I'm probably more forgiving of heterosexual politicians who have to deal with gay rights than most gay activists. Our equal rights are hard enough for many of them to envision and talk about in private, and it's waterboard-level torture when they have to speak about gay equality in front of an audience or a camera. I don't have sympathy for their plight (millions of their fellow heterosexuals have no problem at all), but when they are in a position to actually make the needed changes to the law, I find myself rooting for them, rather than hoping they'll fail.
I really wanted to root for Admiral Mike Mullen speaking at USC, but in the end I have to share the gay community's general disappointment with him. Granted, Karen Ocamb asked him some pretty hard questions about DADT (imagine that - the man in charge of our armed services being asked hard questions in public by a journalist!), but here's where I just find him embarrassing: It's 2010, and in response to a question about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he cannot even say the words "gay" or "lesbian." The closest he ever comes is in an indirect reference to people who have to lie - though he can't bring himself to say what they have to lie about. He dithers on about the people DADT will affect "the most" but the only troops he seems to have in mind are the heterosexual ones.
To be clear, the troops DADT affects the most are homosexual. They are referred to in ordinary public discourse as lesbians and gay men. People who cannot say those words - "homosexual," "lesbian," "gay" - are portraying themselves today as hopelessly clueless, and very nearly ignorant. I am very sorry to say that that is the way the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff comes across.
Heterosexual troops are affected by this policy, if at all, only in the sense that it caters to the ones who are - still, today - uncomfortable with open homosexuals. Certainly, their opinions should be considered, but this seems to me to be a very rare case where the comfort level of some troops is the driving force behind our policy - we force homosexual troops to lie only because their open presence might distress some heterosexuals. In most other military contexts I'm familiar with, admirals not only don't concern themselves with matters of troop discomfort, they go out of their way to assure troops don't come to expect comfort or nurturing. And that should be especially true when what leadership is fostering is bigoted notions about fellow troop members.
Admiral Mullen might, in fact, understand that. But his repeated inability to call gay and lesbian troops by their right name when they are the subject of his comments is a problem. DADT puts a burden on homosexual soldiers, and that is the burden we are all talking about when we talk about this misbegotten policy. The habit of mind that would permit anyone to avoid mentioning that quite obvious fact is the very habit of mind that needs to be cured. And a man who has that habit of mind and speech is not exactly the model of the man who should be leading this charge.
56 Comments for “Admiral Mullen’s Speech Impediment”
posted by Bobby on
Dude, do you know how much hate Mullen is getting for his positions? Do you know what the homophobes are saying about him? Give the admiral a break, I don’t care what speech impediment he has, he’s fighting for us!
posted by Lori Heine on
So, Mullen never said “gay” or “lesbian” and seemed uncomfortable. And this is a bad thing.
He’s standing up for us, in a context when many in his place would buckle, but he…didn’t…look…comfortable.
It is the very fact that heterosexuals’ worship of their own sexual comfort has come to border on the pathological that has brought on DADT in the first place. In the midst of a war already on record as the longest in American history, hetero comfort and self-indulgence has been elevated to greater importance — in the collective hetero mind — than WINNING THE DAMN WAR.
Is the point of this not that they should get the hell over their preadolescent discomfort?
Mullen is trying to do the right thing. He’s showing that something else — other people — matter more than his own comfort. I agree with Bobby that this is what really counts.
posted by Brian Miller on
Let’s get to the heart of the matter over why this entire DADT thing is still an issue at all — Republican and Democratic statism.
Both parties revere the military as some sort of prescriptive stand-alone institution governed from on high by wise, unaccountable leaders… rather than as an agency of the government directed primarily by the people and their elected representatives.
It’s amusing to watch conservatives, in particular, whose rhetoric on marriage is “let the people decide,” suddenly oppose military integration over what the wise and unelected military hierarchy thinks of the matter. They seem to forget that while the hierarchy gives orders within the military itself, it derives its authority and very existence from the citizenry itself. It does not give orders to the civilian population, it receives them. Its obligation, first and foremost, is to the constitution.
posted by BobN on
We are accustomed, sadly, to politicians who promise things others would have to deliver, who presume to tell the public what other branches of government will do. Generals are not politicians.
