Forget About “Homosexuals” In The Military; Let’s Talk About Lesbians

That’s just flat out strange. Why would anyone that is secure in their sexuality make a distinction between gay and homosexual? Isn’t that like saying a corpse is dead instead of life-challenged?

Allowing openly gay people to serve in the military is prejudicial to good order and discipline. Whether that consideration is overborne by other considerations (readiness, since the talent pool is greater) and general societal mores is another issue.

Michael Scherer:
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Really, quite an interesting find, but (of course) you managed to demean yourself again when you wrote:

So let us speculate…[blah blah blah]

Hey, Michael Scherer!
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I’ve got this crazy idea…
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Why don’t you let us morons who aren’t in the profession of finding and displaying information do the pointless speculating, whilst you, intrepid journalist and pro fact-finder extraordinaire, genius at your craft that you are, actually begin to find and post real answers to (or well-grounded, well-researched theories about) the questions begged by this phenomenon, and then come back to correct our wild conjectures?
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Sounds like a plan?
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Think you’re up for it?

Now this would be just a little more than medium mean. Sarcasm or just ironical?

Religious people who are opposed to any poll question that contains the syllable “sex”? Is homosexual too much of a concept, while “gay men and lesbians” are actual people?

Your condescension for religious people knows no bounds …. it is at your great peril

What percentage of U.S. Army soldiers agree with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mullen that “Gay Pride” parades should be conducted at Ft. Benning, Ft. Bragg and West Point and that all soldiers should be required to march along, with the commanders (dressed in drag) in the lead?

And to think I was about to comment that Scherer has finally written a worthwhile post! Thanks for saving me from myself, sz.
But really it is interesting. And I agree that probably the syllable “sex” makes a lot of people imagine nasty body parts sliding in and out of each other with awful slurping sounds, while “gay and lesbian” just reminds them of their favorite premium cable TV shows.

Now when the Swampland trolls hear the words “gay and lesbian” they just get weird.

I’ve always wondered what would happen if you split the “same-sex marriage” poll into polls specifically about lesbians vs gay men. I would suspect that there would be a bit more acceptance of lesbian marriage. (Hell, we even have a specific term for their kind of relationship as distinct from gay men). I don’t think that would work as well for DADT since you have the extra baggage of “women in the military”.

hellslittleangel: Bless you for that post. It may have been in jest but I think you may have hit the nail on the head.

Forget about all that – lets talk about patriotism and exclusion
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So, exclusion may be bad.

How about a poll that shows Americans in favor of the idea that all Americans who wish to fight and die for their country should be admitted into the military. That includes the ‘short’ people, the ‘fat’ people, the short-winded, those with other pre-existing conditions, the convicts, the suspected serial murderers – and those sanctioned for infidelity or bigamy.

After the initial shock wears off, the non-believers find that it is the right thing to do.

Does any word or phrase get you “weird”?

Not in jest at all. People really are intrinsically funny, like chimpanzees in plaid suits. Words have magical powers over us no matter how we insist we’re rational. I’d like to believe I’m an exception to that rule, but I know better.

walkingfunny, You are right. it was a bad word choice. I have changed above. I meant a very specific type of religious person–those who oppose public discussion or displays of sex–not religious people in general. Apologies.

I rather like it.

The line about soldiers marching (up and down the square) in drag made me giggly. Is that weird?

Michael Scherer and sacredh:
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I guess I’m taking something out on Scherer, who doesn’t really deserve all of the rancor I just gave him.
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The WaPo today (featuring the execrable Shailagh Murray, of course) comes out with this gem:

President Obama brought Republicans to the negotiating table on Tuesday, hoping to stem a steady deterioration in relations between the two parties that has brought business in Washington to a standstill, left the Democratic agenda in tatters and angered voters who are eager to have lawmakers address their concerns.

