DADT Survey- What would you do if you were FORCED to shower with a GAY!?

[East Coast Hustle]

I haven't read the actual survey, but I fail to see how this:

It includes such gems as "What you would do if you knew you were sharing a shower with a HOMOSEXUAL!?  " and "What would you do if you found out that a gay person was living on-base with their SAME SEX PARTNER!?  "

is homophobic, assuming that the capitalization and emoticons are your added emphasis and the question does not actually look exactly like that on the survey.

[Jasper]

The answer to such a question would be relevant, but the way you phrase something on a survey has far more effect on the answers than most people realize.

[East Coast Hustle]

I understand that, but the question "what would you do if you knew you were sharing a shower with a homosexual?" doesn't seem homophobic at all in the context of what the survey is trying to find out.

[Jasper]

Yeah, you might get people who would want to say they'd harass them.  If you phrased it like that sort of thing is frowned upon, you'll get a slightly overoptimistic result.

[East Coast Hustle]

I think the entire point of the survey is to find out how many people taking the survey would want to harass a known homosexual.

[Jasper]

So it's good that they didn't put on politically correct airs while interviewing soldiers.  It might have skewed the results optimistically.

[East Coast Hustle]

are we in agreement? I'm confused.

[DiscoUkulele]

I haven't read the actual survey, but I fail to see how this:

It includes such gems as "What you would do if you knew you were sharing a shower with a HOMOSEXUAL!?  " and "What would you do if you found out that a gay person was living on-base with their SAME SEX PARTNER!?  "

is homophobic, assuming that the capitalization and emoticons are your added emphasis and the question does not actually look exactly like that on the survey.

Well, for example, the available responses to a question about what you would do if you had to share living quarters with a known homosexual are:

- Take No Action
- Discuss Appropriate Behavior
- Talk to a Chaplain, Mentor, or Leader for advice
- Talk to a Leader to see if I have other options
- Something else
- Don't know

Out of that particular list, 3 answers are negative reactions, 2 are neutral (unless "Something Else" is something stupid), and only one is positive (take no action).

In the following question, how would you react to living with a known homosexual in Wartime Conditions, the two neutral answers, "Don't know" and "Something else" are removed. So three of the answers are negative reactions, and only one is positive. That's a skew towards the negative.

This gets continued with the question about sharing a shower with someone who's LGBT. The list of responses is the same, with the addition of "Use another shower".

There's another question about whether you will continue to attend, or allow your family to attend, military social events if gay people are allowed to take their partners. Again, one answer is positive (continue to attend), two answers are negative (don't attend, don't allow my family to attend), and then the two usual neutral answers (don't know / something else).

And the reason this survey pisses me off so much is that the US continues to be so completely immature about issues of sexuality so that, rather than live up to our whole "Land of the Free, etc etc etc" claims, we have to draaaaaaaag this DADT repeal for years and make absolutely fucking sure that current soldiers (who are brave enough to risk their lives in war), won't be too scared if they know gay people are around.

Refelxive response:
2.) Trust me on this.  You have to "get caught" with the sexual organs of a member of the same sex in contact with either your mouth or your sexual organs to get kicked out.  Just kissing, sharing a one bedroom apartment (including on base), etc. is frequently overlooked.

Unfortunately, I've been under the impression that this just isn't the case. And regardless of how the law REALLY works out in real life, knowing that the law says you CAN be kicked out for being open about your sexuality is a major issue and would definitely put me under a lot of stress if I were in the military. And, if this is such a no-issue, why haven't we repealed DADT, then?

4.) If you were a Arabic linguist, given the current state of affairs and having realized how unsuited you were to the military life style, wouldn't you share you're homosexual tendencies?

Um.. what? I really don't understand what you're saying. We're fighting two wars in the middle east, and Arab translators aren't needed? Or they somehow tend to be less suited for military life? So.. they would choose to  take a dishonorable discharge and lose all of their benefits?

