Obama's Republican Army Secretary Suggests Sexuality-Segregated Army Units After DADT Repeal
Tuesday October 27, 2009 12:15 p.m.
Photo Credit: The U.S. Army on Flickr
When President Obama nominated Republican Congressman John McHugh to serve as Army Secretary after keeping Bush nominee Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense, few people raised too much of a hue and cry. When months of the Administration went by without any action on the military's discriminatory Don't Ask Don't Tell policy for soldiers, LGBT activists grumbled and blamed the White House for being too deferential to the Pentagon's expressed desire to "study" whether catering to homophobes and busybodies was better for the military than treating its soldiers' private lives as their own business.
Well, the military's had time to study it, and the Republican McHugh has a solution: segregate the gays. According to Keori at Pam's House Blend:
It's possible, for example, that homosexuals could be allowed into some occupations or units but barred from others, McHugh said, stressing that he was not aware of any such plans but only discussing how the issue might play out.
That's some change you ought not believe in. There is finally a serious debate currently about whether the military's preference to discriminate against women in the ranks by denying them access to combat positions--which are all but required to move up in the military--is warranted or even practical given the changing nature of combat in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. But instead of learning from that lesson, the Republicans heading up our military are debating denying its personnel access to certain jobs based on the people with whom those employees share romantic attachments outside of the workplace.
Keori points out that such a "solution" to the "problem" of homophobic soldiers spending too much time thinking about what their work colleagues do with their genitals was discussed and dismissed as stupid and impractical in 1993. Apparently, though, the comfort of homophobic busybodies in the ranks is more important to McHugh than building and maintaining the best Army he could oversee.
There are 5 comments
He we go again. More bigotry!!! My LGBT family and friends if this goes through I saw we DO NOT give our money or our votes to any democrat going for a national office (rep., senator or POTUS). We can leave those items blank on our ballots and only vote for local and state democrats.
But....but.....but....if we segregate all the gay soldiers, won't that end up as an all-repub group? Maybe they can have a catchy nickname, like "The Larry Craig Widestancers", or "The Ted Haggard Holy Blowers".
Megan, while I'm appreciative of the free publicity, please don't just quote my post at the Blend. That's second-hand journalism. Secretary McHugh didn't say that to me personally. He said it to the Army Times, in an interview published on 25 October. The link to his interview is here, please put it in your story for accountability:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/army_mchugh_102409w/
Senator Carl Levin's office announced this past Friday that the hearings requested by Sen. Gillibrand will be held in November. You can bet that segregated units and barracks will be brought up. Congress and the President need to hear loud and clear that the idea of segregated military units is long dead, and should stay that way.
That's always the way, isn't it? The Civil War, WWI, WWII... segregate the "undesirables." Strangely, the "undesirables" then tend to work that much harder, and do that much better, than "regular" units, leading some to remark that the segregation was probably not necessary. So let this be that moment, but let's skip ahead to the point where the military realizes that ANY American willing to lay down their life for their country or anyone else, is worthy of respect, and anyone with a problem with allowing them to fight should find a new line of work.
This is crazy! It's the whole "separate but equal" argument revisited!
The whole point is, due to our multiple military engagements, we need as many good soldiers as possible. And not just in 'approved' positions. Across the board!
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