In short, as we already know, gay people are kicked out of the military for no other reason than that they are gay– not for doing, on average, anything that a typical straight soldier might be kicked out for. It’s not really about gay people at all, but as usual, about how much the very existence of gay people bothers some straight people.

And those straight people (or wanna-be-but-ain’t) are willing to express mail our country to hell in a hand basket to prove their point. Firing scarce Arabic translators because they like dick? That doesn’t make any sense.When the anti-gays are honest, and they often have been, at least inadvertently, they will admit that this statement is true: “I so disapprove of/am wigged out by/hate/dislike/judge moralistically/etc. homosexuals that I could not possibly give up my prejudice, not in the name of tolerance, not in the name of compassion, not in the name of freedom, not in the name of fact and logic and experience and reason—and certainly, not in the name of UNIT COHESION.

Yet, so many people have, both in and out of the military, They find out it just doesn’t matter. It’s not important. I they have a little less negative and a lot more positive in their lives.

It is all about BIAS, and nothing but bias. frankly, I do not find that prejudice, bias, dislike, fear, hatred, stupidity, intolerance, and ignorance, or the insistence that those are good qualities to have, constitute a good basis for social policy, law-making, military preparedness, or anything else that might benefit our country.

I don’t need a study to tell me this. I just need to read a history book. It has not helped our society ever– racial, religious, ethnic, lingual, whatever prejudice is du jour– and this case is NO DIFFERENT. I repeat: Firing scarce Arabic translators because they like dick? Straight soldiers are dying for that reason. It doesn’t make any sense. 25,000 moral waivers to convicted felons, but upstanding talented patriotic gay people need not apply because it is GOING TO MAKE SOME BIGOTED, INSECURE IMMATURE, FEAR RIDDEN STRAIGHT BOY UPSET????!!!!

Who exactly is causing the problem?

The unit cohesion argument is just another version of Stanley Kurtz’s lame argument that if gay people are allowed to marry, straight people stop having babies, or some such nonsense. The argument shifts subtly and suddenly from gay people getting married to how straight people feel about that. what’s interesting to me is that in both cases, straight people act very badly (they stop having babies or can no longer fulfill their mission because they can’t get over themselves), and gay people get blamed for it, and must pay the price.

I think this is a very accurate description of the situation.soldiers die, our country suffers, George bush gets elected, talent is lost, time, energy and money are wasted that could be devoted to making our world and country better,and all in service to a prejudice.

How? Why? Why do you say that? What do you base that on? If you don’t have Powell’s experience, what do you have? Works at what?

“It works. I just said so. Didn’t you hear me? It works. Next question.”

Who is this guy?

Even today, why not just come out and say that it should be overturned, it was a mistake in the first place and I regret my involvement in this act of bigotry against law abiding patriotic gay American soldiers.

I realize that many Americans like to fawn all over General Powell. I really don’t share their enthusiasm, because I always associate him with bigotry.

Um…working in what respect? Was our military in such shambles before DADT was in place?