How the military will resolve the inevitable conflicts over homosexuality in the ranks once DADT is repealed

It has often been said that permitting open homosexuality in the armed services would create conflict between homosexuals in the ranks and those who disapprove of homosexuality, thus undermining good order and discipline, in addition to the undermining of good order and discipline that would be caused by the allowing of homosexuality itself. But now we learn that the military has a plan to fix that problem. As reported in a September 16 editorial in the Washington Times, Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, the Army’s deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel matters, has declared that once homosexuality is allowed in the armed forces, all those who disapprove will be pushed to leave the armed forces. In other words, the conflict will be ended, by turning the U.S. military into an exclusively homosexual and pro-homosexual institution:

Addressing several hundred troops at the European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, [Bostick] said, “Unfortunately, we have a minority of service members who are still racists and bigoted and you will never be able to get rid of all of them. But these people opposing this new policy will need to get with the program, and if they can’t, they need to get out. No matter how much training and education of those in opposition, you’re always going to have those that oppose this on moral and religious grounds just like you still have racists today.”

Bostick, who is black, sees homosexuality in the military as a civil rights issue, meaning that it’s all about ending discrimination. He clearly equates moral and religious disapproval of homosexual conduct with bigotry against blacks.

Lt. Gen. Bostick

Here is the editorial:

EDITORIAL: New gay Army
Top general calls Christian soldiers ‘bigots’
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 16, 2010

Next week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to begin floor debate on a defense authorization bill that would repeal the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and allow homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces. Last month, a top military official offered a glimpse of how the military might look should the new policy take effect: Those serving who oppose the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) agenda are no longer welcome.

Those were the views of Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, the Army’s deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel matters who spoke about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before several hundred troops at the European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. “Unfortunately, we have a minority of service members who are still racists and bigoted and you will never be able to get rid of all of them,” Lt. Gen. Bostick said. “But these people opposing this new policy will need to get with the program, and if they can’t, they need to get out. No matter how much training and education of those in opposition, you’re always going to have those that oppose this on moral and religious grounds just like you still have racists today.”

The strong words take additional significance from Lt. Gen. Bostick’s direct involvement with a Pentagon panel charged with shaping military policy on this issue. Although Lt. Gen. Bostick presented the question of homosexuals in the military as if it were about civil rights, it is nothing of the kind. The services must discriminate to function. Those who are too old, too weak or too overweight must be shown the door even when similar actions in the private sector might spark a lawsuit. The reason for the military’s existence is to win battles and wars, not to ensure feelings aren’t hurt or to serve as a playground for social experimentation.

The military’s long-standing ban on homosexual conduct is rooted in the principles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which also criminalizes adulterous conduct among heterosexuals insofar as it undermines the good order and discipline of the armed forces. Lt. Gen. Bostick suggested he would employ the same strict disciplinary standards to provide “education and training” that would ensure soldiers, sailors and airmen embrace the new LGBT agenda.

“Unfortunately, if the law is repealed, the military will attempt to do what it does—makes things work, for better or worse,” Tommy Sears, executive director of the Center for Military Readiness, told The Washington Times. “So there will be no toleration of dissent. If for whatever reason you disagree, whether it’s religious conviction or personal objection, your career will in essence be over.”

Servicemen should not be booted from the military because of their sincerely held religious convictions. It’s unseemly for a senior officer to equate those who hold traditional values with racists and bigots. Lt. Gen. Bostick’s careless words demonstrate his unsuitability to the task, and, for that reason, he should withdraw from further involvement in the Pentagon panel set to issue a report on the new policy by Dec. 1. The Senate also should reject this attempt to undermine the effectiveness, morale and morals of the military on the behalf of a radical fringe.

- end of initial entry -

Charles T. writes:

This is no longer surprising to me. Those who try to hide their bigotry behind the facade of civil rights are more than willing to deprive other people, who happen to disagree with their positions, of their rights. So, people who embrace the centuries old tradititonalist view that homosexual behavior is immoral, will now have their civil rights violated if Bostick gets his selfish way. Bostick is the real bigot here.

Mark Jaws writes:

As a retired Army person, I am very familiar with this problem. There will only be trouble.

While today’s younger generation is indeed much more tolerant of homosexuality than my Baby Boomer generation was, it is one thing for a 20-year old to say “I’m cool with gays,” but it is quite another matter when he is forced to share a room or a pup tent with an open homosexual, particularly when the gay roommate brings his boyfriend into the barracks room. That is where sparks are likely to fly.

