed? I’m asking you, since I have no idea. Is it only upon entry into the military or is it performed on a regularly scheduled basis? A one- time blood test, only performed upon new soldiers, would be relatively meaningless. Unless, and until, there are frequent and regularly mandated testing, the mention that it OCCURS is irrelevant. I suppose an even more important question would be what the military does, with regard to one found to be HIV positive or carrying other blood born pathogens. Is it dismissal? If not, should it be?
You make mention of medics and highly trained personnel, who are well-equipped with gloves and other protective clothing, who would never hesitate to aid a wounded and bleeding soldier. That’s just it. They are highly trained and well-equipped, so there is no reason that they would have any irrational fears of infection. My concern is not for them. They are protected, to a degree. My concern is for soldiers, on the battlefield, without the training or the protection, who will recoil when faced with the possibility of aiding an openly gay soldier out of fear of HIV infection. Medics can only do so much. Many injuries occur and are treated by fellow soldiers without the benefit of any protective gear.
There are a variety of ingredients that make up the negative aspects of some opinions on homosexuality. By far the largest ingredient is ignorance, followed by fear, and then disassociation. HIV did come to NA via a gay Canadian who was working as an airline steward at the time. He had been to Africa and contracted the disease there. Then, with his job, he spread it around. Or, at least this is what I read many years ago.
Firstly, gays did not create the disease. It was through ignorance of the disease that it spread initially as quickly as it did. If the disease had been, at the time as well publicized as now, it is highly unlikely that it would have developed so rapidly.
Secondly, the cloistering of the gay community contributed in a large way to the spread. Add the fear of being ‘outed’ to the ignorance of the disease and it only gets worse. Most medical professionals agree that the very early moments in something like this are when something like this can be most effectively combatted. In other words it is a numbers game. Society was, as it continues to be to a lesser extent, in fear of homosexuality as homosexuality was in fear of society. Fear make for a very strong barrier.
Thirdly, the disassociation of the gay community with the community as a whole because of ignorance, bias, and phobias allowed the disease to become further entrenched in that community as well as society as a whole.
One could go on and on, however, the HIV epidemic has been slowed and turned back because of modern medical science and the fact that enough heterosexual victims from blood transfusions created a media profile that applied that of which society is capable, to the problem. Without the heterosexual victims it is doubtful that society’s concern for its gay community would have initiated such a response.
Had the disease been attached to heterosexual activities, like bunny rabbits or not, it is safe to say that it would have grown less rapidly due to ignorance, fear, and disassociation and more due to shear numbers. In the end, the severity of the HIV outbreak is probably more the result of those elements of society that simply can’t cope with anything other than themselves. A graphic and much more intense example of this can be found in Africa where today HIV is spreading primarily through ignorance and primarily among heterosexuals.
Regarding disrespecting those with opposing points of view, personally, I don’t respect any point of view whether it parallels mine or directly opposes it, if it is based on ignorance and/or stupidity, no matter how eloquently presented.
issac – one of the things that helped HIV spread was the failure of the CDC to rate it as an epidemic an quarantine those who were infected. I remember this happening for a measles outbreak in my hometown. People who kids got the measles had a quarantine sign nailed on their door and the kids could not come out. The doctor decided when the kids could come out and the sign could come down.
The gay community raised such a fit about quarantines that the CDC was afraid to touch it. The bath houses of San Francisco, where a lot of people got HIV, are still open.
And brotherly love for ‘drooling, feral blacks’.
So sayeth Simon Legree – a known purveyor of Truth and Justice.
@NickS
If I may add, the problem with those people went way beyond mere groupthink. They were also pretty much rabid Democratic Party partisans. Personally, I think both parties are chock full of idiots and scoundrels, sooo even rabid Democratic Party partisans are going to be right some percentage of the time when they attack Republicans. But by concentrating on the Republicans, they tended to miss all of the bad stuff the Democratic Party was doing. And, they tended to hide relevant information from the readers.
Let me give you an example, because I have noticed several Republicans finally bringing up some points that I raised 2 years ago. The subject is “voting rights.” There were a few threads here where the partisans were giving Republican states bloody hell about reducing the number of early voting days, and/or abentee voting. OMG, Jim Crow was returning! Black were going to be lynched! Dixie was going to become the new National Anthem. Every damn race-baiting piece of tripe they could lay their hands on.
They completely neglected to tell anybody that Rhode Island, a Democratic-led state had passed voter id laws. They completely neglected to mention that many Northern and Democratic Party led states, like New York, and Connecticut and Massachusetts had no early voting laws at all and heavy restrictions on absentee voting. That kind of information was very relevant to the discussion. It was left out. Finally, I have seen a few Republicans on TV picking up on this information.
Anyway, to make it worse, one of the idiot partisans claimed to be an alleged “propaganda expert.” Yeah, kind of looks like propaganda, doesn’t it, when you leave out very relevant information. FWIW, here is the link I put up several times during those days, where there is a map comparing all the states.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/absentee-and-early-voting.aspx
Now you would think that after these people were informed of this information, that they would alter their opinion accordingly. And maybe start slamming the Democratic states, too for the same things they criticized the Republican states for. After all, shouldn’t reasonable people change their opinions if new and contradictory information comes in ??? Yeah. Don’t hold your breath.
Less than a week ago the idiots at “Pansies For Plato” were back to slamming Texas for requiring voter ID. Not a word about Rhode Island. Not a direct word about New York, or Massachusetts, or Connecticut’s no early voter provisions, or restricted absentee ballots. The sweet little old “fair-minded” author, who I don’t think has had an original thought the last 50 years, did mention that Hillary called for a national 20 day early voting period. But did the authoress consider it worth mentioning that many of the states which had no early voting were Democratic States???
