I’ve always believed that those actively agitating to repeal the military’s Congress’ Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell law were less personally invested in the right of gay servicemembers to serve – they were serving already – than they were to a broader national agenda using military law (i.e., federal law) to accomplish what would not otherwise be achievable in the legislatures of the several states. Repeal of DADT was step one.
Ecce, step two, on the editorial pages of the WaPo:
Despite all of the controversy, repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the easy part. Politics aside, it takes no courage to simply right a wrong. The president and members of Congress have been congratulating themselves for doing the right thing. But minds should be turning to the difficult questions that remain. These are the same questions that vex our society when it comes to equal rights for homosexuals. They cross over into the “gray areas” where some start to feel uncomfortable and where the legal options are ambiguous.
It is, for example, one thing to hand a gay junior sailor a paintbrush and point him toward a rusty bulkhead. But can that gay sailor, if he has a partner, collect the same housing allowance his married counterparts do? Can a lesbian sailor request to be stationed where her partner is? Will the military recognize a marriage between two service members that is legal in one state but not in another?
The issue of gay marriage provokes deep divisions. I hope that my brothers and sisters in the armed forces can help the Defense Department set standards for the rights of gay men and lesbians that far outpace the conflicted sentiment and resulting legal tangle in our society. This is an opportunity to show all Americans that homosexuals deserve equal treatment under the law. This applies not just in some cases or with limitations but to the full rights all Americans should share when it comes to legal matters such as marriage, salary and tax benefits.
Here we go.
For what it’s worth, I have no objection to civil unions or recognizing domestic partnerships. These are private contracts, willingly entered into by the individuals concerned and of little interest to the state. I’m just old school on the word “marriage,” preferring to use the definition that our culture has broadly accepted for a societal cornerstone over the better part of 4,000 years. And from a secular state’s perspective, the word “marriage” comes with tax benefits because government finds compelling utility in stable marriages that foster the next nation of taxpayers. Alternate unions, by definition, cannot organically contribute.
Well said, Lex…as always.
Happy New Year.
So, if “marriage” is defacto post-DADT meaningless, a sailor or sailorette should be able to get housing and BAQ and medical care for their “partner?”
So if someone decides to “marry” their dog, or multiple wives, or something they should qualify too?
Sorry, this is all getting too confusing for me. I think maybe we have made a huge mistake and should just go back to declaring homosexuality as immoral, wrong and illegal.
Unfortunately, liberalism’s goofy ideas are no longer seen as immoral, wrong or illegal.
Never trust a liberal.
“So if someone decides to “marry” their dog, or multiple wives, or something they should qualify too?”
John, this whole mess gets even wackier:
A British man famous for celebrating Christmas every day is now planning to marry his Christmas tree…………….he insisted: “I love my Christmas tree more than anything else, so that’s why I want to marry it.
I too am old school like Lex. Marriage is between a man and a woman. To me anything else is not marriage. End of conversation.
Man, this slope sure is slippery.
My dog was cute, but not like my wife was.
Written by an apparently active duty Navy Chief Cryptological Tech…
For years I have seen the strategic brilliance of the “gay marriage” push. It is a fundamental center of gravity attack, and…as hard a slog as it seems to those who argue against it, or even who don’t object to other legal instruments that provide allocation of estates, assets, etc, the victory in this battle does something I’m willing to bet any and all of the war fighters around here will grudging nod in a salute to those on “the other side ” about: If you get the label “marriage” to have and to hold, then no company HR person, no investment fund, nor insurance agent, much less any civil servant, deny you anything in any manner of benefits, in any manual, contract or procedure guide that says you can have “this” if you’re married.
It has always been, primarily, about obliterating all efforts to be slow rolled or obfuscated by the HR person, or a lawyer, or a bank representative, when asking for their (the partners) assets. I would go full stop here, but the cynic in me also thinks this is the secondary issue: The legal profession has so exploited the divorce market, that they need “new clients” so all the legions of new lawyers we churn out will have jobs and the senior partners will get their overrides. Yes, pretty cynical of me, but will anyone make a coherent counter argument? The beauty of this, is our culture is pretty (read: all too) familiar with the steps along the path to dissolve the only currently government sanctioned union to produce future “inputters,” so it’s just a “plug and play” (thank you Bill Gates) (offensive pun not intended, but it certainly fits) function, when “marriage” occurs.
The asset allocation/ spousal benefit floodgates will be opened. The lawyers and courts doors won’t have any respectable objections.
