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
What are the Judeo Christian rules about gluttony Squeeky?
http://cdn2.crushable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/half-ton-killer-mayra-rosales-hospital.jpg
Squeeky, here’s a graphic about the dangers of obesity. Humans engage in all manner of destructive behaviors.
Inga – she is not killing other people.
@isaac
If you are interested in learning about some of this stuff, here are some stats:
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@bams
That was just a graphic for the people here who think sexual rules were all just a bunch of Judeo-Christian busybody-ness. There were compelling reasons why the rules were put in place. Trust me, I put up a picture that was less graphic than some of the ones with the disease on the sexual organs. Anybody less than 75 years old doesn’t really know about life before antibiotics.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Paul
Granted the gay community, in their ignorance and from their defensive posture, contributed to inhibiting a ‘plague’ approach to the disease. However, at the time most of what any approach was based on was conjecture. It was only until after the disease was further understood and when it was seen as a threat to heterosexuals as well as gays that a coordinated approach was taken. The fact remains that HIV did not come into a cohesive and unbiased society. To contrast the conditions now in the US with the conditions in Africa now illustrates my point.
As far as gays being more promiscuous than heterosexuals, this is an example of where one looks and doesn’t look. For the dozen plus years I worked in residential design and construction in the Oakland area, I met a lot of gays, had gays as clients, and noticed that they were often more conservative than myself and more than a little embarrassed by the Castro District.
In the 60’s and 70’s the era of free love, there was an extreme amount of humping by all the heterosexual bunny rabbits. Ya see what ya want to see.
issac – within any group there are those that are getting it and those that are not. However, the Castro was free range. The gays could have saved themselves and others a lot of trouble if they had allowed the Castro to be shut down.
Wadewilliams
We’re all incredibly interested in your opinions and your serious need to compartmentalize people who voice their opinions. You, after all, is da man. Your small and insular world only makes sense to you when, and if, you are able to neatly ascribe people into categories. Life is far too complicated for you to deal with too many conflicting issues at once. Must put things into neat, compact little boxes, otherwise it is all too overwhelming. Your obvious lack of any contributing thoughts, which would add depth to the discussion, is readily apparent to all who view this column. Instead, limited by your mental capabilities, you choose to attempt to make disparaging remarks about those who can and do make contributions to the topic at hand. Your mental acumen is showing. Poor sad fellow.
bam bam – it is clear that Wade has French blood. Only the French feel compelled to compartmentalize and pigeonhole things like he does. They are famous for labeling things.
BamBam, seriously you keep putting forth the same argument that on the battlefield gay injured troops would be left uncared for and their fellow troops would be doing this. What do you base this on? I’ve told you what my Navy Corpsman daughter said. John, a Marine has told you pretty much the same thing. Why do you persist in this erroneous nonsense?
I. Annie
Neither your comment about your daughter, nor the remark from the purported Marine, address the issue as to whether openly declaring one’s sexuality–in this case, homosexuality–could or would impact behavior on the battlefield. Please stop equating this with the behavior of well-protected medics; this is the average guy, on the battlefield, encountering a severely wounded and openly gay soldier. Having an alleged Marine declare that he and his buddies didn’t care about openly gay Marines, as long as they did their jobs, skirts the issue that I raise of possible HIV transmission on the battlefield. That’s not just a casual contact with the guy on the base. Attending to a fellow wounded soldier shouldn’t involve contracting a deadly virus; even if there is no HIV infection, the fear of contracting it, from an openly gay soldier could prove detrimental. I have no more statistics to prove my point than you or the Marine have to disprove it.
Squeaky
Seriously, I was just about to eat a late lunch. The photo, UGH! What was that about?
For the record….
The extent of my ‘constant name calling’….
Simon Squeeky Legree – a fitting literary reference.
billowy buffoon
I also said Simon Legree and bam bam were racists and homophobes. I think their comments support this opinion.
I also accepted the term Neanderthal which bam bam ascribed to me and others like me or – as the reactionarys around here are so fond of stating – of my ‘ilk’.
