Man chosen to lead Marines against lifting gay ban

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Marine Corps says he doesn't think Congress should lift the ban on gay troops who want to serve openly.

Gen. James Amos' comment came hours before a Senate test vote on a defense policy bill that would repeal the 17-year-old law, known as "don't ask, don't tell."

Amos told a Senate panel on Tuesday he was concerned that unit morale could suffer. He also said the shake up could become a distraction for forces busy fighting in Afghanistan.

When pressed by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, who supports repealing the law, Amos said the Marine Corps would dutifully implement any changes to its personnel policy if Congress changed the law.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5grHLcTA5VMaxM1KPtvrf3OTOfZuQD9ICC2PG0

---

One of the knocks against Bush was that he only hired people who agreed with him. Obama has shown that he want people of many opinions working for him.

[jaxx]

1. As long as he follows the directives, his personal opinion doesn't matter.

I think he's said this before, but most are in favor of repealing the DADT.

[theoldman]

2. General Amos is saying what is politically correct.

We will never know what he really thinks.

[Smashcut]

15. How is supporting DADT "politically correct?"

[24601]

18. He was under oath - what he said is what he thinks. If he wanted to

suck-up to the chain, he could have lied & said he favored repeal. There is nothing wrong with having a personal opinion as long as you are willing to implement the law regardless of it. When DADT is the law, he supports it - when it is repealed, he doesn't.

[kiva]

3. Col. E. R. Householder, 1941:

The Army is made up of individual citizens of the United States who have pronounced views with respect to the Negro just as they have individual ideas with respect to other matters in their daily walk of life. Military orders, fiat, or dicta, will not change their viewpoints. The Army then cannot be made the means of engendering conflict among the mass of people because of a stand with respect to Negroes which is not compatible with the position attained by the Negro in civil life.

The Army cannot change civilian ideas on the Negro. The Army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective it must be organized and trained according to the principles which will insure success. Experiments to meet the wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NV2MtmlurRYC&pg=PA350&lpg=PA350&dq=%22the+army+is+not+a+sociological+laboratory%22&source=bl&ots=ZxFa8ayDN7&sig=ItKnK0B6AubPiROhZ9ZEuiCKuBw&hl=en&ei=q82YTOeCLJKCsQOj07WTDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20army%20is%20not%20a%20sociological%20laboratory%22&f=false

http://www.history.army.mil/books/integration/IAF-02.htm

Promoting bigots is rarely a good idea.

[Cid_B]

4. Is it mandatory to be a bigot to be against repeal of DADT?

In discussion of the issue with several of my colleagues, both junior and senior, the issue is benefit to the military and not the social aspect.

[kiva]

5. It depends on your point of view.

Col. Householder was also concerned with the benefit to the military...was he a bigot? :shrug: Don't know, but anyone who who cannot excuse his POV cannot excuse the opposition to DADT.

[wmbrew0206]

11. Women are still not allowed to serve in ground combat units due to the benefits to the military.

Does that mean that everyone who supports that position is sexist?

DADT needs to be lifted, but calling anyone who has some practical objections to how the ban should be lifted should not be called a bigot.

The military gets tired of being a political tool for both the right and the left. Believe it or not, most of the senior officers and SNCO's who are running the force, know what is best for their organizations. If the civilian command wants to give the military a command to make a change, the military will do it. However, allow the military to carry out that command like they do all others. They go and study the command, recommend the best courses of action to carry out that command, and then carry out the one the CO, or in this case POTUS, selects.

[WillParkinson]

6. How does it benefit the military to discharge qualified candidates?

Regardless of who they are if they are qualified to serve they should be allowed the opportunity.

[gratuitous]

7. A military force of personnel who can be themselves is superior

A military force of personnel who are constantly looking over their shoulders lest they fall under suspicion from their comrades in arms is weaker. So the benefit is to have a fully-integrated military where everyone can be true to their own nature, and individuals who can't work with their fellow soldiers are weeded out; anything less is traitorous weakening of our defense in the name of bigotry dressed up in other garb.

How's that for a "benefit to the military" argument?

[Rhythm]

8. Opposition to the lifting of DADT is bigoted position

All of the 'reasons' why it would be such a bad idea (unit cohesion, discipline, morale, etc...) are tired and disproven in the 35 other countries where gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals already openly serve (most all of Europe, Israel, and numerous countries in South America).

