“The fact is, equal treatment of gay and lesbian service members is about as conservative a position as one cares to articulate.”
When Bob Barr was serving in Congress he always reminded me a bit of a scrappy street-fighter. That can be a good thing and it seems that his opposition to DADT first outlined in an opinion piece this past June in the Wall Street Journal remains just as strong. Pepe Johnson of Integrity in Service interviewed the former Congressman about the policy restricting gays from openly serving in the military, along with his move to the Libertarian Party. I personally think Barr’s latter move is unwise and fruitless as returning the GOP to more libertarian principles would be more productive in achieving his goals. Nevertheless, a good and interesting interview.
h/t The Frontlines
I am pleasantly surprised at Brother Bob Barr’s honesty and growth.
The only hesitation I ever had (as a hetero) to gays in the military is the old “gay in the latrine” as an analogy of a kid in the candy store.
Members of the military learn to accept, trust, and rely upon a completely different set of members of society than society members in almost any other walk of life.
However, one of the requisites of the military life is that everyone subordinate his personal crusade(s) for the cohesiveness of the mission. To that extent, gays, snobs, agnostics, fundamentalists, vegetarians, and political wannabees must sublimate their self identity.
I prefer “don’t ask, don’t tell” because it lays a firm groundwork for acceptance in the military for a team that judges each other on the basis of what they can do rather than what they claim as their civil right.
Right or wrong, this is the only way that a minority can work effectively with a majority.
To Heliotrope:
What you don’t seem to understand, and maybe it is because you are straight, is that witch-hunting occurs in the military and my partner, who is currently serving, tells me folks see the existence of the DADT policy as a stamp of approval for anti-gay agendas.
We’re the only English speaking country in the world that has such a policy. Everyone else allows all to serve – and funny, gay people don’t get killed by their fellow soldiers in those countries.
Huh? “A completely different set of members of society.” What does that mean? Doesn’t the military recruit from the society-at-large? I mean, I knew several guys from other countries when I was in the Army, but still most of them were American.
Did you mean a “different set of values”? Or maybe a to live in a “different kind of society”? To that I would ask you, “Don’t all soldiers go through the same basic training?” Doesn’t the Army teach the same set of values to all new recruits? Why would a gay soldier have radically different values from a straight soldier?
Our successes in Iraq have resulted from American troops reaching out to the Iraqi people and making the Iraqis understand that the future depends on them. If American troops are able to get along with Iraqis, then why couldn’t they get along with gay troops in the ranks? After all, doesn’t a straight American soldier have more in common with a gay American soldier than with an Iraqi civilian?