Where I work you cannot tell who is gay and who is straight. Isn't that the best of all options?
No one talks about ones partner. I rarely see photos of them on people's desk. People often have photos
of their kids, but that does not have anything to do with sexual preference.
You can get into trouble taking about sex. No one is sure where the line of offense is and so
people avoid the subject altogether just like talking about religion or politics.
I am talking here about my current civilian job.
Shouldn't the military be held to a higher standard?
The problem with this, Bill, is that what you describe is so far removed from what is standard in the civilian world, that it is hard to believe you are accurately describing a civilian workplace. Yes, there are harrasment rules, and crossing those lines can get people in trouble, but you are implying that your workplace has rules against a man saying 'My bofriend and I went to see [insert movie name here] last weekend and we really enjoyed it'. Most of our expeirence tells us that if anybody went to HR complaining that they were offended by that statment, it would not be the man talked about going to the movies with his boyfriend who got into trouble.
Striking down DADT can conceivably open the door to law suits. One thing the military really hates
is being slowed down by law suits brought on by family members of someone who has died under suspicious
circumstances. I can see a time where the death of every openly gay man from friendly fire will be scrutinized.
Commanding Officers will be held accountable for possibly teaming an openly gay man with other men who
had expressed a repulsion to homosexuality. Death by friendly fire would appear to be murder and the Commanding
Officer would be an accessory to murder.
Here, the problem is that I would expect the military to scrutinize every incident in which a soldier dies of friendly fire, regardless of the professed sexuality of the soldier. If an investigation finds that the friendly fire was not accidental, then I would expect the perpetrator to be found guilty of murder. If the soldier's commanding officer was found to have facilitated or covered up the incident, then that officer should be considered an accesory to murder. As I am not a military person, I do not know this, but I would strongly suspect that this is in fact, already the case. (I do seem to recall some high profile incidents, in which it was found to be not intentional, but those responsible for the death were still found guilty of negligent homocide - or the UCMJ equivalent). I would appreciate if others with recent experience in the US military could confirm or deny this.
The thing is, this is all regardless of whatever traits happen to be possessed by the victim of the friendly fire. US soldiers killing each other, for any reason, is just plain bad for the US military, and it is in thier best interest to put a stop to it. As the sexuality of the soldier is not an issue here, the application of DADT to friendly fire incidents is a complete non-starter for me.