It’s all about money. Nothing any more difficult than that. Had it been otherwise, if it was about keeping assets a couple built, the legal methods have been in place, and if it was really only about love, that would have been sufficient. It would have also shown the ability to be “tolerant” of those who will be footing the bill for their old age, government supported, biologically impossible to have children couples. It’s not about tolerance at all. And, just be the first one in your neighborhood/office/club to state the obvious: “They will never contribute back to society as a hetro couple could.” You will be branded, all while the jobs and money disappears before their eyes.
On top of it all, as pointed out, the system has never computed such outlays in terms of military benefits, let alone the massive entitlement programs that will be emptied out far sooner than any one would have ever imagined.
We have, without thinking through (so what’s new any more?), how a simple DADT vote shall increase the stress on a stagnant economy, and therefore our future, and the gays will suffer equally with the “nons.”
And the winners? The lawyers who take their winnings on both sides of the discussion….
On the service side of things, I understand there’s some benefits for enlisted Marines (not sure if it’s all services) who marry: getting out of the barracks, and so on. Leads to all sorts of marriages, if not of convenience, then at least rather sooner than might otherwise be the case.
Might be time for the services to take a long look at what, precisely, they’re interested in supporting as far as unions and families: by all means offer benefits and support to a service member with/expecting children, but take a long, hard look at what benefits or prerogatives should be extended to the partner/a childless couple.
If memory serves, the Canadian Forces survivor benefits, Memorial Cross, and so on go to whoever the member designates – parent(s), widow/widower, NOK. Whatever.
As far as benefits while the member is alive – someone else can have a crack at that. Seems the services could lead the way, if they come up with something fair and universal.
Ok, look, let’s get one thing fricking straight. Gays already have equal treatment under the law. A man can marry a woman who’s not an immediate relative and a woman can marry a man who’s not an immediate relative. THAT’S THE LAW!
This is NOT Jim Crow where there WERE separate laws for blacks and whites. There are NO separate laws this time around. There is no law that says: Gays can’t marry. A man who feels attracted towards other men has the exact same legal rights I do, he just doesn’t like that they don’t let them do what he wants to.
This is a huge difference our society is missing big time. There already is equality before the law. This is NOT discrimination. The purpose of marriage is to propagate the species/civilization by creating stable FAMILIES and tying them together into a broader nation, so that loyalty to an individual family/clan/tribe doesn’t outweigh loyalty to the overall society. (The American Nuclear family is a relatively radical one in traditional human terms, how many people here would kill for a blood feud for a third cousin you’ve never met? But in history doing just that has been almost the norm.)
But any Burkean concept of society and the social contract being something that has delivered the fruits of the sacrifices and investments and moderate behaviors of previous generations and ties you to generations not yet born just doesn’t jibe with the “if it feels good, do it,” epicurean, lazy, selfish, all about me, “self-realization,” liberty meaning the government takes care of you so you’re “free” to not work and play Nintendo all day long Left.
This is something I fear my side will lose given the cultural decline and moral ignorance of our society since the Left has taken over education and mass media, but which I will fight for nonetheless. Marriage is not about getting what you want, it’s a building block for civilization that comes with expectations and responsibilities for carrying the society forward by having and raising kids, a little bit tough for gays to do eh? And a matter of fact something they don’t normally allow closely related people to do as well because of inbreeding leading to f’ed up children. Once this passes just wait for polygamists, people who want to marry immediate family members,
people who want to marry their pets, etc. coming out of the woodwork and demanding “equality before the law.”
Let’s get a friggin’ grip here!
And, oh yeah, Happy New Year to all. 2010 won’t be missed a bit in the final ledger, some good, a lot of not so good. Like Lex said, if 2011 is going to be any better we’ll have to earn it.
By that logic anti-miscegenation laws aren’t discriminatory, since a white man can no more marry a black woman than a black man can marry a white woman. The courts have historically failed to see the merit in that argument.
Marriage isn’t about children. If it were marriage would dissolve upon menopause, vasectomy, hysterectomy, etc. All those people are exactly as capable of producing the next generation as homosexuals.
The concept of marriage isn’t old. The words may be old but the concepts have changed radically over the millennia. What started out as a property transfer fro father to husband has become a (hopefully) love-based partnership of equals.
