For nearly 50 years, it has been the U.S. military's official policy to exclude homosexuals from service. In November 1992, President - elect Clinton told Americans that he planned to lift the military's long - standing ban on gays and lesbians. Homosexual men and women, he said, should not be prevented from serving their country based on their sexual orientation. Soon after taking office in 1993, Clinton faced powerful military and congressional opposition to lifting the ban. General Colin Powell, then - chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Senator Sam Nunn, who was chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee between 1987 an 1994 and left Congress in 1996, announced that they would seek to block his attempts to lift the ban.
For the next six months, debate raged over what to do about the military's ban on gays and lesbians. Clinton's liberal supporters wanted him to follow through on his promise to lift the ban, urging the need to end discrimination against gays and lesbians. Conservatives, military leaders and some lawmakers of both parties argued that the presence of declared homosexuals in the armed forces would be detrimental to military readiness. They said that letting gays and lesbians serve would destroy all morale and erode good discipline and order. Ban opponents maintained that gay people were capable men and women who should be allowed to serve their county.
In July 1993, a compromise policy was struck between supporters and opponents of the ban. The compromise, known as "don't ask, don't tell," allowed gays and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they did not proclaim their homosexuality or engage in
Homosexual conduct. Under the policy, military commanders would not try to find out the sexual orientation of the personnel, and gay and lesbian personnel would not disclose their sexual orientation. The policy marked a change from past practice in that simply being homosexual was no longer a disqualifier for military service. Conservatives saw the change as a regrettable relaxation of the absolute ban on gay people. Liberals were dissatisfied because the new policy still allowed the military to oust gays and lesbians if
they revealed their orientation.
While some liberals disagree with the policy, arguing that it punishes gays and lesbians for engaging in the same kinds of behavior that heterosexuals are fre...
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...for the rest of society. If the federal government itself discriminates against gay people, they say, that sends a powerful message to other employers and to society at large
Conclusion
I've discovered in doing this report that some opposition to gay people's military service is based on moral concerns. I feel that many people believe that homosexuality is wrong and do not want the federal government to appear to condone it by allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly. Some observers point out that gay people have not yet been fully accepted and integrated into society at large. They say that asking the military to accept gays and lesbians is simply asking too much.
Reference:
• Issues and Controversies: Gays in the military, Facts on File News Service(1999), Retrieved from : http://www.facts.com/icof/i00062.htm
• Robinson, B.A. Gays in the military; “Don’t ask”, Don’t Tell”, (2000) Retrieved from: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_mili.htm
• Steffan, Joseph; Gays in the Military; Joseph Steffan verses the United States, (2001)
• A.P.A Newsletter; (1997) Retrieved from:
www.apa.udel.edu/apa/archive/newsletters/v97n1/law/military.asp
In the essay “Why gays shouldn’t serve” by David Horowitz he states that “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell policy is a way of containing the destructive force of sex on a combat capability called Unit Cohesion. (354)” This controversial topic has surfaced more and more recently because Barack Obama wanted to let all people serve in the military, regardless of their sexual orientation. “More than 1,000 retired flag and general officers have joined us in signing an open letter to President Obama and Congress, repeal of this law would prompt many dedicated people to leave the military (James J. Lindsay).” There are multiple points you could focus on when trying to explain your point on why gays or lesbians should not serve in the military. The first point we will be focusing on is: how would military life change if straight men or women knew that there were gays or lesbians sleeping next to them? The second point is: would straight men and women communicate with the gays or lesbians the same way as they would toward other straight men or women? The third and final point is: how would other countries view our military if they knew we had gays or lesbians in the military?
McGowan, Jeffrey. Major Conflict: One Gay Man’s Life in the Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Military. New York: Broadway, 2005. Print.