Just a side note, I really, REALLY, dislike the phrase "homosexual tendencies"

[DiscoUkulele]

I haven't read the actual survey, but I fail to see how this:

It includes such gems as "What you would do if you knew you were sharing a shower with a HOMOSEXUAL!?  " and "What would you do if you found out that a gay person was living on-base with their SAME SEX PARTNER!?  "

is homophobic, assuming that the capitalization and emoticons are your added emphasis and the question does not actually look exactly like that on the survey.

Well, for example, the available responses to a question about what you would do if you had to share living quarters with a known homosexual are:

- Take No Action
- Discuss Appropriate Behavior
- Talk to a Chaplain, Mentor, or Leader for advice
- Talk to a Leader to see if I have other options
- Something else
- Don't know

Out of that particular list, 3 answers are negative reactions, 2 are neutral (unless "Something Else" is something stupid), and only one is positive (take no action).

In the following question, how would you react to living with a known homosexual in Wartime Conditions, the two neutral answers, "Don't know" and "Something else" are removed. So three of the answers are negative reactions, and only one is positive. That's a skew towards the negative.

This gets continued with the question about sharing a shower with someone who's LGBT. The list of responses is the same, with the addition of "Use another shower".

There's another question about whether you will continue to attend, or allow your family to attend, military social events if gay people are allowed to take their partners. Again, one answer is positive (continue to attend), two answers are negative (don't attend, don't allow my family to attend), and then the two usual neutral answers (don't know / something else).

And the reason this survey pisses me off so much is that the US continues to be so completely immature about issues of sexuality so that, rather than live up to our whole "Land of the Free, etc etc etc" claims, we have to draaaaaaaag this DADT repeal for years and make absolutely fucking sure that current soldiers (who are brave enough to risk their lives in war), won't be too scared if they know gay people are around.

Refelxive response:
2.) Trust me on this.  You have to "get caught" with the sexual organs of a member of the same sex in contact with either your mouth or your sexual organs to get kicked out.  Just kissing, sharing a one bedroom apartment (including on base), etc. is frequently overlooked.

Unfortunately, I've been under the impression that this just isn't the case. And regardless of how the law REALLY works out in real life, knowing that the law says you CAN be kicked out for being open about your sexuality is a major issue and would definitely put me under a lot of stress if I were in the military. And, if this is such a no-issue, why haven't we repealed DADT, then?

4.) If you were a Arabic linguist, given the current state of affairs and having realized how unsuited you were to the military life style, wouldn't you share you're homosexual tendencies?

Um.. what? I really don't understand what you're saying. We're fighting two wars in the middle east, and Arab translators aren't needed? Or they somehow tend to be less suited for military life? So.. they would choose to  take a dishonorable discharge and lose all of their benefits?

[Jasper]

are we in agreement? I'm confused.

No Yes, I'm just really bad at debating stupid.

Edit for clarity

[Elder Iptuous]

I was listening to some piece on NPR last year about the policy, and they were interviewing all sorts of people in the service regarding the issue.  i remember at the end, it was implied that the prevailing opinion in the armed forces is that DADT is an acceptable policy that works given the current state of our society, and that this view is held by both heterosexual and homosexual members of the service....
the impression was given that this fight is being fought by those unaffected on behalf of those that don't want the 'help'....

[Storebrand]

Allow me to shove my foot in my mouth.  You're probably talking about Lt. Dan Choi who is also a linguist.  I made those statements before I realized exactly what you were talking about.  Publicly announcing it will get you kicked out. 

I was addressing what I run across most frequently, the other side of why DADT should be repealed.  The handful of enlisted people I have known who have been kicked out for being gay did it because they were looking for a way out of the military, not because they were trying to change policy or just got caught.  What I meant by unsuited to the military life style is a nicer way of saying the service member didn't know what s/he was signing up for, wants to GTFO, and already passed the 180 day mark.  Due to Airborne Arabic linguists being in high demand and having a very high stress job,at least to me, would explain why a relatively large percentage of those kicked out for being gay are in that particular career field.  There are only like 6 ways to get out of your contract and I would bet a disproportionately large percentage of each of those groups are made up of Arabic linguists or people in similarly high stress jobs. 

