Pentagon Sees Little Adverse Impact from Ending DADT
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  Pentagon Sees Little Adverse Impact from Ending DADT
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Author Topic: Pentagon Sees Little Adverse Impact from Ending DADT  (Read 839 times)
Frodo
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« on: November 30, 2010, 07:15:16 PM »

All in all, not too many surprises:

Pentagon Sees Little Impact if Ban on Gays Is Repealed

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: November 30, 2010

 
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has concluded that allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the United States armed forces presents a low risk to the military’s effectiveness, even at a time of war, and that 70 percent of service members believe that the impact of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law would be either positive, mixed or of no consequence at all.

In an exhaustive nine-month study on the effects of repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the 17-year-old policy that requires gay service members to keep their sexual orientation secret or face discharge, the authors concluded that while in the short run a repeal would most likely bring about “some limited and isolated disruption to unit cohesion and retention,” it could be mitigated by effective leadership.

The report, by Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon’s chief counsel, and Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of the United States Army in Europe, also found that much of the concern in the armed forces about openly gay service members was driven by misperceptions and stereotypes. Leaving aside those with moral and religious objections to homosexuality, the authors said that the concerns were “exaggerated and not consistent with the reported experiences of many service members.”
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Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2010, 07:17:55 PM »

What do these homo-lovers know? I trust John McCain's and Joe Wilson's sound judgment on that.
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Queen Mum Inks.LWC
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« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2010, 07:31:40 PM »

While 70% is definitely a high number, I have concerns about the fact that 30% think it would have a negative effect.

20.8% saying it would negatively / very negatively affect their ability to train well.

Interestingly, 27.3% think it would have a negative impact on recruitment.

12.6% would leave sooner than planned, with an additional 11.1% considering it.  This compared to a possible gain of up to 3.5%.

27.9% say their morale would be negatively / very negatively affected.

What really shocked me was that 17.6% say that they would move off-base if they found out a homosexual couple was living on base.

While the overall number of 70% is a majority, I have some serious concerns about how the other 30% will react when DADT is repealed.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2010, 07:39:35 PM »


Really? Nine months?
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Smash255
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« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2010, 08:08:10 PM »

While 70% is definitely a high number, I have concerns about the fact that 30% think it would have a negative effect.

20.8% saying it would negatively / very negatively affect their ability to train well.

Interestingly, 27.3% think it would have a negative impact on recruitment.

12.6% would leave sooner than planned, with an additional 11.1% considering it.  This compared to a possible gain of up to 3.5%.

27.9% say their morale would be negatively / very negatively affected.

What really shocked me was that 17.6% say that they would move off-base if they found out a homosexual couple was living on base.

While the overall number of 70% is a majority, I have some serious concerns about how the other 30% will react when DADT is repealed.


So we shouldn't repeal it because some people are bigoted??

Would you use the same reasoning for I don't know, blacks being integrated into the armed services??
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Penelope
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« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2010, 08:11:46 PM »

While 70% is definitely a high number, I have concerns about the fact that 30% think it would have a negative effect.

20.8% saying it would negatively / very negatively affect their ability to train well.

Interestingly, 27.3% think it would have a negative impact on recruitment.

12.6% would leave sooner than planned, with an additional 11.1% considering it.  This compared to a possible gain of up to 3.5%.

27.9% say their morale would be negatively / very negatively affected.

What really shocked me was that 17.6% say that they would move off-base if they found out a homosexual couple was living on base.

While the overall number of 70% is a majority, I have some serious concerns about how the other 30% will react when DADT is repealed.

Then let the bigots leave - I have serious concerns that 30% of our military is bigoted, and that you'd keep gays out of the military because of this. 
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Queen Mum Inks.LWC
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« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2010, 08:19:25 PM »

Sorry... I thought everybody knew my feelings on DADT by now.  I am 100% behind the repeal of DADT.  I'm just saying, there's a lot of optimism out there about the repeal, and I don't think this is going to go nearly as smoothly as many think it will.
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dead0man
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« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2010, 08:37:07 PM »

Let the bigots leave.
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Semaphore
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« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2010, 08:40:29 PM »

There are already gays and lesbians in the military. Just because they are not allowed to publicly reveal their sexual preferences does not mean that they do not exist. If people are really uncomfortable and want to leave the military when DADT is finally repealed, let them.