Mullen isn’t saying what the questioner wants him to say, because what the questioner asked was, essentially, will you ignore what the law says and just dump DADT immediately upon the release of the report. It’s a stupid question. The answer CANNOT be “yes”.
He’s trying to turn down the volume, flatten the emotions. That is a GOOD thing.
With his principle objection being the imposition of lying on servicemen, I doubt his comments on those who serve and their families doesn’t include us. We’re just too used to hearing “families” as code for heterosexuals. I think he genuinely includes us in that term.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Putting on my devil’s advocate hat, here:
Um, the presence of open homosexuals might also be distressing to closeted homosexuals, as well as to the “occasionally bisexual” (a group that includes a lot of people in heterosexual marriages). In other words, all those folks who sometimes (or often) enjoy homo-sex and homo-romance, but who have zero interest in ever making this fact publicly known.
And it just may be the case that the combined number of “closeted by preference” homosexuals and “bi-marrieds on the DL” is substantially larger than the number of “ready to come out as soon as DADT ends” homosexuals.
So, do we risk negatively impacting the morale of closeted troops (which may be a comparatively large demographic) in order to satisfy a much smaller demographic of out-and-proud gays and lesbians whose worship of their own need for self-expression and external validation borders on the pathological?
posted by Brian Miller on
Mullen isn’t saying what the questioner wants him to say, because what the questioner asked was, essentially, will you ignore what the law says and just dump DADT immediately upon the release of the report.
It’s rather easy to answer.
“I cannot stop the policy, since the law states that only the President can suspend it. I obviously disagree with the policy, but unless Congress repeals it, or the president suspends it, my personal feelings on the issue are immaterial versus the legal reality.”
the presence of open homosexuals might also be distressing to closeted homosexuals
Just like the presence of African Americans was distressing to racists. Oh well.
posted by BobN on
Throbert, if you really think that closeted and DL service members prefer living and working under the threat of DADT over the “threat” of staying in the closet or on the DL while other service members stop hiding, I think that Devil’s Advocate hat you’re wearing is on too tight.
posted by Throbert McGee on
BobN: I’d think it should be obvious to a baby hamster (see Diagram 1) that DADT can give gay closet-cases a degree of protection from “punitive outing” by other gay people with a personal axe to grind.
The “mutually assured destruction” principle keeps internecine gay backstabbing in check, because he who would out someone else has to weigh the risk (under DADT) of inadvertently exposing himself.
And anyone who thinks internecine gay backstabbing is nothing to worry about… doesn’t hang around IGF very much, for starters.
posted by Brian Miller on
DADT can give gay closet-cases a degree of protection from “punitive outing” by other gay people with a personal axe to grind
Welcome to the 21st century. Being out is not a punishment.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I know that Libertarians prefer to inhabit an idealized universe where all people and objects are perfectly spherical, the temperature is always 25°C, and everyone is as flawlessly rational as Brian Miller, but military policymakers have to deal with the inconvenience of real-world conditions. One inconvenient reality is that not every gay person in the world thinks like Brian Miller.
posted by BobN on
And anyone who thinks internecine gay backstabbing is nothing to worry about… doesn’t hang around IGF very much, for starters.
One, even a baby hamster, would assume that most would conduct their private sex lives with more tact than is typically on display here (from any and all participants).
posted by Brian Miller on
Ah, yes, the ad hominem. Always useful when you’re bereft of ideas, eh Throb?
And let us not forget the poor closet case. Even after his military service is not at jeopardy, he MUST live deep in the closet.
The closet case is perhaps the perfect victim. All the world is out to get him! Even when the supposed “dangers” are gone, he fears his shadow and must do everything possible to keep up the lie!
Oh, he leaves many people in his wake. All those back-alley lovers he hooks up with online. The woman he married, knowing that her role would be as his beard, deceiving the poor woman into thinking that he actually loved her. Maybe he even gives her HIV.
All the fake “girlfriends,” led along for the ride. All the out gay men he meets who he bashes to overcompensate for his own sake. All the careers he cuts short to avoid being seen as “one of them.”
