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| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
It's a civil liberties issue and has no bearing on effectiveness, etc. |
Civil liberties are for civilians. Don't get me wrong, soldiers should in no way be exempt from basic human rights (which I of course believe all sexual orientation to be one of these, so long as it is consensual), though what's "basic" to some people and what it is to others is where things become muddy. Hopefully, that is what this repeal is to essentially address: people's right to be whoever or whatever they are, and not suffer unbalanced consequences for it. That is also where I think there will be significant blowback, given the military is not a strict populace of civic commerce, but an even stricter chain of command subject to the ideologies of rarely varying individuals.
It's obvious that homosexuals have been in militaries for as long as there have even been militaries, but the sphere of public knowledge has evolved to a very volatile form in this age. You had better believe the US government uses things like facebook to profile its own; after all, when you sign those papers, you belong to them, you're their investment, their property. All the more, after a Private had dealings with wikileaks, is there a call for them to keep tabs on their service members. And what about the undoubted search function within their database to filter out a list of all enlisted, "registered" homosexuals, and dole out latrine duty, and cafeteria duty, and sudden transfers at the whim of one of these "right winger" COs that supposedly shouldn't exist because professionalism is obviously the paramount goal of any government organization... ?
I'm not saying I am against the repeal, because I am far more in support of its equality than I am for its utter opposition, but there's a reality to face being a minority, and people will obviously fabricate whatever discrimination against you that they will. As in the civilian sphere, your "rights" can turn on you, should you decide to be open about them in conflict with the position of others, only now the US military is given access to the openness for profiling its members, and what they decide they can do with this information is anyone's guess. I guess the essence of what I am saying is: the Military should not officially be able to oust people on the basis of their sexual orientation, but were I a homosexual and were I employed by the government, I would hope that nobody asked, and I certainly wouldn't tell.
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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