These military people are presumably being trained to survive harsh environments and stressful combat situations. They should be able to deal with a few gays or lesbians. They are probably already dealing with a few gays and lesbians, as I mentioned above. If they can't handle that, then they really shouldn't be in the military. What if they end up being stationed in Iraq and some Iraqi fighter tries to give them the gay disease? That would be so horrible.
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Free Palestine
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« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2010, 08:47:16 PM »

Maybe if we didn't have two unnecessary wars and troops stationed all over the world, this whole issue of short-term unit cohesion wouldn't be much of a problem.  But then, the homophobes will find some other excuse...
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Alcon
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« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2010, 08:57:36 PM »
« Edited: November 30, 2010, 08:59:17 PM by Alcon »

Sorry... I thought everybody knew my feelings on DADT by now.  I am 100% behind the repeal of DADT.  I'm just saying, there's a lot of optimism out there about the repeal, and I don't think this is going to go nearly as smoothly as many think it will.

What do you think is really likelier:  That most of those people are actually going to leave, or that they were just putting the most anti-gay response because they don't want the policy repealed?

My intuition says overwhelmingly #2.
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memphis
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« Reply #11 on: November 30, 2010, 09:31:36 PM »

Sorry... I thought everybody knew my feelings on DADT by now.  I am 100% behind the repeal of DADT.  I'm just saying, there's a lot of optimism out there about the repeal, and I don't think this is going to go nearly as smoothly as many think it will.

What do you think is really likelier:  That most of those people are actually going to leave, or that they were just putting the most anti-gay response because they don't want the policy repealed?

My intuition says overwhelmingly #2.
If we don't repeal DADT tomorrow, I'm moving to Canada Tongue
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Queen Mum Inks.LWC
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« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2010, 01:25:03 AM »

Sorry... I thought everybody knew my feelings on DADT by now.  I am 100% behind the repeal of DADT.  I'm just saying, there's a lot of optimism out there about the repeal, and I don't think this is going to go nearly as smoothly as many think it will.

What do you think is really likelier:  That most of those people are actually going to leave, or that they were just putting the most anti-gay response because they don't want the policy repealed?

My intuition says overwhelmingly #2.

Oh, obviously #2, there's no doubt about that.  My concern, though, is what are these people who are so anti-gay going to do when the homosexuals are allowed to serve openly?  If they leave, that's fine.  What I'm concerned about is harassment, etc.
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dead0man
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« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2010, 02:15:59 AM »

There is going to be harassment, of that there is little doubt.  Just like there is still racial tension...and sexual harassment and religious bigotry and every other kind of harassment you can think of.  Punish it as it comes up just like with all other forms of asshattery.  There are always going to be asshats in the military because there are always going to be asshats in society.  At least with the military you can remove them from the group once they become noticeable.  That's a lot harder to do in society at large...what with the Constitution and all Wink

(and that's as it should be)
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Queen Mum Inks.LWC
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« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2010, 02:49:23 AM »

I wholeheartedly agree.  But this happy crap of "little adverse impact" is complete b.s. in my opinion.  While the numbers I cited may be a minority, it's still a lot of military servicemen who are opposed to the repeal of DADT, and I think the military needs to be prepared to deal with it.
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beneficii
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« Reply #15 on: December 01, 2010, 03:00:55 AM »

I wholeheartedly agree.  But this happy crap of "little adverse impact" is complete b.s. in my opinion.  While the numbers I cited may be a minority, it's still a lot of military servicemen who are opposed to the repeal of DADT, and I think the military needs to be prepared to deal with it.

In Canada, there was a fair amount of opposition (and historically the Canadian military was much more homophobic than the U.S. military) to allowing gays to openly serve (or serve at all), but when that changed in 1992, there was little evidence of any problems at all, and it went very smoothly.  Heck, even transsexual people who have had genital reassignment surgery are able to enlist in Canada (which seems unlikely to change anytime soon in the U.S.).  Here's some more reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_policy_in_the_Canadian_military

Basically, the historical view is that there are very few issues with allowing gays to serve, as long as there is effective leadership.

This is probably better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation_and_military_service#Canada
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