DADT Update: Marine Training, June Target, and Military Weddings

Below:

  • Camp Pendleton Marines ask the same DADT questions
  • Obama said to be aiming for repeal in June
  • Navy head of Chaplains says gay marriages permissible in military Chapels

Camp Pendleton Marines recently went through the required DADT training for the upcoming repeal of the policy most often known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  Despite some people dismissing the concerns of servicemembers over repeal, the issues the Marines brought up were fairly common:

Does a straight Marine have to live with a gay Marine? Can a Marine with a same-sex partner receive housing allowance? Will being openly gay affect recruitment, assignments or promotion?

Questions like these were answered…as about 185 Marines…conducted Tier 3 training to learn how the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy will affect the Marine Corps…

Another question raised was, “What if homosexuality goes against my religion?” Likewise, Marines retain the right to their religious beliefs, but their conduct must remain professional and they must treat fellow Marines with dignity and respect.

The Center for Military Readiness has said President Obama may be aiming for certification in June, which has been a homosexual “pride” month proclaimed by Obama in the past.

The Navy Times reports a letter from Chief Navy Chaplain (Rear Adm) Mark Tidd has said military Chaplains will be able to perform same-sex marriages when stationed in states that permit them. This represents a change from the initial guidance, which said the Defense of Marriage Act would prohibit such ceremonies as they would occur on federal property.

US Rep Todd Akin (R-Mo), chairman of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, said

“This new guidance from the Navy clearly violates the law.”

He wasn’t the only one to take issue:

Late Friday, a group of 62 members sent a joint letter to the Secretary of the Navy, asking how the military is suddenly “exempt from federal law.” “Offering up federal facilities and federal employees for same-sex marriage violates DOMA, which is still the law of the land… and [which] all of the Armed Services are sworn to obey. It is not the place of any citizen of this country to pick and choose which laws they obey. We expect the [military]… to set the example in their application.”

There are also indications Congress will still pass legislation requiring additional reviews prior to actually repealing the policy commonly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Also noted at the ADF and FoxNews.

24 comments

  • Progress continues. World fails to end. Film at 11.

  • @Donalbain

    Thousands and thousands of years of recorded History, thousands of different civilizations so surely there must be examples of societies that “progressed” and survived free and intact no? Searching hard i cant seem to find any example, in fact i find the opposite, all societies that “progressed” are all societies that no longer exist. But if you can help me with my search please do, since you speak with so much authority and confidence.

  • Wow, you really aren’t very good at searching are you? Here is a list of societies that have progressed to the point of allowing homosexuals to serve in the military. All of which still exist:

    # 1.1 Albania
    # 1.2 Argentina
    # 1.3 Australia
    # 1.4 Austria
    # 1.5 Belgium
    # 1.6 Bermuda
    # 1.7 Canada
    # 1.8 Republic of China
    # 1.9 Colombia
    # 1.10 Croatia
    # 1.11 Czech Republic
    # 1.12 Denmark
    # 1.13 Estonia
    # 1.14 Finland
    # 1.15 France
    # 1.16 Germany
    # 1.17 Greece
    # 1.18 Republic of Ireland
    # 1.19 Israel
    # 1.20 Italy
    # 1.21 Japan
    # 1.22 Lithuania
    # 1.23 Luxembourg
    # 1.24 Malta
    # 1.25 The Netherlands
    # 1.26 New Zealand
    # 1.27 Norway
    # 1.28 Peru
    # 1.29 Philippines
    # 1.30 Poland
    # 1.31 Romania
    # 1.32 Russia
    # 1.33 Serbia
    # 1.34 Slovenia
    # 1.35 South Africa
    # 1.36 Spain
    # 1.37 Sweden
    # 1.38 Switzerland
    # 1.39 Thailand
    # 1.40 Uruguay
    # 1.41 United Kingdom

  • Another question raised was, “What if homosexuality goes against my religion?”

    Then don’t be homosexual!

  • Don,

    By what measurement are you saying that accepting homosexuals is ‘progress’? If the removal of every rule is ‘progress’ then we are headed towards anarchy. Conversely, if there are some rules that need to stay and some that need to go, then what is your decision process on determining where a rule falls?

    Which is it?

  • It is progress for a couple of reasons.

    1) It advances the rights of homosexual people who wish to serve in the military.
    2) It opens up the choices of military recruiters, and prevents highly qualified people being rejected for stupid, bigoted reasons.

  • Don,

    I understand your answer, but you missed the larger questions: are there some standards of behavior that are not acceptable? Or is anything allowed?

  • If something will harm military effectiveness then it would not be acceptable in the military. For instance, you might not want a blind fighter pilot as they would be unable to do the job.

    In society as a whole, if something is consensual then it is acceptable to me, and I think it should be acceptable to the law.

  • Don,

    If you are talking about military effectiveness, reference my previous post on why I found it amusing that someone in my chain told me that repealing DADT won’t have any impact on military effectiveness.

    Here’s the train of logic I’m using. By all many outside standards, the military has effectively integrated women. However, I’m having to spend time ensuring my troops go to recurring classes on sexual assault. I’d rather spend that time to make sure my troops are up to speed on the latest rules of engagement or enemy tactics. This is actually happening. I personally feel that (in general) the advantage of not turning down otherwise qualified women outweighs the decrease in effectiveness required to have women present.

    I don’t feel that same way about DADT. Time will tell, but the view from this line officer is that it will not increase, and very likely decrease, military effectiveness.

    For society as a whole, I’m sorry to hear that you think consensual adult incest and polygamy are acceptable.

