What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
In honor of the first day of the end of "don't ask, don't tell" this past Tuesday, the NY Times ran a story about how the Marines showed up to recruit at a Tulsa, Oklahoma gay community center, and no one came. No one, that is, except three lesbians: an overweight high school dropout, a young woman who had scars up and down her arms from self-inflicted wounds, and a First lieutenant in the OK National Guard with a specialty in behavioral health (whom the Marines turned away because they use the Navy for medical care).
Reading the story made me feel embarrassed -- but for whom, I'm not exactly sure. Why would the NYT print something like this? Surely the paper is not trying to suggest any deficiency in the gay community (though the gay characters in the story don't exactly inspire confidence).
No, I suspect the message of the story is the following. The end of "don't ask, don't tell" = NBD. And all of you who had your panties in a wad over the end of DADT, well don't you feel silly now?
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Feb '11
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Maybe they want a military version of Title IX.
May '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Yes, cheers to the NYT for subtlety. It's a silly point though. An institution doesn't change overnight, and the male bravado and homophobic atmosphere of the military won't dissipate immediately. As it is right now, I'm not sure many gays would really get that excited about joining.
The military will begin to change as the numbers of gays increase--there have already been changes as women began to play a more prominent role--which will in turn make the military more desirable to the gay lifestyle.
And less successful as a combat force, dare I say.
May '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
One other thought. The implication of the NYT piece works both ways. It makes the colossal effort--all the shrill cries of injustice by the LGBT crowd--look a little foolish. Do any of them even want to join?
Sep '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Yep, NBD.
Brandon, many did join and we separated thousands under the previous policies.
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Lt Colonel Don: Yep, NBD.
Brandon, many did join and we separated thousands under the previous policies. · Sep 22 at 10:15am
Lt. Colonel -- it's been a year and an entire rank since we last saw you. Welcome back and congratulations on the promotion
May '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Brandon Zaffini: ...--there have already been changes as women began to play a more prominent role--which will in turn make the military more desirable to the gay lifestyle.
And less successful as a combat force, dare I say. · Sep 22 at 9:59am
There is more than one gay lifestyle Brandon, and as you know, the Armed Forces already have fine gay men and women serving their country. That they are now not subject to dismissal based on their sexuality is in my opinion a good thing.
It remains to be seen how such changes will affect the success of a combat force. The Ancient Athenians, Spartans, & Janissaries did okay,
I wonder after all the fuss on all sides of this DADT debate, whether it will be a case of wanting what you cannot have.
Similarily, when/if gay marriage occurs, and I wonder after the excitement of securing thisnew freedom; whether it will turn out like all those other forbidden wants, and end in an all too human anticlimax.
(I am old enough to remember some gay groups declaring their utter hatred of heterosexual norms like marriage in the 1980s, now of course this is a demanded as a right
Please note I do not want to open the gay marriage topic again, as the bloody wounds are still healing from the last 4 times it came up)
Edited on Sep 22, 2011 at 10:42amMay '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Lt Colonel Don: Yep, NBD.
Brandon, many did join and we separated thousands under the previous policies. · Sep 22 at 10:15am
I wasn't really disputing that fact. Just noting that the aim of the NY Times, which was to suggest the opposite, works both ways in this instance
Nov '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
I'd figure most those already inclined and able to join the military are also inclined to deal with DADT.
May '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Talleyrand
There is more than one gay lifestyle Brandon, and as you know, the Armed Forces already have fine gay men and women serving their country. That they are now not subject to dismissal based on their sexuality is in my opinion a good thing.
It remains to be seen how such changes will affect the success of a combat force. The Ancient Athenians, Spartans, & Janissaries did okay,
I wonder after all the fuss on all sides of this DADT debate, whether it will be a case of wanting what you cannot have.
Similarily, when/if gay marriage occurs, and I wonder after the excitement of securing thisnew freedom; whether it will turn out like all those other forbidden wants, and end in an all too human anticlimax.
Edited on Sep 22 at 10:42 am
They were never dismissed for their sexuality. They were dismissed if they went public with their homosexuality. Quite different.
I agree that it's a case of wanting what you can't have. "It remains to be seen" is a nice thought, but the assumption is that it will be so easy to test or quantify.
Edited on Sep 22, 2011 at 10:59amAug '11
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
First, it's Tulsa - not exactly renowned as a gay mecca.
Second, the sort of gay people who might be inclined towards joining the Marines are probably unlikely to be hanging out at the local LBGT clubhouse.
I suspect that those gays who are so inclined think, "I don't need to make a spectacle of myself at some gay-recruiting circus, I'll just mosey on down to the local recruiting office like anybody else."
Dec '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Some number of potential military recruits will be deterred by the end of DADT because they will no longer be able to use military service as a "beard" for keeping their sexual orientation secret.
By the way, does anyone actually believe that the end of DADT will mean that Ivy League universities and big-city public school systems will welcome ROTC and JROTC back onto their campuses with the full blessing of their governing officials? Or will the same people keep telling us that the US military is a tool of a fascistic, imperialist regime?
Sep '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Great post - thanks, DIane. The NYT story nicely captures the absurdity of this whole adventure into social engineering.
Jun '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
"WHAT IF MARINES OPENED RECRUITMENT TO GAYS AND NOONE SHOWED UP"
Uh, that would be, with rare exceptions, a pretty good.thing.
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Well as Bill McGurn reported yesterday, Harvard welcomed back the ROTC this week.
Dec '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Well as Bill McGurn reported yesterday, Harvard welcomed back the ROTC this week. · Sep 22 at 11:36am
That's good news. How about Columbia? Or the San Francisco Unified School District?
Jun '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
What has always been the bigger threat in allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the threat to heterosexual women currently serving. They are already the sexual "target" of single service men where they are always vastly outnumbered. now, they will be forced to share living quarters, group showers, etc., with a whole new batch of lesbians who are sexually attracted to them. It is patetly unfair to put them in that situation, no more fair than if they were compelled to share living quarters or bathrooms with males. Lesbains will by far be more likely to join the military than gay men. This change in policy will have the very unhappy result of driving qualified heterosexual women out of the military.
Edited on Sep 22, 2011 at 1:17pmNov '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
I think that this whole business is going to be a damned mess. Undoubtedly there were homosexuals in the Army when I served (I personally "boarded out" some under Section 8 of the relevant AR), but nobody made anything of it so long as they did their jobs and did not bother the other men.
Now, their open presence, despite what the opinion surveys may purport to show, will be corrosive of good discipline and order.
I don't know what to make of the situation of the ladies in the services. I am too far removed to have even a guess.
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
With all due respect, this scenario seems a little far-fetched to me. Maybe this is an over-generalization, but lesbian women don't exactly come off as predatory. Nor are most of them going to waste their time with straight women (just like a straight woman is not going to waste her time trying to win the affections of a gay man).
May '10
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Diane, with all due respect...
During my time in the USAF, back in the pre-DADT days of the late 70s, I had a bisexual woman hit on me regularly and then move in with me (without asking) when my roommate moved in with a friend. I kept her at friendly arm's length, politely declining her frequent verbal offers of intimacy, as I did the men I found uninteresting. It was not so nice when I woke up to find her in bed with me one morning. So, au contraire, women can be quite as predatory as men, though usually without the element of force or threat. I asked for another room the next day, BTW.
Mar '11
Re: What If the Marines Opened Up Recruitment to Gays and No One Showed Up?
Repealing DADT was never about a huge, untapped source of homosexuals wanting to serve in the military. Most would fight military service tooth and nail if it came to a draft. This was just the latest in a long chain of moves to get homosexuality "validated" legally.