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Sunday, May 09, 2010

Fearful of DADT Repeal, Military Authorities Ponder Creation of Online Bigot Spigot

The Advocate
Army Secretary John McHugh announced authorities are considering a system to allow soldiers to anonymously submit their views on gays serving openly in the military. "We're trying to do this in the quietest way possible, and by that, I simply mean not to sensationalize it, to try to really assess the soldiers' opinions," McHugh said at Hawaii's Schofield Barracks, according to the Associated Press. "Anonymity, of course, is an important aspect."

So much for "doing this quietly," eh? Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Look, no matter what anybody's "opinions" on the matter, whether enlightened or ignorant, whether tolerant or bigoted, responsible sane adult citizens who happen to be queer and who want to serve their nation in the armed services simply should have the same right as every other citizen to do so, and the queer folks openly serving in militaries around the world -- many of them allies in struggles together with our own troops already -- show that there are no substantial difficulties created by doing the right thing in the matter.

Pinko-pacifists like me certainly haven't exactly been thrilled by the interminable focus on gays in the military generation after generation when there is so much more emancipatory perversity we could be focusing on instead, but even we see the power that comes from decrying militarism in the name of love when our refusal has the added force of the refusal of something we are actually, you know, not forbidden anyway.

Be all that as it may, I must say it is awfully edifying to imagine the wholesome spectacle of old uptight patriarchal pricks and sanctimonious homophobic bigots in the upper echelons who are so opposed to respecting queer folks as fellow human beings and fellow citizens that they are planning to create and archive this online bigot spigot in which rancid anti-gay genocidal fantasies and bedwetting bullying homos-in-the-shower fantasies can flow freely without any boundaries or repercussions, all the better to be used as a pretext to pretend this actually harmless and legally necessary reform is instead impossible for reasons of "morale."

Just get over it, and get it over with.

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