And when all those who are affected finally call him out on it, as is inevitable, it is still all about him, him, him. His “voyage of self-discovery,” dontcha know.
Yes, we must defend this noble creature. We must sacrifice dignity, equal treatment under the law, and even our basic selves and families so that he may continue to inhabit his fuzzy grey universe.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Number-one hilarious line of the evening.
Since when has Brian Miller, or the gay and lesbian community for that matter, opposed online hookups, back-alley trysts, deceiving and lying to lovers, and giving people HIV?
Indeed, when confronted with the evidence of doing just that, they, including Brian Miller, shriek that it is no one else’s business and that they should be free to do exactly what they want.
Brian Miller’s type is everywhere in the gay and lesbian community. Nothing is ever their fault; it’s all because of “closeted” people. They never seem to be able to explain how people who they are attacking for keeping their sexual preferences and behaviors completely private are responsible for the awful public image of the gay community.
You’d think that, if Brian Miller were truly interested in the public image of the gay community, he’d be condemning his fellow out gays who publicly dress children as sexual slaves and take them to sex fairs, for example. But the problem is that Brian Miller has set up the “closeted” as the scapegoat for the problems of the gay community, and thus they must be attacked as the reason that he and his fellow “out” gays don’t have “dignity”, even as they’re parading around toddlers on dog leashes to “show off” for their naked and masturbating friends.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Brian, not all “closet cases” are Larry Craig.
In the military context, the “statistically average” closet case is more likely to be a man under 25 years old who isn’t emotionally prepared to come out yet. That doesn’t entitle you to malign him as a coward, however — because after all, he voluntarily enlisted despite knowing that there was a significant probability of being deployed to an active combat zone in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Incidentally, Brian, how much time have you spent discussing the DADT question on milblog comment threads, or otherwise trying to change the minds of DADT supporters who are currently in the military or who recently served? More broadly, how much familiarity do you actually have with military culture? I mean, have you either served in the military, or done substantial work for the DoD as a civilian contractor?
(Your tone in this thread doesn’t give me much confidence, but I don’t wanna rush to judgment.)
posted by Throbert McGee on
ND30: +1
posted by Throbert McGee on
And incidentally, Brian —
WHAT “ad hominem” — where? I’m pretty sure that I actually attacked your argument itself, by characterizing it as excessively simplified to the point that it resembled an exam question from high school physics.
posted by Jimmy on
“Since when has Brian Miller, or the gay and lesbian community for that matter, opposed online hookups, back-alley trysts, deceiving and lying to lovers, and giving people HIV?”
Well, at least we don’t fuc* ponies, Pony Fuc*er.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I fail to see why not, Jimmy; your fellow liberals and liberal “ethicists” have deemed it perfectly OK.
Meanwhile, to coin a phrase: “Ah, yes, the ad hominem. Always useful when you’re bereft of ideas, eh, Jim?”
posted by BobN on
WHAT “ad hominem” — where?
I’m not certain, but I think it was, technically, ad hamsterum. Yes, I made that up. The correct term would be ad Mesocricetum auratum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hamster
As to the larger point, Throbert, surely you can find some support for your Devil’s hat concern for the closeted service man. There must be some online forum where you’ve seen something that would prompt you to come to their defense. Personally, the only concern of a similar nature was in that NYTimes article last week in which the author gave the impression that gays IN the military were leery of a repeal of DADT. I believe he managed to find one lesbian who would give him a quote to that effect. Anonymously. The article was roundly criticized by pretty much everyone in the veteran community and SLDN.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Believe it or not, BobN, here and there one will find rare intellectual prodigies who are able to formulate original ideas all by themselves, without copying what they’ve read in the NY Times.
posted by Ben Paine on
I think you are being way too hard on the guy. Look at other public comments he has made. He clearly has no problem using the words “gay” or “lesbian.”
If you believe the press reports, he even made a last minute pen-and-ink change to his Senate testimony, scratching out the word “homosexual” and replacing it with “gay and lesbian.”
And he has been solidly consistent in favoring repeal, even over the objections of the Joint Chiefs.
posted by Tom on
I’m not sure what prompted this post. It doesn’t make sense.