The reason I made the statement about it being hard to get kicked out for being gay is because 1.) IME people really don't seem to care. 2.) Leadership recognizes people go "oh, shit.  I made a mistake." and try to get out any way they can.  80% ish of the military are men and can't get out due to pregnancy.  Young, healthy people tend to not have medical problems warranting a medical discharge.  Same thing for the other 3 ways.  Getting kicked out for being LGBT is the least unpleasant way to get out that anyone can at least fake if s/he really isn't with the least amount of negative consequences so it gets abused.  Leadership looks out for people trying to beat the system.

That was the only point I was trying to make.  And I should have said sexuality or homosexuality instead of homosexual tendencies.

[DiscoUkulele]

Ah, cool, thanks for clearing that up. I get what you're saying.

[Iason Ouabache]

Throughout History, many of the most Elite Regiments, from the Spartans, to the SAS, have been largely, (if not exclusively)
comprised of Gay men.
They bond better, (as a Unit!) and are less likely to have ties outside of the Military. And who would you be  more likely to put your life on the line for? Your fellow Squaddy, or your fellow Squaddy, who also happens to be your lover?

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Fire in the hole!"

Believe it or not there was a fundie (Scott Lively) who made the argument that repealing our DADT policy too brutal and aggressive. You know, like the Nazis!

Most people don't realize that male homosexuality does not always lean to the effeminate. Historically, male homosexuality was much more often associated with hyper-masculine warrior societies which were usually very brutal and very politically aggressive. The most recent example was in Germany. Hitler's initial power base when he launched the Nazi Party was a private homosexual military force organized and trained by a notorious pederast named Gerhard Rossbach. Rossbach's homosexual partner Ernst Roehm, who was also Hitler's partner in forming and building the Nazi Party, converted the "gay" Rossbachbund into the dreaded SA Brownshirts.

"Many of the [S.A.'s] top leaders, beginning with its chief, [Ernst] Roehm, were notorious homosexual perverts," wrote the preeminent historian of the Nazi era, William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

In The Homosexual Matrix, C.A. Tripp writes that "[f]ar to the other extreme [opposite of effeminate "gays"], there are a number of utterly masculine, sometimes super masculine homosexuals. They are obsessed with everything male and eschew anything weak or effeminate. Unquestionably they represent the epitome of what can happen when an eroticized maleness gains the full backing of a value system that supports it."

And honestly, the fact that this DADT debate keeps dragging on is ridiculous. You want to get rid of it, THEN STOP FUCKIN' FIRING PEOPLE and stop treating our soldiers like delicate flowers that can't act like adults.

[East Coast Hustle]

I haven't read the actual survey, but I fail to see how this:

It includes such gems as "What you would do if you knew you were sharing a shower with a HOMOSEXUAL!?  " and "What would you do if you found out that a gay person was living on-base with their SAME SEX PARTNER!?  "

is homophobic, assuming that the capitalization and emoticons are your added emphasis and the question does not actually look exactly like that on the survey.

Well, for example, the available responses to a question about what you would do if you had to share living quarters with a known homosexual are:

- Take No Action
- Discuss Appropriate Behavior
- Talk to a Chaplain, Mentor, or Leader for advice
- Talk to a Leader to see if I have other options
- Something else
- Don't know

Out of that particular list, 3 answers are negative reactions, 2 are neutral (unless "Something Else" is something stupid), and only one is positive (take no action).

I only see one negative response there (talking to a leader to see if I have other options). The others all seem pretty value-neutral to me. Mind you I have no use for bigotry, especially with regards to something as trivial as sexuality and ESPECIALLY when the people in question are willing to take a bullet for their country, but I also have no use for over-sensitivity and political correctness. The point of the survey is to gauge the likely responses of american soldiers to the open presence of homosexuals in their unit, not to teach them how to be more open-minded and tolerant.