ORAC
It'll have to brighten my evening, the IT Stalinists here deem whatever's at your link not to be wholesome enough for my lunchtime browsing!
PingDit
DADT sounds fine but is the worst of all worlds in practice. It is, in fact, DADT Don't be found out. Gay folk aren't prepared to furtle (what a magnificent word!) around in the bushes any more and being seen coming out of a gay pub or club is enough to cause dismissal. Futhermore one is still left with exposure to blackmail and the concomitant security problems.
The US Armed forces have lost over 90 Arabic linguists to this nonsense since GW2 started as well as thousands of other Servicepeople.
Wader
"Hi Honey, can you get me a cup of coffee?"
If I came out with that to any of my (mainly mature female) staff, I fear Taggart would be round pronto as there had "Been a murrrdurrr!"
TE
Did you watch the films Clapham Junction or the equally instructive A Very British Sex Scandal on C4 last week? I doubt there is a culture of homophobia anywhere nowadays. There are too many folk 'out' such that every extended family in the country probably has an openly gay member by now.
Homophobia is largely a pathological affair involving folk who are so far back in the closet they give their postal addresses as BFPO Narnia. It can range from (in the old days), the homosexual RAFP Queerhunter-General, (nowadays) the homosexual Snr Officer / SNCO spouting off about these dreadful shirtlifters to the seriously screwed-up type who will beat the crap out of the guy they've just spent the night with in a fit of fear, guilt and shame.
It's a pity, but those living in Narnia past the age of 40 will probably stay there for the rest of their lives. At least nowadays they can't officially vent their fury and project their self-loathing onto other gay chaps. I can't imagine any of them attending a conference, not that a conference would be any good for them. You'll probably have to wait for the old queens to retire (and there are plenty of them).
None of the foregoing means that anyone who calls you a poof is a homophobe, which is a massively overused word among the ghettoistas.
You're right though: We'll always disagree on conferences, monitoring, workstrands and all the other pointless paraphernalia of the diversity industry. I come from the equality generation where we fought for our sexuality to be the irrelevance it should be in a professional environment. I'll never be convinced that my employer needs to support and engage with me as a gay man. I'd far rather my employer just engaged with me and my colleagues as people.
Perhaps if the high-heidyins had spent more time worrying about how to retain Tablet Eraser the person, rather than fartarseing around with diversity worrying about Tablet Eraser the gay chap, you might not be PVRing as I get the impression from your posts elsewhere that your reasons for going have nothing to do with your sexuality.
Anyway, back to work!