Admiral Mullen has been working to lay the groundword for DADT repeal for at least 18 months, is an advocate of repeal, and has referred to gays and lesbians using those terms in other statements, including his testimony to Congress.
David, I think you are reading too much into Admiral Mullen’s choice of words in this particular instance and generalizing beyond the facts.
posted by jayp on
Here’s a thought. Just because some people may come out, doesn’t mean others have to. If someone is trying to out someone else, for whatever reason, it should be harassment. I think we are confusing getting rid of DADT to being forced to tell everybody our private lives. The fact is, if I want to leave my life private, I can, no matter what. And their shouldn’t be a law against everyone else just to make me feel a little safer.
posted by Debrah on
“Believe it or not, BobN, here and there one will find rare intellectual prodigies who are able to formulate original ideas all by themselves…..”
**************************************
So glad I checked in.
I would have been dismayed and chagrined if I’d missed this most eloquent and elegant description of moi.
Yet another Throbert gem!
posted by Jimmy on
Then it is true, Debrah, you are the brain trust of every neo-con in Brooks Brothers pants.
posted by Debrah on
“Then it is true, Debrah, you are the brain trust of every neo-con in Brooks Brothers pants.”
************************************
Such sexy talk for a cavalier Wednesday afternoon!
Well, Jimmy……even though that idea contains a certain dramatic edge, sorry to say that I’m not really a conservative.
Just a centrist with flair.
Fighting for truth, justice, and the Diva way!
posted by BobN on
Believe it or not, BobN, here and there one will find rare intellectual prodigies who are able to formulate original ideas all by themselves, without copying what they’ve read in the NY Times.
This sounds suspiciously like an admission that you just made the issue up in your head.
Prodigy indeed!
posted by Brian Miller on
you are the brain trust of every neo-con in Brooks Brothers pants
Great, you made me snarf Diet Pepsi.
I do have to admit, fringe-right queer folk are awfully creative in their excuses for supporting the guys who hate them so much… even more creative than their Democratic counterparts who spin for Obama. “Defending the interests of closet cases” is a completely new and surreal angle.
Then again, it underscores my original point of the closetedness of most of the queer Republican Party, non? There are more out gay Libertarian Party commentators than there are comparable Republicans — despite the fact that the LP is about 1/10th the GOP’s size. Says a lot.
posted by Brian Miller on
Since when has Brian Miller, or the gay and lesbian community for that matter, opposed online hookups, back-alley trysts, deceiving and lying to lovers, and giving people HIV?
Damn, you’ve caught out my secret agenda AGAIN!
Clearly, I’m in favor of online hookups, back-alley trysts, lying, and spreading HIV far and wide.
If it wasn’t for your DAMN REPUBLICANS, I’d be working on putting AIDS in the blood supply and destroying the marriages of decent white folk too! CURSES!
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Well, that’s pretty obvious.
Not bad for a group of people that is less than 5% of the overall population.
And who is it, actually, that is doing the spreading?
What. A. Surprise. The “real gays” like Brian Miller who are “out” are the ones who are doing the HIV spreading — while, of course, blaming the “closeted”.
So what’s the deal, Brian Miller? Why can’t you and your bunch of “out and proud” gays stop yourself from having disease-spreading, irresponsible sex?
posted by Bobby on
“Clearly, I’m in favor of online hookups, back-alley trysts, lying, and spreading HIV far and wide.”
—Clearly lots of people are, I see them all the time on craiglist and adam4adam. Years ago there was even a website called cruisingforsex.com which was basically a directory of toilets and public parks where you could get action.
How else can 5% of the population be 53% of new infections as North Dallas pointed out?
posted by Jimmy on
How many of the newly infected are closeted or on the DL?
posted by Bobby on
“How many of the newly infected are closeted or on the DL?”
—Google Sex!Panic! and you’ll find a group of openly gay men that promote barebacking. Besides, people in the closet know about AIDS, they may be seeking fun, but they’re not necesarily stupid about the risks. This is not the 80s, anyone who has sex without a condom today isn’t doing it out of ignorance and thus is not a victim, anyone who catches HIV today isn’t really a victim unless they were in a committed relationship and their boyfriend cheated.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Jimmy, we understand that you are in deep denial that your gay and lesbian community dogma could be less than truthful, but again, the facts are the facts.