Now who here finds those ‘names’ anywhere nearly as offensive as the infamous ‘drooling, feral black’ or the offensive sexual doggerel befitting a giggling eight year old boy.
john530
If you post anecdotal evidence, that you and your Marine buddies were oblivious to other known gay soldiers, using that as proof that the military, as a whole, adopts the same innocuous attitude, you should not be surprised when someone poses a likely military scenerio and asks what would be the outcome. Asking what would happen, should there be a situation involving gunfire and rockets, on the battlefield, should not be something that throws you. You can call me a homophobe, or anything else that strikes your fancy, but I’m sure that you and your buddies might just have a different take on those openly gay Marines, should the time occur, when you have to attend to their gaping wounds on the battlefield.
@isaac
I agree that many gays are that way due to physiological and/or mental and developmental factors. They are sexually attracted to their own sex. But human society has rules for sexual behavior. Even hetereosexual people are told not to screw around and be promiscuous. There were very sound reasons for these “moral rules.” Until the 1940s there were no truly effective antibiotics. And non-monogamous sex was a great way to get syphilis, for example. Which, in those pre-antibiotic days could do stuff like this:
http://i.imgur.com/dch0AuT.jpg
Now many revisionists want to rewrite history as to where the people who advised against wild sexual mis-behaviors were just prudes, or Puritans, and Christian bedroom busybodies. For example, the Victorians. But you can see the real reasons why we had such rules by simply looking at the above picture again. And this is not even talking about unwanted pregnancies.
After the 1940s, we could pretty much treat such diseases, and condoms were more widely available, sooo promiscuous sex was on the increase, boosted by the introduction of birth control pills. Not to mention telephones and the backseats of cars. Now, the previous moral rules are becoming passe and trite for many people. Illegitimate births are on the rise, and minorish STDs abound. Should these various bacteria mutate more, as they are already doing, then antibiotics will be useless. Hopefully science will save us all, but who knows.. Bacteria are nasty little creatures. And, there is the whole single parent thing with its many problems. Sooo, maybe the rules aren’t such a bad thing after all.
But for gay men, rules are even more important than for heterosexuals. The very nature of their sex via the anus involves contact with fecal matter. Nobody wants to talk about that big elephant-size pile of poop in the room, because it is gross and off-putting. Regardless, gay men therefore have many more diseases, caused by the very substance that we have sewage treatment plants for, and they now have HIV/AIDS, to boot. Therefore, they should be even more cognizant of the moral rules than heterosexuals. Promiscuity for them is death. And, they just plain don’t want to wear condoms. As a result, roughly 20% of them are HIV positive. The same rate as people who smoke and get lung cancer.
We revile tobacco company execs for encouraging smoking, because it kills people and makes them sick. Yet because of the politically correct Gaystapo, we encourage gay sex, without restraints. Heck, we celebrate it! And if you disagree, you’re called a homophobe.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – there was a time when all new-borns had drops put in their eyes to prevent them from becoming blind because their mother might be carrying syphilis.
I. Annie
As I stated previously, don’t be surprised when those who are called names or insulted finally push back. My responses are a direct and appropriate answer to criticisms waged by mental midgets. Their retorts contain nothing of substance to counter my aforementioned concerns–concerns which were voiced in a respectful tone and lacking in any type of slurs. I believe that I raised a very legitimate health and safety issue as it pertains to those who may be, or may be perceived as being, HIV infected in the military. Notice a direct and honest question, that I posed to jim, was left unanswered. Convenient.
Take a look at America in 1789. Take a look at America today. What will the unrestrained radical collectivist liberal agenda mean for America tomorrow? God only knows. And if there is no God in control, who is? Exactly who has led America to this point of perversion, regression, overpopulation, dilution, decadence and deterioration? What would happen if the Sleeping Giant awoke from its slumber?
