by Jason Stotts
There’s a couple of reasons to celebrate today if you’re a gay, or, you know, support individual rights.
Today is the first official day that the US military will allow openly gay service members (“gay service member” might be a term of art, I’m not sure). This is a great move forward for our culture and I think it will help to bring more widespread acceptance. This is, I think, one of the few things that Socialist Party President Barack Obama has done that I approve of. On the other hand, I’d like to point out that DADT was put into place by another Socialist Party President, Bill Clinton.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the British are getting plans together to allow same-sex marriage throughout the country. There aren’t a lot of details yet, but apparently the country has allowed civil unions between same-sex couples since 2005 and now they’re moving to allow them into the full institution of marriage. This is good news and I hope the measure succeeds. (ABC)
Comments
3 responses to “It’s a Good Day to be Gay”
Is allowing open homosexuality in the military a good thing? If it results in undermining morale, how good will it be? Most men are disgusted by open male homosexuality. I am. I am sure that the best American soldiers will be repelled by this political move. What if there is a decrease in the number of recruits b/c Conservative red-state males, the people who actually defend our country, because they don’t want to be part of the gay ghetto that the US military is about to become? How safe will you be then Jason? Also, how soon before there is an onslaught of anti-discriminatory legislation brought about for what will undoubtedly be the resistance by true military men at being forced to serve with open gays? Did you even think one second about how destructive and costly that will be?
I love Ayn Rand but today’s Objectivists are nothing more than liberals in disguise. I am sure Rand herself would not have thought this was a good move. She had the common sense to understand that homosexuality was disgusting. The military is an institution dedicated to organized killing. It should be male and heterosexual dominated. There should be no women and no gays.
D. Simms,
I’m not even sure where to start with this. Your comment is a hot mess of emotionalism thinly disguised as fact and argument.
1. You say that it will undermine morale. Where’s your proof of this? Studies done by the DOD say that it won’t. It certainly won’t undermine the morale of the estimated 70,000 gay service members.
2. You say that you are disgusted by homosexuality. Okay, they call it homo-phobia not because you’re afraid of gays, but because you’re afraid that you, yourself, are gay and if there weren’t any prohibitions against gayness, you’d turn to the dark side. You should look into this.
3. You say that most males are disgusted by male homosexuality. You can’t generalize from your own psychological hang-ups and those of your close friends to society at large. There’s even a name for that fallacy; perhaps you should look it up. (Hint: search “hasty generalization”)
4. You know that there are already gays in the military, right? They can just live with integrity now. It’s not like there were no gays before and suddenly they opened the fairy gates.
5. I don’t think this will affect recruitment at all. Or, perhaps we’ll even get some more (gay) people.
The only thing you’re right about is that Ayn Rand would have thought that homosexuals were disgusting. That’s okay, she’s an amazing philosopher. She is not, however, a prophet whose every word I must believe. I think Aristotle is one of the smartest people to have ever lived. Do I believe in natural place? No. Do I still think Aristotle is a genius? Yes.
You’re also right that I am a liberal, if we take that word at its etymological roots as a person who defends freedom. I am not an irrationalist, whether you mean socialist or religionist.
I think you should think long and hard about why you think homosexuality is disgusting. Let’s start there and if you want to have a conversation about your reasons for thinking it’s wrong, then that might be interesting. However, I’m going to ask you to stop just asserting things in the comments. You’re free to argue with facts and reasons, but not to just spew emotionalist garbage.
This is indeed great news. Now so many can come out of the closet. Yes, for them it’s more than liberating; it’s like they can now live with their heads held high. If people feel that gays are ‘twisted sexual beings’ and are disgusted with them, then probably they can go watch ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for once and then form some rational opinion. The movie has the (least understood) underlying pathos that a life lived in hiding and shame is a life lived in regret and missed opportunities. I hope a day will come when all same-sex lovers can breathe in free air. As for the concern about ‘human race’ degenerating due to such sexual transgressions, we ARE too many on this earth. Nowhere in the future are we going to become EXTINCT. And then there’s always the option of adoption.