Now, if you wanted to reduce the incidence of HIV, it makes sense that you would focus on the group MORE likely to be infected and MORE likely to engage in unprotected sex.
But you seem almost comically desperate to point fingers at other people when the scientific evidence is plain that “out” gay men like yourself are far and away the primary carriers and perpetuators of HIV and the unsafe sex that spreads it.
It seems irrational and completely irresponsible that you would be so averse to attacking a primary cause of so much death and destruction and would instead attack imaginary individuals. But then again, the gay and lesbian community has never been known for rational or responsible behavior, especially when it comes to examining its values and what it endorses and supports.
posted by Debrah on
“But one of the major findings [in recent years] – and this was across all races and ethnicities – is the [gay and bisexual men] who were the disclosers, or out of the closet, these were the guys more likely to be HIV-positive, and more likely to engage in unprotected sex,” Malebranche said.
******************************************
A glaring example of this well-accepted insane behavior is Andrew Sullivan who has been out and proud for as long as I can remember and was further outed before he got “married” for placing ads soliciting bareback sex knowing so well his condition—that of being HIV+.
And he is just one example because he’s so visible and revels in this brand of maddening idiocy. Sullivan actually tried to make rational excuses for his habit.
ND30 has captured the elements of this issue like no other.
This is what observers see.
If a heterosexual male or female were caught copping nooky while carrying a life-altering, life-threatening, sexually-transmitted disease, he or she would be arrested, and in some cases, very likely end up as a homicide statistic from victim’s revenge—or should!
Most people don’t look over and make excuses for people like that and the only reason that the gay community does is an attempt to play down the realities…..
…….in hopes that SSM and all other demands will have a stronger chance of acceptance.
But like all cover-ups and lies, this tactic always backfires.
I’ll allude to the example of convicted child molester Frank Lombard who was a high official at Duke University. He lived at the time in a very “special” community near the university which is home to a thriving and powerful gay population.
He and his partner adopted two black infant boys which Lombard later molested, put one of them on internet web cams as he molested him, and solicited strangers on the internet to come to his location to also have sex with the boy.
Obviously, he was eventually arrested; however, the university and the community said almost nothing about such a horrific lifestyle lived by one of “their own”.
Lombard is a member of the “untouchable quadumvirate” of (race / class / gender / sexual orientation) which all ultra-Liberal observers and participants shy away from when asked for opinions and objective critiques.
Imagine for a moment.
Just sit back and imagine how the university, the media, and his fellow Far Leftists would have responded if Lombard had been a white heterosexual university athlete……say a lacrosse player from a relatively well-to-do family in northeast U. S.
Just imagine.
What? !!!
We already have an example of such a gross contrast in response to an alleged rape?
Oh……yes……the Duke Lacrosse Hoax!
That would be when a drugged-up black prostitute accused three white lacrosse players of rape…..
……..and the entire university administration, the entire community with its layered facets of “othered” victims of this cruel society, and the media……went on a rampage.
The Black Panthers, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, and all feminist and lesbian and gay groups descended.
Without an ounce of proof of actual guilt.
This is the disconnect inside the world in which we live.
But you can’t depend on even the most reasonable and professional gay to discuss these realities honestly.
They run like skinned rats…….then have the gall to whine about “rights of gay and lesbian citizens”—exhibiting the raw nerve of people screaming from a padded room—and then hype SSM and imagined race and ethnic analogies.
posted by Jimmy on
“But you seem almost comically desperate to point fingers at other people when the scientific evidence is plain that “out” gay men like yourself are far and away the primary carriers and perpetuators of HIV and the unsafe sex that spreads it.”
Well, PF, I don’t have it and I don’t engage in unsafe sex, and I didn’t when I was sexually active. I have never advocated for unprotected anal sex, never will.
The highest rates of infection are in the “> True, there are gay enclaves in the region, but it’s also the bastion of evangelicalism. So, to conclude that closeted and DL behavior could be high in that populace, and could be a significant contributor to HIV infection rates is not hardly a stretch.