Let’s just leave aside for the moment the rank dishonesty of blaming the standstill on a “deterioration in relations” leading to a lack of bipartisanship, instead of correctly identifying the parade of centrist Democrats (Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, etc, etc) who were willing to threaten to join with the Republicans in a bipartisan filibuster of health care legislation, and who are still threatening to join with Republicans in making the government do nothing –otherwise known as a “standstill”.
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Let’s focus on that “angered voters” part.
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The hack-tacular authors of this piece cit this polling data:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that the public is frustrated by the bickering and recriminations. According to the survey, 57 percent of Americans consider the loss of the Senate Democrats’ filibuster-proof supermajority a “good thing,”…

What? Wait a second…that’s incredible!
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I don’t mean that Shailagh Murray’s usual subjective characterization of the polling data (“the public is frustrated and blame Democrats for angering Republicans by having a majority in Congress”) is incredible, I mean the poll result is incredible!
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It’s incredible because just yesterday I commented (link to yesterday’s comment) on a Scherer post in which I relayed the Pew poll that showed voters don’t know what a “filibuster-proof super-majority” is!

Knowledge and the Senate Health Care Bill
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Asked how many GOP senators voted for the chamber’s health care bill on Dec. 24, only 32% know that the measure received no support from Republican members. About as many answer incorrectly, saying that five (13%), 10 (8%) or 20 (8%) GOP senators voted for the bill. About four-in-ten (39%) do not know or decline to answer.
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A smaller percentage (26%) knows that 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster in the Senate. About as many (25%) mistakenly say that a simple majority of 51 votes can break a filibuster.

So how can these two things be, that literally twice as many people are happy about the Democrats losing 60 votes as there are people who know what that even means?
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So now we’re in the position that Scherer’s in, where we’re scratching our heads at the different polls, and going “Why did people say that to pollsters?”
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But then, when I go find the WaPo’s polling questions (great work not linking to the poll in your piece, Shailagh, you jackass), read them thoroughly, and I find this lovely bit of direction from those asking the questions:

6. Republicans now hold enough seats in the U.S. Senate to block any legislation Obama and the Senate Democrats propose. Overall, do you think this is (a good thing because it will force Obama and the Democrats to cooperate more with the Republicans); OR (a bad thing because it will enable the Republicans to set terms before allowing anything to go forward)?

So, the respondents hear “Do you think that whatever I just said that you probably know nothing about is good if it forces the two parties to cooperate more?”
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I would never have known about this incredible supply of a highly questionable premise, and the obvious way in which that sort of language can help people make up their minds about something of which they have little in the way of information when they’re asked unexpectedly, if I hadn’t done the work myself, and looked the damn thing up.
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As I said before, the fact of the matter is cooperation with Republicans hasn’t been responsible for the standstill in Congress. A small bloc of Democrats have stopped or delayed legislation from going forward (even out of committees in which the Dems obviously hold the simple 51% majorities needed) by cooperating with Republicans to stop progress. It’s that simple, and yet the public doesn’t know that. So when it’s suggested that losing 60 votes might “force cooperation” on the Democratic majority, it’s no wonder that people unaware of all of the recent cooperation that Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson, etc. have been giving Republicans would say “What a good thing!”
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So, I guess I’m a little bent out of shape at all of the shoddiness with respect to pro journalists and pollsters, and I’m taking it out on Scherer.
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My apologies, Michael Scherer, for throwing uncalled for invective your way, and my apologies, sacredh, for thoroughly answering your question, and boring the pants off of you and everyone else who’s read this far.

Michael: many thanks for the response, apologies accepted

hellslittleangel: It does make you wonder about many things that are worded slightly differently. We keep hearing that the majority of Americans are conservative. What does conservative mean? When a person in Georgia says they’re conservative, does that make a person that considers himself a conservative in California the same? How could Obama get 53% of the vote? I think many people that say they’re conservatives aren’t anywhere near what a real conservative today stands for.
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We had a Teabagger protest just a couple of miles from here in November. There were three people marching in a circle with signs and about a dozen people watching them. I talked with a couple of the watchers and they were mostly just curious. I consider myself liberal because of my stands on social issues. I’m pro death penalty and pro military. Maybe both groups could count me as a supporter. It would depend on what question I was asked and how they worded it.