******************************
“Enumclaw Event” –
“The Enumclaw horse sex case was a 2005 incident in which Kenneth Pinyan (June 22, 1960 – July 2, 2005), an American Boeing engineer residing in Gig Harbor, Washington, died from injuries received during anal sex with a stallion at a farm in an unincorporated area in King County, Washington, near the city of Enumclaw.
During a July 2005 sex act, videotaped by a friend, Pinyan suffered a perforated colon from receptive anal intercourse from a stallion and later died of his injuries. The story was reported in The Seattle Times and was one of that paper’s most read stories of 2005.[3] It was informally referred to as the “Enumclaw horse sex case”. Video footage of Pinyan and a horse was later disseminated through the Internet.
Pinyan’s death rapidly prompted the passing of a bill in Washington prohibiting both sex with animals and the videotaping of the same. Under current Washington law, bestiality is now a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.”
forgotwhoiam – now that takes guts. 🙂
The first step of freedom is discrimination. A man choosing a wife is discrimination. A businessman hiring an employee is discrimination. Racism is discrimination. Americans cannot be free if Americans cannot discriminate.
Radical liberals believe they have the Constitutional power to take away and/or regulate the freedom of Americans.
The American thesis is Freedom and Self-Reliance. The Founding Documents provide: Government limited to Justice, Tranquility, Common Defnece, Promote General Welfare, as the “blessings of liberty” are Freedom and Free Enterprise without interference by government.
People must adapt to and live with the consequences of Freedom.
The Preamble is not only binding, it is absolutely essential; the essential American Context, without which there is no America.
One has to look at the obvious. Being gay has been pretty much accepted as, not a lifestyle choice. Being gay has been pretty much accepted as being a physiological condition. Some of the most intelligent, creative, productive, and responsible types through out history have been, continue to be, and will be gay. The main problem with being gay has been the homophobia of certain heterosexuals. This is, happily, diminishing. It is what it is and you have to love yourself if you are gay as much as anyone loves their self. All this will matter less and less.
We live in a wonderful time where what truly matters in being human is slowly being recognized. It’s not sexual orientation, not religious beliefs, and not which country one was born in. It is pure common sense and understanding. If a person believes that anybody who doesn’t accept their concepts is evil, so be it. If a person threatens society driven by those beliefs, then wax em.
Life is full of contradictions both apparent and real. The freedom of speech and opinion results in all sorts of stuff. The tripping point is where one selects specific facts and/or statistics which are primarily incidental and then bases a full opinion on them. Inevitably that leads to anger and then hatred, kind of like what is vented in certain directions, at innocent people.
@Wade
Uh, dude, uh, er, uh, ahem. . .uh, pardon me, . . . but you haven’t actually argued anything. Or even responded to comments with anything semi-intelligible. You have just pretty much called names and strutted around like you were intelligent or something, and expected people to just recognize your alleged superior intellect from your pose. Which is pretty difficult when all you do is call names. I guess maybe some of us could agree that you are a most excellent name-caller! Perhaps I could recommend a really good name-calling website for you. It is kind of an echo chamber, and you might get bored there, but they could really help you refine your name-calling techniques and stuff. It is called Pansies for Plato. Well, that is not its real name, but that is pretty close, sooo I think you could find it with that clue!
Sincerely,
Squeeky Fromm
Girlk Reporter
Simon Legree and bam bam
The field is yours. What a waste of time to argue with racists and homophobes.
In was the context in which you posted those blackface videos here Squeeky. You aren’t going to be able to slip slide away from your blatant racism so easily.
Hmmm. I guess youtube is racist, too, because they have blackface videos on them. Oh, the silliness of some people! Oh, I wonder if you are a racist if you watch one of them??? Or if you read Huckleberry Finn??? I swear, the dialectics of the liberal left is sooo twisted!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
BamBam, you’re too quick to insult other commenter’s intelligence, yet you are so insulted by labels you feel don’t fit you. Maybe it would be a good idea to stop with the insults on other commenter’s intelligence and then maybe your complaints of derogatory labels would hold more water.