Hello all, I've read this thread with great interest and finally been moved to join in. This is a long post but hopefully you'll find it interesting.
BAagle: What they do by mutual consent and it's none of anyone else's business. Which is infinitely preferable to the bullying and witchhunting which used to go on before Pink Wednesday came about, in my view. However, wasn't the "Don't ask - don't tell" philosophy of another country's armed forces rather simpler and easier for all to accept?"
DA-DT-DH doesn't help anyone. It discourages people from playing their full role in the service community and your personal preferences aside, it prevents the individuals enjoying the company of their partners in the workplace social setting. Like An Teallach says, it means you have to force well adjusted people into the shadows of embittered closeting - and that leaves people open for threats, blackmail and always watching their backs .. not exactly great for teamwork eh.
Leon Jabachjabicz: Marmite drilling is not my bag...that IS my choice. Also as a hetero I have always employed the motto of "Why use the taxiway when the runway is perfectly serviceable?"
"Marmite drilling" is quite clearly not just the bag of gay men. I know it is a fantasy / reality for many of my str8 m8s, otherwise
1. They wouldn't keep banging on about wanting to take their girlfriends / wives / casual shags up the catflap
2. There wouldn't be such a roaring trade in straight back door porn - online, print and videos.
Your personal 'preferences' aside that fact remains undisputable.
Flatus Veteranus: It is nonsense to expect servicemen to make a crash change of attitude to appease the PC liberals. A gradual integration would be the best way forward - perhaps with units "manned (?)" exclusively by gays.
Segregation of any service personnel into separate units is hardly the route to integration - apartheid of the sexes, races, sexual orientation - hmmm. Haven't we had that before somewhere in the last century? And how are you going to separate out the majority of lesbian/gay personnel who choose to keep their sexuality an extremely private matter in their workplace? Simply put, you are not. Furthermore, if you can somehow manage to get apartheid oops segregation to work in peacetime, how are you going to do it on ops, with personnel for each force package selected from across units as required?
16 blades - I've read your posts with interest. I wholeheartedly agree with your thought that what is important is whether ANY individual serviceman can do his job to the standard that is required - that is what is important in an organisation which works and lives together. However I want to respond to a couple of your points.
16 BLADES 1. I will speak as I feel. I am legally entitled to do so - [It is] my legal right to hold and express those views (Article 12, Human Rights Act ) - so why do you try to dissuade us from doing so?
2. explain why the vast majority who have held these traditional views for so long should be made to throw them out of the window overnight to appease a tiny, but highly vocal, minority?
3. Sex exists because we have a need to reproduce. One cannot reproduce by shoving one's nob up another bloke's arse, to put it bluntly. It is therefore not natural.
4. Neither is it 'equivalent' to a marriage, for the same reason - marriage exists to provide a stable and balanced environment in which to raise children.
5. A same-sex relationship is not a balanced environment.
6. I have no problem with gays serving in the military. Just get on with your jobs and give the politics a rest, eh? The more you bang on about how 'hard done to' you consider yourselves, the more people like me will find their tolerance being exhausted.
1. This is an interesting point. I detest censorship same as right-thinking Western liberal. However, I'd be interested for some guidance as to how far the Armed Forces Code of Social Conduct governs current service and reserve personnel and their public pronouncements when out of uniform, and online.
2a. Holding "traditional" views for a long time does not necessarily make them right (eg, burning of heretics, persecution of the Jews, not giving women the vote etc).
2b. I am no devil but let's just consider the minority to which you refer in this post. On HM Government's estimate you are talking about 7% of the working population. Some might even put it as high as 10%. This is not tiny - it is anything up to 20 000 currently serving personnel in the regular forces. I agree that there is a group of highly vocal campaigners and they may not be the cup of tea of all my gay co-servicemen, but please try to see past that vocalness to the colleagues and friends that you MUST already know and can relate to. Equating the media image of Gay Pride with all gays is like equating the worst yob on the football terraces conducting section attacks with the mild-mannered father taking his son to a game at his local club.