The only thing supporters of continuing DADT have left is their 'ick' factor crap about sharing showers, and their general disapproval of homosexuals as somehow less moral than their heterosexual counterparts. That's what makes it bigotry.

[quakerboy]

19. many people would say yes

Is that the real issue, or is that issue the excuse, the side of things that is OK to say out loud?

There have been gays in the military as long as there has been a military. The only thing that would be changing is whether it gets you kicked out if its becomes known.

To be honest, this presumption that it would effect the military negatively bugs me. I know a decorated veteran, Vietnam era, with some significant medical and mental issues. He is fairly clearly homosexual. Or at least, I make this assumption based on the fact that touching and making love to men is a constant topic of his conversation. And yet he will tell the world he "aint no queer". Because that is not acceptable. Despite his service, despite what he has done, the things that have Broken him as a functioning human, he cannot be himself. If he were a queer, not a straight guy who happened to love men, would that have decreased his efficacy as a soldier, or that of his unit or the army he served?

I don't buy it, and I do not believe that others, outside of needing some reason to rationalize continuing the policy, believe it either.

[wmbrew0206]

9. This is really shocking and I am not joking either.

It was thought President Obama picked Tamer to be the next Commandant because Tamer would go along with repealing DADT, where the other GO's in the running would not.

Picking a pilot as Commandant, went against over 230 years of tradition. The Commandant has always been an infantry officer. Eventually it evolved to the point where the #2 position, Assistant Commandant, was always a pilot. I can stress the importance of having the CMC be a ground combat arms officer enough. It is a very big deal to the Marines that the top officer has always served on the front lines and shared that hardship.

Picking a pilot as CMC raised a lot of eyebrows in the Marine Corps. It was basically thought that President Obama went with Amos because he was the only reliable senior Marine General on DADT. If not for that, there were several other highly qualified Infantry General Officers who would have been picked.

I will be interested to see how all this plays out in Marine Corps public opinion. I know a lot of them went with it, since they thought it was a DADT pick and the POTUS wanted to get that done. Now the question will be why did the POTUS pick a pilot, over a ground guy and go against the cultural norms of the service that every other POTUS has respected.

[bowens43]

10. why should his opinion carry any wieght?

seriously, if had to consider the opinion and morale of active duty military personnel, the military would not have been integrated......

The general needs to sit down and STFU.

[wmbrew0206]

12. Maybe because he was asked by the Chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee

History also shows us that when countries have Generals that "sit down and STFU", it doesn't work out to well for that country.

Would you have wanted a General to "sit down and STFU" in '02 in the run up to the Iraq War?

[Bigmack]

13. CMC is outranked by CIC... end of story. nt

[jeremyfive]

14. James Amos is a Person of Weak Character and He Thinks the Military Is That Weak, Too

Funny, how no one in my life has any problem whatsoever accepting the lives of gay friends and neighbors. Things go smoothly, no hassels.

But there is this attitude out there that that heterosexual soldiers (noted for outrageous orgy scandals and rape parties at many military training centers)will just "lose it" and lose all unit cohesion if a member of "the gay" is in their midst.

God, is the American military really that weak that they will abandon the standard of all-inclusion on which this country has been founded and shaped. There were no witch hunts in WWI, WWII, Nam or otherwise. This is the bigotry of the radical right that has so blighted the nation. It is despicable hate, nothing more. America's brightest and best are being criminalized.

To be consistent with their position, the military should return the 10-15% taxpayer money from gay taxpayers--after all, they wouldn't want to be funded by stinkin' gay money, would they? Consistency, bigots, please!

From the 1930's through the 1970's, 1/3 of all Puerto Rican women were sterilized, usually without their consent, courtesy of the U.S. government. Native American women were often subject to similiar treatment. Then there are the Tuskeegee experiments, courtesy of the U.S. Government. The United States has been enmeshed in these dark, evil periods of rampant discrimination before. Here we are again. It is time to end the hate. It is intolerable.

[Ian David]

16. Abraham Lincoln didn't have to deal with Fox "News." n/t

[meegbear]

17. Yes, how refreshing! Maybe next he can appoint David Duke head of the Civil Rights Commission ...

:eyes: