11-18-2012, 05:46 PM
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Common Sense-Common Good
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Out of the Closet and Into a Uniform
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/fa...anted=all&_r=0
Quote:
Katherine Moore, a junior at the Naval Academy, said she lied about her sexual identity for years and took pains to use gender-neutral terms when talking on the phone to her girlfriend. She still remembers feeling engulfed by panic one day when she accidentally described her lover as a “she,” not a “he.”
No one noticed her slip, she said, and she continued her studies without being disciplined. But she realized then, she said, that she was living a life of “extreme paranoia.”
“Now, I don’t have to keep track of how I cover up stories with certain people or who I’m O.K. to be out to and who I’m not,” Ms. Moore said. “It’s a huge, huge relief.”
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Quote:
It is no surprise that the law, which banned openly gay men, lesbians and bisexuals from military service and military academies, still casts a shadow. After President Bill Clinton enacted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 1993, some 17,000 gay service members were discharged.
No one knows precisely how many students were forced to leave the military academies. Officials at the Air Force Academy and at West Point said none were expelled. Officials at the Naval Academy said they did not keep track. There is little doubt that the law, and the largely conservative culture at the military institutions, made the academies an inhospitable environment for gay students, professors at the Air Force Academy and West Point said.
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Quote:
Colonel Gary A. Packard Jr., who directs the Department of Behavioral Science and Leadership at the Air Force Academy and co-wrote a recent report on the effect of the repeal on the armed services, said that the transition has gone remarkably well at the military academies.
“Are there still pockets of resistance? Absolutely,” said Colonel Packard, who said that some older staff members and retirees would prefer to see openly gay students barred from the academies.
“But we hear more stories about the positive,” he said. “Cadets have a more open dialogue with each other because it’s now safe to have the conversation. You don’t see a great big coming-out-of-the-closet party. But what you do see is the ability to have a conversation that you couldn’t have before. That’s an important step.”
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So much for the sky falling and destroying unit cohesion... 
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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.
-- Hitler, April 11 1942
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