No I don’t follow your argument at all. And it’s not me, it’s you. No, technically anti-miscegenation laws are not equality before the law by my logic especially since the purpose of marriage is to create a stable environment for integrating society and raising children as I have stated, and by my logic they are still racism (A black man would have de facto and de jure different access/rights to marriage than I would as a white man and vice versa which is not equality before the law). You’re confusing my argument very badly and drawing a false conclusion from it that I personally take akin to libel. I myself tried to marry a Korean girl who’s family would not approve of her dating a white man so you’re tactic here won’t carry water with me.
Are you serious about claiming that menopause and inability to breed with age or voluntary surgery invalidates my argument? Give me a break dude. Do you think that once parents have had children their entire duty to raising them and to society is null and void and therefore marriage should dissolve thereafter as it serves no purpose any longer? Or that is somehow a necessary fallout of my logic? Marriage is also about society and weaving it together, which is why it has only in very recent times been about a love based partnership and why there is a danger in society in taking this new interpretation of it to an extreme and forgetting its core function as our society has. Yes, hopefully it is between two people who genuinely love each other and ideally it should be, but that is icing on the cake/everything working right. At core it has other and necessary purposes/effects.
Come at me with something serious bub, not this rat-ass and ridiculously false equivalence between being opposed to gay marriage being the same as being opposed to interracial marriage
In what way did a black man have different access to marriage in the Jim Crow era? He could still get married to a black woman, just like a white man could get married to a white woman.
If a single man gets a vasectomy can he later get married? What about a married man who gets snipped prior to having children? Is his marriage still valid? In what way are their reproductive abilities different than a gay man’s? In no way is chid bearing or rearing a requirement for marriage, so children cannot be the purpose of marriage.
Access to a totally legally different pool, he could only marry black women and only other black men could do so, whereas a white man could only marry white women that no other man could marry, etc. Different rules for different people based on their race. The fact anti-miscegneation laws can logically be written as one law doesn’t mean equality before the law. The effect of the law must also be considered.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Did you read my above argument? Their reproductive abilities are no different obviously and as of right now a gay man can marry a woman and has *exactly* the same legal rights as a straight man.
As for what you take to be the purpose of your marriage we’ll simply have to agree to disagree, but I think you are simply wrong. The state cannot force people to have children or make some sort of viability test for it nor should it, but the social mission of marriage is still to create families to tie the wider society together (so even without children it serves a function) AND propagate the civilization (a more important core function otherwise what’s the point of a civilization?) The fact that some people get married and don’t have children or can’t doesn’t invalidate this, but naturally only a man and a woman can reproduce. The legal definition of marriage creates the environment, the people are free to do what they want with it. The fact that it is NOT solely about yourself/partner and being able to marry whomever you want for love and nothing else is absolutely crucial. America is losing any sense of a Burkean view towards society as a social contract between the dead, the living and the yet unborn and this will have dead-ended consequences.
If marriage has nothing to do with children why not do what Plato argued for in the Republic and have all children upon birth delivered to and raised by the state?
Oh and BTW read the whole article.
This is a more important “victory” than any skirmish in Iraq or Afghanistan??? A blow for what is right?
And let’s not forget y’all, any opposition to this is motivated by one thing only: hate. So if you don’t agree with us you’re stupid and you’re stupid because you’re so full of hate you can’t see or think clearly so you cling bitterly to your guns and religion, other bad things. I’m getting more than a little tired of having to put up with this tone in society . . .
You saying you’re sick or tolerance? Shame on you, you bitter hateful person!
change “or” to “of”…
Tolerance of certain things surely. If my neighbor is gay, whatever, I can tolerate that. If he wants to have legal rights to marry I think he’s screwing with the foundations of a good society and no, I don’t tolerate that.
I tolerate people of any race, religion or creed who want any job in America provided they fit the qualifications. As soon as a Muslim female wants to become a police officer while wearing the hijab at the same time (come to think of it why hasn’t one?) or, as has happened, take their photo ID with it on, then no, you’re not getting it, and I’m not tolerant of that.
Certain needs of carrying on the civilization and society come before you doing whatever you want. And there’s always a sob story behind the person who wants to run naked through the schoolyard for equality, and always some knuckledragging hater who wants to oppose him.
So, yeah, I’m sick of it. I AM that knuckledragging hatemonger!
By legal rights to marry I mean another man, he already has the same rights to marry as I do. Don’t want anyone to read that literally and get the wrong idea, should he decide to marry a woman have at it buddy.
