There isn’t that much of a difference between banning gays from the military and banning gays from serving openly in the military. If someone had been open in college, went back into the closet to serve, there would be a record (facebook, old friends, etc) – a record which could be used against them if they pissed someone off or were competing for advancement within the military.

There isn’t that much of a difference between banning gays from the military and banning gays from serving openly in the military. If someone had been open in college, went back into the closet to serve, there would be a record (facebook, old friends, etc) – a record which could be used against them if they pissed someone off or were competing for advancement within the military.

The argument for preventing gay people from serving in the military is as follows:

There are homophobic people in the military. Gay people would interfere with their ability to serve. Keep gay people out of the military.

Hmmm. It seems having women in the military could also be distracting for many reasons. An earlier commenter compared the military to a football or rugby team. Seems like a woman on a football team would be pretty distracting (though I am not a football player, my best friend in high school and now my best friend in college are football players and I am pretty sure that their teammates say as much sexist shit as homophobic shit). Yet we have women serving in the military. Does it create problems? Yes some. But we are dealing with those problems and I don’t hear anyone making the argument to kick women out of the military.

Having gay people serve is not the same as having women serve. True. But the argument for keeping gays out, if a valid argument, should also be a good argument for kicking women out.

Also, I’d like to point out that no scientific study has been presented to show the negative effects of gays serving openly. Yet, we know form our allies that having gays serve openly doesn’t destroy unit cohesion. Which is more distracting for soldier A: wondering if soldier B is gay or knowing upfront that solder B is gay and having time to deal with whatever homophobic issues he/she has and get over it before live combat?

Reason for repealing DADT: Let us pretend that there is a premed student with great grades, who has already been accepted to (though turned down) early admittance to an ivy league medical school. He has got potential to make a great neurologist and has interest in the Army Health Professions Scholarship Program. Yet he is openly gay.

What is it worth to keep open gays out of the military? Do you really want to limit your talent pool? Would you take a mediocre straight army doc over a really good gay doc?

I would like to give props to Ross for having the courage for making an unpopular argument. But I’d also like to give props to the gay students at CMC. Being open at CMC is definitely a bigger challenge than Wesleyan, Vassar, or Brown and our gay students could have gone somewhere else, but they came here for the love of CMC. Although, CMC isn’t as homophobic as the other 5Cs seem to think, we aren’t exactly homophilic either.

The argument for preventing gay people from serving in the military is as follows:

There are homophobic people in the military. Gay people would interfere with their ability to serve. Keep gay people out of the military.

Hmmm. It seems having women in the military could also be distracting for many reasons. An earlier commenter compared the military to a football or rugby team. Seems like a woman on a football team would be pretty distracting (though I am not a football player, my best friend in high school and now my best friend in college are football players and I am pretty sure that their teammates say as much sexist shit as homophobic shit). Yet we have women serving in the military. Does it create problems? Yes some. But we are dealing with those problems and I don’t hear anyone making the argument to kick women out of the military.

Having gay people serve is not the same as having women serve. True. But the argument for keeping gays out, if a valid argument, should also be a good argument for kicking women out.

Also, I’d like to point out that no scientific study has been presented to show the negative effects of gays serving openly. Yet, we know form our allies that having gays serve openly doesn’t destroy unit cohesion. Which is more distracting for soldier A: wondering if soldier B is gay or knowing upfront that solder B is gay and having time to deal with whatever homophobic issues he/she has and get over it before live combat?

Reason for repealing DADT: Let us pretend that there is a premed student with great grades, who has already been accepted to (though turned down) early admittance to an ivy league medical school. He has got potential to make a great neurologist and has interest in the Army Health Professions Scholarship Program. Yet he is openly gay.

What is it worth to keep open gays out of the military? Do you really want to limit your talent pool? Would you take a mediocre straight army doc over a really good gay doc?

I would like to give props to Ross for having the courage for making an unpopular argument. But I’d also like to give props to the gay students at CMC. Being open at CMC is definitely a bigger challenge than Wesleyan, Vassar, or Brown and our gay students could have gone somewhere else, but they came here for the love of CMC. Although, CMC isn’t as homophobic as the other 5Cs seem to think, we aren’t exactly homophilic either.