From FB tonight - still writing responses, feel free to chime in:

[The Straight Story]

"What do you think? Nevermind whether or not homosexuality is right or wrong. That is it's own debate altogether, for those who insist on making it a debate. Should the military be forced to accept gays when the jury is still out in the rest of society?"

....

" There is disagreement on the issue. As long as there is disagreement on the issue, should the military be forced to make change that society has not yet accepted for itself?

You continue to argue the rightness or wrongness of gays in the military, not the question that was asked."

......

The above is from a friend, his dad chimed in as well:

......

"While the matter of race is one of birth, the source of a persons sexuality is still unaswered and undetermined scientifically. Accordingly, while racial integration may or may not have been the right thing to do, to legally force sexual proclivity integration upon anyone, military or civilian, seems to me to be yet another example of the "nanny state" intruding into the lives of we civilians and forcing yet another 'social imposition" upon our miltary "just because we can". Is this real justice?"

I have chimed in quite a bit on this issue (more than once, this conversation has come up a few times) - the poster is a former Marine.

These are the folks we are fighting against day in and out. The beck/rush lovers, the folks we might have grown up with (as in this case), relatives (some who have also chimed in on the issue), etc.

What do you say to such people? My first reply to the initial post was:
"The military is made up and paid for by all US citizens, They asked the members and they overwhelmingly supported gays in the military. Gays already DO serve. If someone can handle Bombs, Bullets, IDE's, etc they can surely handle knowing the person beside them, their fellow American, is different than them. If they CAN'T handle it - maybe they are not cut out to be in the military in the first place."

What would you say, and I will toss it out there to them.

[Mz Pip]

1. We kicked out of the military

Arabic translators because they were Gay. We're being told that keeping America safe was so important but not as important as keeping Gays out of the military. Meanwhile there aren't enough translators to keep up with the intel that's coming in.

I don't think you can have it both ways - America needs to be defended and protected by those who are willing to defend it, not just by those who the prejudiced and bigotted deem worthy of serving.

If a Gay person is willing to lay down their life for this country, why is that not enough?

[The Straight Story]

3. Yeah, I posted something like that to them before, and I knew one of those translators

They avoided it.

Update:

I asked again, what is the question?:

Got this back:
Should the military be forced to accept gays when the jury is still out in the rest of society?

Replied:
Should the military ever be forced to accept anything as long as some in it, or in society in general, are not in agreement? Is the military a republic (or democracy)? When you sign up you agree to follow orders and serve to the best of you...r ability. If the generals and Commander in Chief say 'accept gays and deal with it' you do so. But wait....

The jury was out for many in going to war with Iraq (they didn't have WMD). Many were against it and protested it. Do you think soldiers should have obeyed orders and went? Was Iraq a threat to the US? The jury was out on that - did you support ignoring that jury?

How many people in Iraq, civilians, are now dead - people who were no threat to us at all? Lots of people across the world and the US were against the war, including many in the military - should serving and obeying orders be up to a vote?

... Sigh. Like pissing in the wind at times :)

[patrice]

2. It's Integration, we're not asking anyone to have sex with them, so what's the problem. The Military

is not a private club; it's supported by our tax dollars, therefore our laws regarding Discrimination should apply to it. If that's a problem for some people, they need to quit.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. I love how people who want to butt into other people's business can complain about a "nanny state"

10 bucks says the fb commenter would bring back sodomy laws if he could.

[Angry Dragon]

5. Ask them if they believe everyone should have the same rights and opportunities

as everyone else. Only two ways to answer that one.
Depending on their answer you could then ask them
why the "nanny state" should deny opportunities to
some and not others.

[obxhead]

6. America is all about freedom.

You are free to be a bigot, but you are not free to force that bigoted way of life on anyone else.

[patrice]

7. What society has not accepted yet itself is LGBT Civil Right to Marry. That is not the

same thing as ending DADT. I could disagree with LGBT right to marry, but I cannot legally oppose their presence in my workplace. DADT also has a life-or-death effect upon members of the military, depending upon at least some superior skill levels that are excluded because they are LGBT. Whereas, Gay Marriage does not affect anyone else's chances of survival in harm's way.

[veganlush]

8. I've never been a fan of war

I missed the need to register for the draft during 'nam by a few months as I recall. I don't know that I could have handled going to war. I'll never know I guess. I do respect and am awed by the bravery of people who serve in the military and I recognize that, at least in theory, some conflicts are just and necessary. I support the people that want to repeal DADT but I have to admit to being confused by one aspect of it: as I understand it now members of the opposite sex, that is, people who could be reasonably be expected to find attraction to each other are not required to shower or bunk together. That being the case (assuming it is the case)how do we square that with the likelihood that members of the same sex will find themselves showering and bunking with people whom they are attracted and vice-versa in the post-DADT era? Will the repeal of DADT mean that the genders will soon be co-mingling too?

[patrice]

9. "undetermined scientifically" The mathematical givens of Descriptive Statistics, upon which

lots (most?) of what we claim is "Knowledge" is based, have always been that if you could devise a valid and reliable test of the causes of ___________________, homosexuality in this case, and administer that test to an unlimited representative sample, the results are going to show a few individuals with high strength causal factors, a few with low strength causal factors, and most in the middle with various mixes of the causes. In other words, without the ability to administer such a test to a given individual, you are looking at a probability of 50:50 whether they are in the stronger pre-determiners group or the weaker pre-determiners group, and even then you don't know where they place in that group around the mean strength for the factors that you're looking at. Without a better ability to evaluate this situation, do you think it good policy to assume "guilty unless proven innocent"? Is there anything else that we as a society make that kind of assumption about, without ANY empirical evidence?

[patrice]

10. "proclivity" I'm still having one HELL of a problem with THEIR proclivity to discriminate, does that

justify my discrimination against them?

This is very much like making war on people (like Iraq) for what they could do, rather than for what they actually have a demonstrable intention to do. People have proclivities for ALL kinds of things with which I disagree, or that make me quite uncomfortable, where should we draw the line?

People have proclivities that could result in them becoming dumbass Republicans, shall we discriminate against them BEFORE they do?

BTW, wouldn't a proclivity be biological? If so, how much so?

This problem with "proclivities" is VERY suspicious. It smacks of vulnerability and weakness. A thing doesn't even have to be actual, potential is enough of an excuse to harm them.

[EC]

11. Aren't sexual encounters against the military code now

anyway? So what is the problem? If they are thinking of rape it's bad whether it's heterosexual or homosexual, so I really don't get the problem...Military personnel are not supposed to engage in sexual activities while on duty right?

[struggle4progress]

12. I've somehow managed to do every job I ever had without inquiring into any coworker's sexuality

There just really aren't that many jobs where the sexual attitudes or endowments or proclivities or tastes or styles of one's coworkers are important