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Briefly Noted

Jim Burroway

August 8th, 2006

A challenge to “Don’t Ask, Don”t Tell,” and a deteriorating situation for gays and lesbians in Iraq and Iran:

  • The latest challenge to the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy comes from none other than a West Point Cadet. Writing in his senior thesis, Cadet Alexander Raggio argues, “the Army often talks of doing the harder right rather than the easier wrong, and now it is time to put the policy where the propaganda is. Allowing the open service of gays in the military is the right thing to do, no matter how difficult a transition it may be.” And were there any consequences to writing this thesis? Nope, none whatsoever. It was awarded the best senior thesis in the art, philosophy and literature major.
  • Unfortunately, hostility toward gays in the military is rampant, according to a Reuters investigation. “On the Navy’s USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, for example, anti-gay statements and jokes are on display and have been incorporated into a video about the F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft, recently shown to reporters on the carrier.”
  • Meanwhile in Iraq, gays are trying to flee the country because they are being targeted by Shia death squads, aided by the Ministry of the Interior. “One photograph is of the mutilated, burnt body of 38-year-old Karar Oda from Sadr City. … Oda’s family were given an arrest warrant signed by the Ministry of Interior which said their son deserved to be arrested and killed for immorality as a homosexual. His body was found ten days later.” Is this what we’re fighting for?
  • In related news, a German court blocked the deportation of an Iranian lesbian back to her home country because of the likelihood that she would face punishment for her sexual orientation. According to Iranian human rights advocates, more than 4,000 gay and lesbian Iranians have been executed since the 1979 revolution.
  • And here’s an interesting insider’s political view of the recent dust-up in Orlando concerning that city’s reluctant adoption of a non-discrimination policy for gays and lesbians. If they were so reluctant, why did they finally do it? “People started talking about the folly of Orange County trying to recruit companies whose employees could be legally discriminated against.”

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