Thanks for the apologies, Michael Scherer, also accepted.

SZ: Your posts are long but they’re not boring. I read the polling data myself and was making a response to hellslittleangel while you were making your comment. They have points of similarity about the wording and the generated responses. No need to apologize at all. I didn’t see anything that warranted one.

…the short-winded,…
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cfukara: how about mandatory service for “the long winded” in defense of wars (and the children thereof)?
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I could go for that…

Thanks, sacredh.

Whether that consideration is overborne by other considerations…
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Other considerations, such as whether or not my sorry a$$ (or my pampered and financially-ambitious kids) would have to go in their place if we exclude them.

Wanna make gays in the military a palatable choice for the general public?
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Start open discussion of re-instituting the draft and mandatory service.
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I guarantee you that sentiment toward gays will change with that option on the table.
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Sacrifice for the good of the country – necessary for thee but not for me (unless it’s convenient for me to do so).

You know, Lincoln and LBJ should have conducted polling being making their respective achievements. Sounds like this will get done, but the notion that someone’s civil rights should have to wait on the public’s long overdue education is asinine.

It’s never been about equal rights. It’s always been about one group being able to claim that they were superior to another and having the political clout to enforce it..

In a “related” poll, 74% of Americans want those in the military who look like Ellen and “Doogie Howser” (real name escapes me at the moment) but only 26% support those who look like Rosie O’Donnell and Barney Frank.

I should add that this is an exception to my norm opinion: that elected officials should like, do what their constituents want. Goddamn democracy, it’s tricky.

Yer confusin’ me.

I’ve confused myself. Just now realized that during my 1st cup of coffee I typed ‘being’ in lieu of ‘before.’

Neal Patrick Harris.

Cryptic and open to interpretation. Like the lyrics to a good song. All things to all people.

Name Doog’s gf and best friend. Loved that show.

If you want to be even more confused, just check out the latest Badmotorfinger from Seattle:
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link in case the embedded player–which looks just fine in the preview pane–doesn’t get posted because of the geniuses who set up WordPress for TIME.com

Love it:

In the quivering forest,
Where the shivering dog rests,
Our good grandfather
Built a wooden nest.
And the river got frozen,
And the hole got snowed in,
And a yellow moon glowed bright
Till the morning light.

Michael: Here is my interpretation.
Words with sex in them are difficult for some. Maybe if the poll had asked about the service of homouals it would have gotten a different response.
Some men find male one on one icky but lesbian one on one hot. You know fantasy.
Or, some of the poll takers are interpreting “gay” to mean happy. They don’t mind openly happy people serving.
I guess my point is polling civil rights issues is stupid. What would polls shown about integrating the military? Truman just did it. It doesn’t matter what polls say. It is a matter of allowing people to serve openly regardless of sexual orientation as a testament to our support for human rights.

I got nothin’…I was going to give you a Wonder Years breakdown

Read and have a good laugh:

http://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/this-is-power/

Wanda and Vinnie Delpino. And don’t begin to dish on The Wonder Years! They were as real as my own family for years.

Dude, seriously. How the hell are gay people serving in the military detrimental to order and discipline just by their very presence? Seriously, I want to know. How will good order and discipline be prejudiced by who people hit on when they’re off duty?

sz, you do realize this is a BLOG, right?

sacred: A personal pet peeve of mine is the usage of “passed”, “gone”, and “no longer with us” instead of “died”.
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People have difficulty with factual words.

kbang: I share your pet peeve. When my wife and I have discussed our wills she says “If something should happen to you”… WTF. Am I getting a speeding ticket or buying the farm? She doesn’t want to say die and I can’t help but messing with her. I’m going “if what should happen to me? I get crabs? Uncontrolled flatulence? Spell it out. I’m not that smart”.
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I come back with “If you die, can I have you stuffed?”.
We don’t talk about wills much.

Yes, I do realize this is a blog.
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Why?

I wonder if they would still like NPH if they saw his roles in the Harold and Kumar movies or maybe if they realized that he is also Barney Stinson.