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discrimination of homosexuals
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Homosexuals, bisexuals and lesbians were a condemned lot not allowed to serve in the United States military service including the Navy forces. Service men and women in the military were judged not only with reference to their behavioral conduct but also from their sexual orientation results. The Department of Defense (DOD) would ask questions concerning sexual orientation of prospects willing to join the military service. A sexual orientation related to sexual attraction to people of a particular gender. Even members of the military service were not allowed to make any statement that meant they (he or she) were homosexuals. Language was highly targeted since the passing of the act of language in the National Defense Authorization. This act was aimed not to allow anybody from the military to make any statements that notified the public that he or she was involved in any form of gay behavior. These statements would end up making the military service look morally degraded and as a bad group in the United States.
The Department of Defense would dismiss anybody who made such statements to the public or any person who said something that had similar meaning. In the United States some people viewed homosexuality as a bad practice that tarnished the name of the military service and they did not expect this behavior from the military service. However, some people were not against the idea. Some American citizens also did not understand clearly what the term sexual orientation meant. Even some members of the Department o Defense did not have a clear distinction of what sexual orientation really meant, and whether language was questionable when it came to dismissing any homosexual from the military service. However, homosexuality was not a...
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...nguage was involved in the senate versions concerning the National defense that allowed the repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy’ passed in the year 1993. The bill was passed by the house and the senate in May 2010. However, the voters failed to bring the bill on the platform for passage with regard to the votes. In September 2010, Federal Judge Phillips Virginia ruled out the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ law as unconstitutional and inapplicable. In October 2010 the same person, Judge Virginia Phillips enjoined the DOD from applying the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Law’ (Burrelli F. (2010).
List of References
Burrelli F. (2010). “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”: The Law and Military Policy on Same-sex
Behavior. Retrieved from: Case Attached
The Washington Times, LLC (2011). The Washington Times.
Retrieved from: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/13/gates-choice/
From the end of the draft in 1973 to the military data from 2003, the number of women in service rose from 2 percent to 12 percent. A sample of military women studied in 1991 showed 69 percent to have experienced sexual harassmen...
Frank, Nathaniel. Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2009. Print.
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?
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman implemented discharge policies for homosexual service members in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This would allow military leaders to discharge any service member who was thought to be homosexual. In 1992, during President Bill Clinton’s campaign, he promises to lift that ban. Not being able to do just that, President Clinton issued a directive referred to as ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’. This stated that no service member should be asked about their sexual orientation. Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote the article “Gay Men and Women in the Military Disrupt Unit Cohesion” in 2009 right after President Clinton was again calling for the end of forcing homosexuals to live in secret. In his article he states that homosexuals living openly in the military will take away from military effectiveness and put the other service member’s lives in danger. Throughout most of the article he uses other resources, polls and opinions on the matter verses clearly stating his own. Most of the resources he uses are military connected or
Allen Berubé uses this book to describe the persecution of homosexual men and women in the U.S. Army. In Coming Out Under Fire, Berube explains the challenges faced by homosexuals trying to serve the United States and the awakening of the gay rights movement. Berubé examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation. It was not simply written to explain how the military victimized homosexyals, but as a story to explain the dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government. Which then allowed both parts to change and grow. His story is the timeline of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” from 1916 until 2003. The military had to decide if homosexuality was or was not compatible with war. They decided it
The focus of the book helps understand the true importance of books like Gay New York, Coming Out Under Fire, and Men Like That by explaining the progress made in the United States regarding the acceptance of the gay community into society. Consisting of six chapters that cover many issues regarding the government, including the military, welfare, and immigration. Much like in Coming Out Under Fire, Canaday points out issues gay men and women faced following World War II. From the mid-1940s into the late 1960s, the state crafted tools to overtly target homosexuality (Canaday, 2009). Policies were enacted that explicitly used homosexuality to define who could serve in the military (Canaday, 2009). Much has changed since then, considering the infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was repealed. Canaday’s main argument in the book is that sexual citizenship was built into the federal bureaucracy as it was being created, and this needs to be more attended to by historians (Canaday, 2009). According to Canaday, the foundations of sexual citizenship are the reason the United States has such an issue with securing universal gay rights. Issues in the South are also addressed, much like in Men Like That. Religion and the power it has in the country limits many initiatives that support gay
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:
The War selected men and women from across the country with different backgrounds and placed them in sexually segregated camps. “The war severely disrupted traditional patterns of gender relations and sexuality, and temporarily created a new erotic situation conducive to homosexual expression” (D’Emilio pg. 106). At the time of capitalism and war, young men and women whose sexual identities had not been formed where placed in single sex training facilities where they would only interact with their own sex. This made the transition for most soldiers difficult and allowed for some already lesbian or gay individuals to interact and unify because of the confines of the war. The temporary freedom of sexuality allowed for men and women to challenge some of their heterosexual upbringings. In addition to gay identities resulting from the restrictions of war communities witnessed a large increase in bars and other meeting places for gays to meet and unify post World War
...l use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, or sexual perversion.” This piece of legislation addressed the years of charges that homosexuals posed a security risk to the government. The new order defined both disloyalty and security risks in order to separate the two. Homosexuality was no longer to be confused with disloyalty, but the stigma remained. President Truman’s Executive Order 9835 applied only to a few military branches and the State Department; Eisenhower’s applied to the entire federal government. This did not change any of the discriminatory practices of any of these branches, but validated their previous actions under presidential order. This order also made possible the exclusion of over 1700 homosexuals from employment over a five-year period. This made the denial and concealment of their homosexuality even more important than before.
Prior to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy the United States and its citizens were not very tolerant to openly gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals. Prior to World War II gays were not specifically targeted for exclusion from the military, although sodomy was considered a criminal offense as early as the Revolutionary War. However by the beginning of World War II, the military had shifted focus from excluding acts that were considered homosexual to focusing on members that were considered homosexual. In 1942, the military issued its first regulation that contained a paragraph defining the difference between a homosexual and a normal person. In fact, this regulation also described procedures for rejecting gay draftees. (Martinez, Hebl, & Law, 2012). The military based these procedures on medical rationale and psychiatric screening to...
Rodolfo Castillo Jr., who is a local military prospect, wanted to join the military because he thinks that if the government was to make harsher punishments for the men, things would be very different in the armed forces. “The government should make laws that allow them to punish soldiers the same way that they hurt the women.” If a non-military man was to rape or harass a woman he would get sent to jail or maybe even worse. The point is that just because some men are in the military, it does not mean that they have the right to harass the women that help serve our country.
women in the military and found that 51.8 % of men and 74.6% of women
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.
There are many different ways LGBT members experience prejudice and unjust treatment. They can find discrimination within their own families and friend circles, within their support system, work force, at school, or even in hospitals with health care professionals. Research and statistics have shown members of the LGBT community have been discriminated against within the military where they have been victimized and kicked out. In some situations even violence has broken out in the military against someone that is gay or lesbian or bisexual (Gay Bullying Statistics).
...oldiers seek employment as police officers after their discharge. Due to this the military-police integration, it has the tolerance level toward gays and lesbians in law enforcement is similarly affected by how they are treated in the military. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is increasing in strength; homosexual police officers are starting to obtain more recognition. “An important achievement that New York’s GOAL tries to create is one of their most important objectives is to protect gay and lesbian officers from being mistreated in the workplace. “We can benefit from gay and lesbian police officers because they represent more than just a human rights effort, they also represent a range or roles and skills that can enhance the flexibility of police work without forgetting the real mission are to fight crime and protect the people. (Miller, Forest, Jurik) 2003.”