Furthermore, back in the mid 1970s I was a swim instructor at the McBurney YMCA in Manhattan, just north of Greenwich Village. A significant portion of the male members were gay, and it was not an infrequent occurrence that I was hit upon. My experience is that once homosexuals come out of the closet enmass, numbers of them go around trying to convince young men that they are all latently homosexual. Therein lies the problem. Just as black liberation produced the person with the chip on his shoulder, lord only knows what gay liberation will yield—most likely widespread solicitious behavior by some homosexuals. And if the military prohibits traditionalist and threatened males from reacting, then our military is through—which may not be a bad thing for us secessionists.

LA replies:

That’s why I can’t imagine it actually going through. Like all liberal things, liberals have to keep pushing it, but since pushing it all the way will actually destroy the institution it is meant to “improve,” an instinctive, un-articulated opposition to it will arise at the last minute, and it won’t go through.

James P. writes:

Bostick said:

“But these people opposing this new policy will need to get with the program, and if they can’t, they need to get out. No matter how much training and education of those in opposition, you’re always going to have those that oppose this on moral and religious grounds just like you still have racists today.”

What will happen when a Muslim soldier opposes homosexuality on religious grounds, and declares that “training and education” to love homosexuality conflicts with his religious beliefs? Will this soldier be thrown out? If so, that would conflict with General Casey’s drive for “diversity”, which, as we know, is worth losing countless lives to achieve.

Clem P. writes:

“you’re always going to have those that oppose this on moral and religious grounds just like you still have racists today.”

The irony of that statement is classic. What, pray tell, did the civil rights movement use a basis for garnering support and ultimately getting passed?

Hannon writes:

I learned about this radical proposition—to throw out of the Armed Forces those members who cannot abide by the lionization of gays in their midst—in a news clip showing Lady Gaga (yeah, I know) insisting on this milestone. Unlike some of your other respondents, I was shocked. For all its absurdness it still may come to pass. How will they divine who is the bigot—who is faking it just to stay in? By written or oral exam? Is it possible they will adopt a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy?

Mark Jaws writes:

I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

“That’s why I can’t imagine it actually going through. Like all liberal things, liberals have to keep pushing it, but since pushing it all the way will actually destroy the institution it is meant to “improve,” an instinctive, un-articulated opposition to it will arise at the last minute, and it won’t go through.”

What instinctive, un-articulated opposition will arise? By whom? I think a very unhealthy percentage of liberals couldn’t care less if we have a viable military or not. They’d gladly let the Chinese seize Taiwan, the Iranians rule the Persian Gulf, Latin America go Marxist, and Europe go Moslem. The only threat they see is “us.” And you don’t need tanks and jets for subduing the Reawakening Right—just battalions of lawyers to keep us in check through lawsuits.

LA replies:

I’m not going to defend what I said as a prediction or even as a rational statement. I was expressing something on a gut level. Call it wishful thinking. The policy would simply be so ruinous that I don’t think it will happen, or I imagine that it won’t happen. Something will save us from it. The principle of sanity in me will not allow me to believe that such an insane thing will happen.

Jim B. writes:

Your correspondent Mark Jaws brings up a good point—given the state of the country these days, how concerned should we be that it’s military effectiveness is being systematically destroyed? After all, with current trends the day might not be too far off when many of us nonconformists might find ourselves on the business end of that military machine, and I can’t say I’m all that eager for it to be at maximum efficiency when that day comes …

Ken Hechtman writes:

I can guess how the army will handle this based on how the Canadian Army handled integrating women. They sent spies into every unit, identified every soldier of every rank who had reservations about the program and discharged them all. I have two sources for this information. One is an old friend who was the payroll clerk for the Blackwatch Regiment in the early 1990s when this transition happened. Payroll clerk doesn’t sound like much, but the payroll clerk knows who’s wearing a private’s insignia and drawing a lieutenant’s pay. The other is one of the executives where I work now. He used to be a full colonel and was being groomed for much higher rank. He was initially open to sending women into combat and only started speaking his mind after he tried it and saw the problems for himself. I guess this was in Bosnia, though I’m not sure. After he opened his mouth, the army threw him out.

September 24

Hannon writes:

Ken Hechtman’s remarks (22 Sept) about the purging of “gynophobes” from the Canadian military are enlightening but also incomplete. I can believe his account in principle, but how exactly did they qualify remarks or attitudes as negative enough to warrant expulsion? Would that not be a very serious action to take under these circumstances?

Also, what numbers are we talking about here? If hundreds or thousands were expelled it would have made news. So either a great majority of Canadian enlisted men viewed women in the military favorably and the numbers of ejected servicemen were small, or some significant number kept their contrary views hidden from their superiors and perhaps even from themselves.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 22, 2010 08:35 AM | Send