Erdely, Sabrina Rubin. “The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer: Inside the military's culture of sex abuse, denial and cover-up”. The Rolling Stones Magazine. 14 February 2013. Web. 4 November 2013
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy means that service men and women are not questioned about their sexual orientation, and they are not to talk about their sexual orientation. In 1993 U. S. Congress passed a federal law forbidding the military service of openly gay men and women serving in the military. Even though Congrees created the law, it was up to the military leadership to carry it out. Opposing viewpoints states:
In this advertisement, one observes that the older Latino man who has garnered the attention of two middle-aged attractive women appears to be well off financially. This suggests that all women are attracted to wealthy men. This message is socially irresponsible. When one assumes that women are attracted to wealthy men one also assumes that these women are extremely shallow and motivated only by money. While there are women who are attracted to men that are wealthy, there are also those attracted to men making less money than themselves. In society today, this message is socially irresponsible as this stereotype has been labeled as being a “gold digger.” A gold digger is a woman who is only interested in being in a relationship with someone who is wealthy. This ad also sends a class message that wealthy people have a better lifestyle than the lower classes by depicting happy, well-dressed, apparently content individuals. This message creates unrealistic expectations in leading people to believe that once they “arrive” at the top of the social ladder their problems disappear. One only has to watch the nightly news to see that movie stars, sports figures and corporate executives also experience hardships and suffer from addiction and become victims of suicides. Therefore the statement that wealth equals satisfaction with life is an unrealistic
Since even before the United States has been classified as a nation, African Americans have served in armed forces. From a little village militias to the army or sailors, African Americans have stepped up to help defend and eventually earn their own freedom. The battle for unification and for recognition of black soldiers has been a slow undertaking. It wasn't until after World War II that the U.S. armed forces became fully and lawfully unified, under a 1948 executive order by President Harry S. Truman. They were “unified”; meaning that the African American troops could be in the same regiments and squads as the white men. Previously they underwent completely separate training and were assorted to their own regiments. Throughout time many groups of enlisted black men have made up the hammer which broke down the racial barriers which were all too common up until about 45 years ago. All of this had to start somewhere, which leads me to the Revolutionary War.
"Update: Women in the Military." Issues and Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 29 May 2007. Web.
...get equal legal & financial rights for same-sex couples as opposite-sex couples. It states that while it will not allow same-sex marriage, it provides homosexual de facto couples the same rights that heterosexual de facto couples have.
In the 1940s, homophobia was extremely prevalent in the United States. People who were openly gay were often stigmatized. “Homosexuality was discussed as ‘an aspect of three personality disorders: psychopaths who were sexual perverts, paranoid personalities who suffered from homosexual panic, and schizoid personalities’ who displayed gay symptoms” (Kaiser 29). Many regulations and practices discriminated against gays. The military found homosexuality to be a direct threat to strength and safety of the U.S. government and the American people, in general. In 1941 the Army and the Selective Service banned homosexuals from participation in the war (Kaiser 29). All major religions considered it sinful and throughout the country, more and more people found it to be immoral. Life was hard for homosexuals in the early and mid-twentieth century. They were forced to hide their sexuality in order to escape derision or imprisonment.
Daley, J. G. (1999). Understanding the Military As an Ethnic Identity. In J. G. Daley, Social Work Practice in the Military (pp. 291-303). Binghamton: Haworth Press Inc.
Over the years, society has come to evolve and progressively become more efficient as society’s viewpoints and perspectives on various aspects of life have also changed. However, the one aspect of life that has stayed constant has been religion. The impact of a constant religious opinion on a changing society has detrimental and benign effects on the populace of such a society.
84% of the people on earth claim to be religious.(2) One third of the world claims to be Christians, 1.6 billion people in the world claim to be Islamic, (3) and one out of five people in the world claim to be spiritual but not religious. (1) Spirituality and religion are often thought to be synonymous, but it’s important to understand the differences between the two. The two have been around for ages, but even though they contrast; they are not the same. One could be described as an outer look on acts and laws, the other more as an internal look of oneself.
Religion is an organized collection of beliefs and cultural systems that entail the worship of a supernatural and metaphysical being. “Religion just like other belief systems, when held onto so much, can stop one from making significant progress in life”. Together with religion come traditions that provide the people with ways to tackle life’s complexities. A subscription to the school of thought of great scholars
After this recent decade of advancement in robots, the question of how efficiently a robot makes decisions is still debated. Robots have various sensors that it takes into its central processing unit that influences its decisions. The development of gyroscopes allowed for the development of self-balancing robots and have given rise to modern day humanoid style robots. Robotic engineers can now design and teach robots various intelligent thought programmed patterns and skills to solve problems similar to humans since the technology can more resemble how humans perceive the world.
Utilitarianism is the theory that one ought to maximize the happiness and minimize the unhappiness of as many people (or sentient beings) as possible (Nina Rosenstand). According to Utilitarianism, an action is morally right if its consequences lead to