  • Incest is a crime, even with consenting adults, and I’m sure EVERYONE will agree this is just wrong. Polygamy is illegal, but not a crime and I don’t know if there are stiff penalties, (fines or jail time); and we get marriage license to catch this but not always do. This article was interesting: http://www.religioustolerance.org/polylaw.htm

    There is not one shred of evidence that allowing gays to serve openly will harm Military effectiveness because there has NEVER been any gay people serving openly yet. Sexual assault training would be required even if we didn’t have women in the Military, the troops get into trouble in every country for rape and sexual assaults on civilian females (Japan seems to get a lot).

    There is not much the “law” can do regarding acts behind closed doors. Can the law assume that if one man and two women are living together they are possibly committing polygamy, maybe…is there anything they can or should do about it, Nope. How about two guys living together, are they automatically assumed to be gay? In today’s society (morality police) yes they are.

  • watchtower,

    your last paragraph and your first are in conflict. “Incest is a crime, even with consenting adults” vs “there is not much the ‘law’ can do regarding acts behind closed doors.” I know why I think incest is wrong; I don’t have a clue on how you came to that conclusion.

  • If only there were some way we could look at evidence to see if allowing gay people to serve in the military would harm military effectiveness. Perhaps if there were 41 nations who already did it we could look at them. Perhaps we would see that none of them show any signs of their being any negative effects. Maybe we could look at events in the past and ask if removing Arabic translators would be good for the military. It is just a crying shame that looking at evidence is not an option available to us. But then, evidence makes it hard to continue to be a bigot, so maybe it is a good thing.

  • Don,

    You and I are speaking on two different terms.

    You state that other militaries have had no harm to their military effectiveness. Guess what, we are not those other countries. The USA is different. In general we accept more violence in our culture, but not as much sexuality.

    You also didn’t respond to real-life evidence of the effects of women in the military. In some aspects having women in the military harms effectiveness. I have to spend time focusing on male-female interaction training rather than tactics. As stated before, I think that having women, overall, is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some negatives.

    Let’s be honest with the facts. You think that there are no negatives at all to reversing DADT. I know there will be positives and negatives, and I think that the negatives outweigh the positives. My leadership has declared otherwise. Like many other decisions, I’ll respectfully disagree, but I’ll obey because that’s what I promised I’d do.

  • Dealer – there is no conflict. One is about incest being wrong, the other polygamy. The last paragraph talks about attempts to legislating morality with what’s right or wrong depending on a persons view(s), [and reading these opinions] from everyone here with what’s right or wrong. We can teach our youngsters what is right or wrong (without confusion to why) because they don’t have necessarily a religious morality view to be a good person. No matter the case, unless you can peek in a bedroom (legally), the case is moot and not bloody likely.

  • watchtower,

    if incest is morally wrong, and we have laws against it, how is that not legislating morality? Or does your logic only work in some cases but not others?

  • Smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal in more states than same sex marriage. I’d call that evidence that society finds it pretty acceptable. The military disagrees.

  • @Donalbain

    That has nothing to do with my question. I repeat, thousands and thousands of years of recorded History, hundreds and hundreds of civilizations…surely there must be an example of at least one civilization that accepted homosexuality and survived free and prosperous no? Please provide an example.

    BTW…search Newsweek article about the cases of HOMOSEXUAL rape and harrasment in the military. 50000 cases…logic says many more were not reported. Greece and Rome ended up totally dominated by homosexuals including their militaries…Nazi Germany was almost the same, the difference was that the Wermacht resisted because it was ruled by Christian Conservatives. Hitler´s mentor and leader of the infamous Brown Shirts, Ernst Rohm, was a proud in-your-face homosexual, the Brown Shirts were notorious for their violence and sexual perversion.

    The Natural Order has one simple rule: “Any society that stops applying social pressure on homosexuals is a society that, sooner or later, will become totally dominated by them and die a slow and painful death”. Mess with the Natural Order and you get whats coming.

  • Here is the article: http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/03/the-military-s-secret-shame.html

    “Last year nearly 50,000 male veterans screened positive for “military sexual trauma” at the Department of Veterans Affairs, up from just over 30,000 in 2003.”

    Donalbain´s “highly qualified individuals” at work…

    (As a side note, the writer claiming there is nothing homosexual about this is a testament of how insane political correctness is lol)

    Dont blame the messenger blame the Natural Order. A society that stops applying pressure to homosexuals is a society with its days numbered.

    PS – People that associate homosexuality with femininity know nothing about homosexuality.

  • One more little thing, there is a significant difference between the countries in Donalbain list and the USA (and UK)…is that those countries have no AGRESSIVE, MILITANT homosexual movement who are doing everything they can to make homosexuals a privileged class of people.

  • Zeka — relationships between males in Greece/Rome was “paiderastia” [boy love] (kinda like pedophile priest, preachers and others of today) and it supposedly was “normal” circa 460-450 before the common era. A for Nazi Germany, we are not them, obviously, and as Dealer says we are not the other countries that allow nor have problems with homosexuals in their Militaries.

    As for sexual perversions, the internet/media is littered with it from almost every country. Didn’t say it was right or OK, but like everything “people” choose to do it, read it or participate in it.

    I know of no AGRESSIVE, MILITANT homosexual movement in the US per se, just people with a desire to live life the way they choose to (with respect and dignity), regardless of a perceived “Natural Order” you proscribe.

  • Zeka, I gave you a list of 41 nations that accept homosexuality in the military. The question of which ones are prosperous and free is left as a discussion for the reader.

  • Don,

    I’m still waiting to hear if you think there are any negatives at all to repealing DADT.

    Watchtower,

    I’m still waiting to hear how outlawing incest is not an attempt to legislate morality.

  • Dealer —

    Incest causes birth defects/deformities. It’s also widely committed on young children. Needs laws to protect kids.

  • watchtower,

    So you do want the law to cover what happens behind closed doors? I certainly do, even in the case of adult, consentual incest. So, what is it? Keep government out or let them in?