Nope. Of course not. Perhaps it is because they already have a political machine which can stuff the ballot boxes in those states, but that activity is more difficult in a state controlled by the other party. That is an example of who and what got run off, or left here, whichever. Little Joseph Goebbels juniors.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
comment @ 11:38
Noted Blog Historian at work.
Kreskin has never recovered from the daily drubbing he always got. Witness the constant references to events that took place years ago.
There is a blog, comprised of former Weekenders and commenters, called Flowers For Socrates. It should be required reading if you want to see how groupthink was here not long ago. There are liberals here, like Isaac, w/ whom I can usually have a reasonable discussion on most topics. There are others, that I have tried to engage w/, but learned that is simply not possible. Some continue to address me CONSTANTLY, but self discipline is one of my strong suits. JT encourages ignoring people who constantly try to bait you. It’s good advice.
Well, I suspect that most military people who get HIV will get it the old fashioned way — sodomy. Heterosexual HIV has almost always been way over-sold, for the same reason “weapons of mass destruction” were. To fool people into supporting the war on HIV.
My GUESS is that you will start to see HIV clusters develop on certain bases, because gay guys screw like bunny rabbits on Viagra. The cluster effect is what drove and continues to drive a lot of the epidemic in the U.S. That is why cities like San Francisco have about a 25% rate of HIV among the gay and bisexual men, and over half of those (60%) have full blown AIDS.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_of_a_combat_medic
Combat medics and Corpsmen carry gloves and much more. At any rate, no medic is going to hesitate to give aid to a fellow soldier, sailor, or Marine, no matter what their sexual preference is. These are highly trained medical personnel and concerns about cohesiveness in battle is misplaced.
Inga – we have talked many times about how inaccurate Wikipedia is. I do wish you would use a more reliable source.
Wadewilliams
You are going to stick with the people that I refer to as Neanderthals? Hell, no need to stick with them. You’re their leader. If friendliness is defined as calling others names, ridiculing opposing opinions and denigrating any person with the audacity to defend a position contrary to the liberal playbook, then you got yourself a mighty friendly bunch there! Good luck with that.
Karen S
You make reference to one’s job or one’s work, where meritocracy should rule; the military, I would argue, is unlike just any old job or place of work. I wholeheartedly agree that one’s sexuality should never be a factor in the workplace, the typical workplace. Agreed. When discussing the military, however, you need to factor in that the military is a separate animal, unlike other jobs and workplaces. Most workplaces don’t include living, eating and sleeping alongside your coworkers, in close quarters, 24/7. Most jobs don’t entail defending and protecting one’s country, often in hostile arenas, where bullets are flying and bombs are exploding. The military, I would argue, in a multitude of ways, is different from the civilian world. With those differences come adjustments. It is not uncommon to find rules, which exist in a military setting, to be non-existent in a civilian setting. While it is indisputable that gays have served in the military for years, my concern is that open declarations of that sexuality will contribute to problems, which I outlined above.
They already do blood born pathogen testing.
bam bam
Perhaps you missed my response to your comments. I encourage you (and the like minded Simon Legree, Pogo and trooper) to comment often. Your ideas and moral values speak for themselves. Perhaps there are a few readers here who you will persuade. You’re welcome to those people.
Me? I’ll stick with the people you call the Neanderthals. They’re a friendlier bunch.
Yes. What we need in this world is a choice not an echo. Barry Goldwater said this and I beleive he borrowed it from Phyllis Schlafly of Saint Louis. She is still alive and well and was a great spokes person. I dont know what a “Liberal” really is. Some on the right use that word to castigate people for having views which differ. But the view expressed by the so called Liberal may not be progressive or left wing or FDR sort of thing. Barry Goldwater was for the Bill of Rights and he is not called a Liberal. A lot of times the Liberal tag gets put on people who accept or favor things like gay rights. But what would a bent right winger say if he was called a liberal just for porkin his own sex? We allied with Stalin in WWII against the Nazis. That does not make FDR a Communist. Truman got Turkey into NATO. That does not make himi a right winger. All the folks on Martha’s Vineyard are not so called Liberals. By no means. All bigots are not in the South. Read Sundown Towns by Garrett Epps. Those bigoted, segregated towns, are all up North.
I lived in NYC. You hear the N word up there more than you do in the South.
bam, Google news Jerry Seinfeld/PC. He and many other comedians will not do shows on college campuses because of PC, the groupthink method of thought control via language. Comedians are our guerrilla fighters against PC. Seinfeld talked about during a radio interview how you can’t be a comedian where “sexist” “racist” “phobe” are thrown out @ any slight deviation from the speech codes on our campuses. I actually wish comedians like him, LouisCK, Chris Rock, would go onto campuses and slay the speech codes and PC. But, I can’t blame them for saying, “Screw it” I’ll just do shows where there is actually free speech.
Bam Bam – you brought up a concern about HIV transmission in the military because of the exposure to blood during combat missions.
Any blood born pathogen would be a risk in battle, such as Hepatitis C.
Perhaps it would be fair to all while protecting our soldiers if all soldiers were subject to blood born pathogen testing. It’s not like you can take universal precautions on the battlefield, and perhaps the soldier you’re trying to help has worked his way through every cat house. The reputation some guys get of “going from port to port” comes to mind.
Coming at this from my perspective, having had training in blood born pathogens, I would support universal testing for any pathogen that could be an issue in a combat situation – including HIV, Hep C, TB. But the rules should apply equally to everyone.
It has been correctly pointed out that gays have served in the military for eons, merely by hiding their proclivities. So they’ve always served side by side. And it is a false promise of “safety” to think that the guy next to you has no blood born pathogens merely because he’s straight.
My father’s been retired so many years, so I don’t know what’s medically required currently.