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London: Gay couple threatened with death in violent late night homophobic assault
141
Government considers watered down same-sex marriage bill to minimise Tory rebellion
133
Tory MP Gerald Howarth: 'There are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who want more than just same-sex marriage'
94
France: Far right activist commits suicide in Notre Dame following legalisation of equal marriage
93
Philip Hammond: 'No great demand for gay marriage and it's upsetting vast numbers of people'
73
Norman Tebbit: David Cameron has 'f**** things up' with his equal marriage bill
66
Tory MP Sir Gerald Howarth defends 'aggressive homosexual community' equal marriage slur
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David Cameron: Gay teenagers will stand that bit taller following equal marriage vote
63
US church blames Woolwich suspected terror killing on UK acceptance of gay people
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US church blames Oklahoma tornado on gay basketball player Jason Collins
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Robert in S. Kensington 720
GulliverUK 357
Jock S. Trap 347
Mark Y 331
Iris 328
Midnighter 311
That There Other David 299
Rehan 297
Tim 296
D.McCabe 281
“it will not be lifted until the Pentagon certifies that military readiness will not be harmed by the change.”
What an insult.
Meanwhile it’s fine for them to serve, fight and died for their country.
Where’s the respect in that?
Jock
It’s the USA – they are a technologically advanced country but a socially backward one.
I thought they were technologyically backward too, don’t they still wind Apple phones up before use?
There have been steps forward with the US but too slow …
Think the next couple of years are going to be a big battle ground for LGBT rights – the govt and military can lead by example by getting this one right
We are fed up with youtube’s homophobia
http://www.facebook.com/love.conquers.youtube.censorship
Does youtube censor all over or just in the US, I have been watching a story line with a gay kiss on yoututbe uk and it was not censored?
Not sure but I am aware of their censorship – whether it is solely the US or globally or selected geographic areas it is wrong
Why the hell don’t they just get on with it. I suspect the fogies in the Pentagon are just showing that they’re still in charge.
Every argument in this long sorry story for the US Military has focussed on the impact it has on military effectiveness … haven’t we already had this argument ad infinitum?
As fas as I understand they have taken the step that any dismissal now has to be taken by a very senior military person (and that therefore now, in practice, this is not happening) – they have taken the power to do this away from lower ranking officers which effectively stifles the whole thing. So while yes there is still the ‘legal’ issue of Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell pending the full implementation of the new law in practice its not happening.
Aside from anything else, to dismiss someone on grounds of sexuality prior to the law being fully implemented would open them up to enormous additional financial sanctions later.
@Staircase2
However, whilst the prevention of dismissal is a good thing in practice – this should never have been in place. Claiming that introduction of the new law (signed off by the President) should be stymied whilst they assess the impact of the new law on combat readiness is ridiculous given that they have already concluded publically that sexuality has no impact on military effectiveness.
If the policy and procedures are neither lawful nor equal then regardless of how the real world decisions are being exercised, they speak of a regime that is unequal – this needs to be remedied otherwise people will continue to be cynical (and rightly so) at any attempts by the US military (and possibly other US public sector organisations) to demonstrate an equal stance on orientation.
The good ole US of A !! So proud yet so legally ridiculous in its social laws !!! A strange neighbor indeed….
This is actually moving along quite speedily by the standards of the U.S. military bureaucracy. It’ll be over by fall.
One good thing about the military is that once they’re committed to doing something like this they can be trusted to make a thorough job of it. Racism was a much bigger problem when the military was integrated than homophobia is now, but they made it happen anyway. It took time and it wasn’t always pretty, but the end result is that the military is now arguably one of the most egalitarian institutions in the country with regard to race. I expect this will go the same way, only faster.
I hope you are right in terms of the outcome
Interested in what you mean by “Racism was a much bigger problem” – what informs that opinion?
Only about a quarter of the public supported integration then, while around three quarters support open service now. The Pentagon has actually said that repealing DADT will be relatively painless compared to integration in part because they were going against the tide of public opinion on that, whereas on this they’re really just catching up to where the rest of society already is. So yeah, I’m confident this will play out along similar lines. I think it will go much faster if for no other reason just because society in general is further along on this than they were on race back then.