3. In that case neither is sticking your nob up a woman's arse but that doesn't seem to stop most heteros.
4. ... which is why it is working so well in contemporary society. Are you sure marriage isn't a construct of the church to aid social control and try to prevent STI spreading through sexual promiscuity? That's a whole other discussion.
5. Why isn't it? What evidence do you base this on?
6. I agree we should all get on with doing our jobs, straight or gay, and be judged on that. However, whether your tolerance of people banging on is exhausted or not, the powers that be will continue to *require* you to be tolerant.
Tablet_eraser: Thank God I work with people who defend their friends and colleagues.
Me too!. I haven't yet had a colleague, friend or otherwise, tell me how "wrong" everything was or have a go. Well, except for the girls who still think it is such a waste (or maybe it was "what a waist"?).
Training Risky: What I (and I expect many others - gay and straight) have a problem with is the constant parading of UK military homosexuals in Gay Pride, gay magazines and other publicity-grabbing events in order to 'prove' to the nation how much the military has changed since the bad old days.
Please don't assume that everyone who is gay and in HM Armed Forces wants to march in uniform in Gay Pride, or even see the recruiters (who are not necessarily gay and simply be on duty) man a float. However, I do believe there is a place for each of the Services to have a presence at events with such a high profile in the gay community at least once, in order to demonstrate that we in the forces are committed to equal opportunities for all and that sexual orientation, like race and gender, are quite simply not an issue. I would be quite surprised if RN, Army and RAF were all to have such high-profile reporting were they to be involved next year again. Of course, that might depend on whether the diversity teams actually asked serving gay (and straight) personnel what *they* thought about it. What about the Royal Marines float though ...
Sloppy Link, "If I were to organise a xxxxing pride march for the hetrosexual public, would members of the armed forces be allowed to attend? In uniform?"
As far as I am aware, the appearances by RN, Army and RAF at the various parades have been officially organised and officially sanctioned. They were arranged by the recruitment or diversity policy teams of the respective single services and were not specifically staffed by gay personnel. That was the point of the official armed forces presence - diversity and recruitment. How many people not part of the official team actually turned up on their own, in uniform?
Flatus Veteranus: "Gays who join the armed services and perform their duties well should be respected. But they should not parade their proclivities. The culture of the Services is strongly macho-hetero and this cannot be turned around quickly. Banter about gays is not necessarily homohobic.
1. The culture of the Services is by definition macho and long may that continue. Please tell me that you are not for a moment suggesting that is has to be hetero to be macho - you would be doing many of your colleagues an immense disservice.
2. The point about banter is not whether it is intentionally homophobic, it is whether it is perceived by the bantered as being offensive, threatening, unwelcome or [insert your choice of prejuduce]-ist/ [insert your choice of prejuduce]-ic. That's what military regs have to say. I suppose this does affect all of us as we then have to be doubly aware of what we are saying, intended in jest or otherwise.
The burning bush: "Gay means carefree, mirthful, happy etc.......or least it used to"
Languages are living and develop as usage changes. We get new words like chav, bling, Bluetooth; old words go out of use and other words develop new meanings like wireless or gay. You are not telling me you would rather be speaking like an Elizabethan actor in Shakespearean English? Thankfully, Nigger these days is just a poor little doggy buried at RAF Scampton - or shall we roll back that linguistic change as well?
Phew, I know that's quite a long post but you guys have all had so much to say and reply to. On a parting note, 16 blades said that the PC brigade have browbeaten most people into silence by crying 'homophobe!' anytime anybody questions the agenda of activists and mouthpieces. I acknowledge there is a risk that ANY debate on any mildly contentious subject can be shouted out. I think this has - largely - been avoided in this thread. Knee-jerk reactions and any attempt to silence - reasoned, balanced, mature - debate aren't helpful to anyone. Fair and frank exchange is. After all, it's all about giving and taking