I’m tired of being told to be “tolerant” by those who demand that we erase our world view, so they alone can have theirs. all the while telling us that is what “tolerance” is…
Just remember tolerance is a word used in relation to negatives. One tolerates pain, a stench, obnoxiousness, perfidity, stupidity, arrogance, abuse, etc. etc. because one is forced to. Given the option one would not make a such a choice.
What’s the old saying about tolerance being the last virtue of those who don’t believe in anything?
Very, very good point Dust. Not too many people have to tolerate a bowl of Ben & Jerry’s; a glass of cold milk and Oreos; a good back rub; a hot bath after a hard day’s work. No, we for sure don’t have to tolerate the pleasures of life. Amen.
Agree. Shortly after “Outing” of a P3 Sailor at Moffet Field circa 1983(?), I attended a conference at Moffet. Had lunch with my Aunt, who insisted that she bring a neighbor friend. Subject at lunch was my take on the “outing”. For once, did not take the bait. Found out this lady was the Editor of a Gay Newspaper. Anyway, she was candid about needing Gays to serve openly as the best way to take on States Rights.
Drudge has a report about the now advertised gay military dating and social site. A Brave New World indeed.
I’m probably going to take some flack for this, but here goes…
I have to admit that it gripes the hell out of me that servicepeople only accrue certain privileges when they marry &/or have children. The fact of being married or having dependents should not enter into the calculus of how much a certain rating in a certain billet is ‘worth.’
Deciding to pay and house your people better once they have dependents is nothing more han a tacit admission that those people are being dramatically underpaid when single or without dependents.
Want to fix this problem before it grows?
Pay a sufficient wage to allow an enlisted man or woman or company-grade officer of reasonable seniority (say, 4 years completed active service) to support a wife and family. Don’t encourage marriage by those who are not senior enough to support a family by rewarding them financially for getting married (or enlisting!) when the standard pay grades for E1-3 or O1-3 clearly can’t otherwise support dependents.
Remove the prize and you remove the motivation.
Had this been i place, I’d be willing to bet the entire DADT would have never been much of an issue.
This. Any chance we can spot-promote you to E-9?
A question we’ve been puzzling over is this; suppose the military does decide to recognize same sex marriage and afford the couple the same benefits as a “traditional” couple. Are the families in military housing ready to have Mr. and Mr. Jones living next door?
I see this as a shunt off of the main “Give us marriage, or have us in your face!” approach. Probably figured the argument in the courts for SSM (same sex marriage) would go much easier using the argument that the leader in civil rights has been the US Military, ergo, if they tacitly approve it, then, you have to go on their record and give us marriage.
That will be the next round of opeds, all centering on “Now we can have partners, but only “marriage” will get us the military bennies we seek to be equal!”
It’s never been about tolerance. It’s about acceptance, even blessing, and the tearing down of western civilization.
Sterile societies don’t grow. If they don’t grow, they die. Homosexuality is, by its very nature, sterile.
Please do not confuse the issues of the longevity of humanity with the need to instantly gratify!
Sad state of affairs, if you feel you need to represent yourself to society, first and foremost, by the things you demand to do with your God given plumbing.
There was a news report this morning about the Metropolitan Community Church in central Florida looking down the barrel of a gun Seems they aren’t getting any new members. No one’s having babies, or raising teeny boppers to follow on as the next generation.
Since the church is made up of middle age male queers, they are having hard time making babies, it seems. Why might that be? Any guesses?
This is to address a bit of what Sarge brought up. Seem to recall the Commandant of the Marine Corps about a decade ago introducing a policy to prevent Marines in their first enlistment from marrying. The buzz saw of the “elites” quickly marshalled forces and quashed this idea in the court of public opinion. Anyone remember this?
And to take a longer range view, where do all these “progressive” ideas end? Do they end?
I was chaplain of a Marine regiment when the Commandant (I believe it was Krulak) issued a policy that a Marine must be at least a Corporal (E-4) to marry. I never heard a word against it from Marines of any rank but the so-called “elites” outside the service went berserk and it had to be rescinded. Too bad; it was a good thing.
It was General Carl Mundy.
the National Journal beat the WaPo to the punch
“the 258-page report emphasizes that repeal is only the first step. Months, or even years, of legal and political wrangling could follow before gays and their partners are fully welcomed into the ranks of the nation’s military. The end of don’t ask, don’t tell is not the end of the story.”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/-don-t-ask-don-t-tell-repeal-won-t-end-battle-for-gays-in-military-20101202