Now then, on a side note, PF, where to you buy the alfalfa to feed you dates?
posted by jimmy on
concl.
The highest rates of infection are in the “> True, there are gay enclaves in the region, but it’s also the bastion of evangelicalism. So, to conclude that closeted and DL behavior could be high in that populace, and could be a significant contributor to HIV infection rates is not hardly a stretch.
Now then, on a side note, PF, where to you buy the alfalfa to feed you dates?
posted by Brian Miller on
if you wanted to reduce the incidence of HIV, it makes sense that you would focus on the group MORE likely to be infected and MORE likely to engage in unprotected sex
Studies indicate that there are two primarily effective ways to reduce the transmission of HIV:
1) Safer sex education, which you and your party oppose.
2) Promotion of monogamous sero-negative exclusive relationships (e.g. marriage equality), which you and your party… also oppose.
Just what is the Republican Party and closeted gay solution for HIV? You scream about it, point fingers, and invoke it as though it’s relevant across the board (lesbians, incidentally, have the lowest HIV rate of any identifiable demographic, yet strangely get snarled in your pretzel logic).
If you were interested in preventing HIV transmission, you’d be spending more time removing government restrictions that promote transmission, not supporting them.
posted by Jimmy on
eff it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/22/health/main5103634.shtml
posted by Brian Miller on
the scientific evidence is plain that “out” gay men like yourself are far and away the primary carriers and perpetuators of HIV
Also not true.
Closeted gay and bisexual men are the biggest vectors of HIV. In particular, gay married closet cases who have unprotected sex “on the side” and then transmit the virus to their opposite-sex spouses are the cause of the largest spike in HIV infection rates yet recorded — that in heterosexual women.
posted by Debrah on
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I believe, Jimmy, what you were trying to say is this:
And Brian Miller, you simply are wrong on every level.
The gay community has the highest HIV infection rate of any demographic, period — as pointed out, in the United States, the gay community accounts for over 50% of all new HIV infections.
HIV rates have exploded in the gay community across the board, even in countries where “safe sex” is allegedly taught.
The “down-low” theory you espouse of “closet cases” being the cause of HIV in heterosexual women has been rather thoroughly debunked.
And as far as your fiction about gay-sex marriage making gays monogamous and responsible, that has also been blown to tiny bits.
So simply put, you haven’t any facts to support you, just your desperate bigotry and need to rationalize the promiscuity and irresponsibility that you and your fellow “out” gays practice.
posted by BobN on
Lombard is a member of the “untouchable quadumvirate”
That’s odd, last I heard he was a member of Cell Block C. He pled guilty (mighty decent of him, considering) and was sentenced to 27 years. If only all of society’s “untouchables” could be dealt with that way.
And there’s an “r” in quadrumvirate.
posted by Debrah on
Yikes!
Looks as though Jimmy’s and my last pearls of wisdom were clipped by cyber goblins.
In any case, I was just opining about the fact that “Brian” is so insipidly inaccurate……or words to that effect.
BobN–
You’re a doll.
Thanks for correcting the Diva typo…..sans the “r”.
And I appreciate your comments about Lombard.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Government restrictions on WHAT, Brian? Are you talking about government restrictions on the spending of government funds (i.e., taxpayer dollars)?
Is it your recommendation, Mr. Anti-Statist Libertarian, that we could spend more taxpayer money promoting condom education in taxpayer-supported public schools, if not for those awful Republicans?
posted by Throbert McGee on
It occurs to me to wonder how long Brian himself has actually been out of the closet.
Brian writes about the closet with the fundamentalist zealotry typical of recent converts, if you catch my drift — he’s like a born-again Christian who only just “found Jesus” two weeks ago.
posted by Throbert McGee on
That’s right, BobN — I “made up” the issue that a lot of gay and bi men in the 18-25 age bracket haven’t come out of the closet yet. I also “made up” the issue that there is sometimes bitter tension between those who are out and those who are closeted.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Brian writes about the closet with the fundamentalist zealotry typical of recent converts, if you catch my drift — he’s like a born-again Christian who only just “found Jesus” two weeks ago.
Regretfully, Throbert, Brian Miller is not a recent “out of the closet”; he’s been that way for decades, long enough to utterly ruin the reputation of gay and lesbian people in the Libertarian Party and several other venues.
Think of him more as Denzel Crocker. “This must be the work of….CLOSETED GAY MEN!”
posted by Brian Miller on
I’m not a zealot, I just believe in telling the truth. I know that for a Republican, that’s an unthinkable, alien concept. I’m not challenging your right to lie and obfuscate, I am simply noting that it’s very easy for you to talk trash and sling mud from the anonymity of your sad, sad closet.
Your lack of exposure to gay men outside of the occasional trysts you likely engage in is reflected in the 2D caricatures of an entire group of people that have as much dimensionality as your own, shrill online personality.
How sad for you to never know real life.
It occurs to me to wonder how long Brian himself has actually been out of the closet.
Thirteen years, soon to be fourteen, if you must know.
Seems to me that the zealotry isn’t being out, it’s rather being in the closet. I’ve not seen such a passionate defense of deliberate deception and obfuscation since the run-up to the Iraq War.
posted by Brian Miller on
Think of him more as Denzel Crocker
How fitting (and revealing)… a fictional caricature (“North Dallas Thirty,” shouldn’t it be North Dallas Fortysomething by now?) citing a fictional character to get “truth” about the real world. 🙂
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Like this?
Which is, as expected, completely contrary to the facts.
But of course, Brian Miller expects everyone to accept his word as truth because he’s “out”, even when the facts clearly show otherwise.
Bluntly put, the gay and lesbian community, as exemplified by Brian Miller, bases its decisions on whether or not a person is “out” by its capricious definition, not whether or not the facts support their position.
posted by Jorge on
I’m not a zealot, I just believe in telling the truth.
Capitalize that last T and you have a joke.
posted by BobN on
That’s right, BobN — I “made up” the issue that a lot of gay and bi men in the 18-25 age bracket haven’t come out of the closet yet. I also “made up” the issue that there is sometimes bitter tension between those who are out and those who are closeted.
No, the bit you made up was that there was any significant support among forever-to-be-closeted gay service members for leaving DADT in place in order to maintain their morale and protect their secrets. Even closeted on the job folks want to make hush-hush phone calls to their guy or gal back home without the threat of losing their job, rank, pension, etc.
See here, if you don’t remember where you went off the rails:
“So, do we risk negatively impacting the morale of closeted troops (which may be a comparatively large demographic) in order to satisfy a much smaller demographic of out-and-proud gays and lesbians whose worship of their own need for self-expression and external validation borders on the pathological?”
posted by Throbert McGee on
BobN, here’s the remark by David Link that I was responding to:
Link presents this issue as a two-way dispute between (a) homosexuals who wish to be out, and (b) non-homosexuals.
In fact, there is at least one other group with in an interest in DADT and its continued existence or repeal — namely, homosexuals (and MSMs generally) who don’t want to be out.
It’s possible, as you say, that most closeted MSMs would ultimately prefer to see DADT end.
But it’s also possible that most closeted MSMs would prefer that DADT be modified rather than ended altogether (one such modification might be to make the contents of private emails home inadmissible as “don’t ask” violations).
I don’t know that there is a significant number of such closeted MSMs — because of their closetedness, they’re difficult to count directly!
But I can infer that they are there, because of what we know generally about the prevalence of male bisexuality. And I can logically predict that many of them would see the continuance of DADT (perhaps in a weakened form) as more desirable and more in their self-interest than no DADT.
posted by BobN on
There are all sorts of things in the existing DADT that were supposed to prevent egregious cases of outing someone due to things like personal correspondence. The problem is that the rules get bent and broken all the time and no one, NO ONE, has ever been prosecuted for violating the unwanted stepchild of DADT, DP, i.e. Don’t Pursue.
posted by Veteran on
If all the ones that are not comfortable around gays in the military actually knew how many around them actually were gay or lesbian, maybe they would change there minds after knowing the buddy that just saved there a** is homosexual and no different than them.
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