DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL, GET THROWN OUT ANYWAY

[defrog]

ITEM [via various]: Sergeant Jene Newsome is kicked out of the Air Force for being a lesbian ... after being outed by the Rapid City, South Dakota police.

The Rapid City Police Department says Newsome, an aircraft armament system craftsman who spent nine years in the Air Force, was not cooperative when they showed up at her home in November with an arrest warrant for her partner, who was wanted on theft charges in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Newsome was at work at the base at the time and refused to immediately come home and assist the officers in finding her partner, whom she married in Iowa - where gay marriage is legal - in October.

Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome's home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said.

"It's an emotional issue and it's unfortunate that Newsome lost her job, but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it," Allender said Saturday. "It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information."

Uh huh.

I can’t prove it, of course, but I would lay the good money down on the “retaliation” theory. Call me a cynical old bastard, but I don’t believe for a second the cops ratted her out because of a simple sense of duty.

Anyway, the story highlights one of the basic weaknesses of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – and how basically gays and lesbians can’t win as long as they’re treated as second-class citizens. Even if you can play by the rules, The Straight Authorities (or a vindictive neighbor or a jilted lover or whoever) can still use the rules to fuck you over when it suits them.

But then this isn’t news. DADT was always a dumb idea. All it ever did was create a way for homophobes in the military to maintain the illusion that they weren’t already serving with teh gayz. Put another way, DADT made all the alleged "problems" of gays serving with straights magically go away by letting everyone pretend there were no gays in the military.

How psychotic can you get? I ask you.

Tell me everything,

This is dF

Comments

[brangwaine.livejournal.com]

When I was in the military, I had a fair amount of friends who were L/G. Even though there was that DADT policy, people still tried to "weed them out". If there was a whispering or rumbling of someone being gay, they would do badly on their evaluations-if the Chief didn't like L/G people, of course. It was also true that being a white, Christian male upped your chances of getting ahead-at least in the places I worked.

Women were treated like secondary citizens. We got pats on the head and every good thing we did was attributed to either a) being pretty or b) giving it up to someone of higher rank. Same thing goes for anyone who is non-Christian. Pagans are forced to share their Chaplains with the Muslim chaplains. Which means, of course, that the Muslim Chaplains must comprimise their beliefs to help service members who are pagan. And, in the upturn of that, pagan service members will not go to the Chaplains for fear of humliation and mockery.

It was even worse for the L/G people. They could not go the Chaplains (who are traditionally the go to guy for a shoulder to cry on) because they could not talk about their lives for fear of being found out. They constantly and consistently suffer harrasement from other servicemembers (sometimes knowingly, sometimes not) and are even forced to bash themselves in order to not blow their cover. My friends-my very close personal friends-suffered a lot from this. Why? For this simple matter of sexuality?


Because of the unspoken witch hunt, they were often forced to marry and live a straight lifestyle. I cannot tell you the damange that this does! Especially to the husbands and wives who are unaware that their spouse is gay!

It happens more than they like to admit... and it is aboslutely heartbreaking when it does happen.

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

DADT was after my time in the service, so my direct experience is with the old regime of "We Ask, You Lie". But it occurred to me even then that you could still be gay and be in the Army as long as you kept it a secret. Which is why DADT seemed like such a copout solution.

But yeah, the pressure was always on to be straight. My drill sergeant took a healthy interest in asking us if we got any pussy during Christmas break. I didn't, but I told him yes because that was clearly what he wanted to hear, and I didn't want him putting a gay tag on me. I went through that in high school, so I knew what that would get me.

[brangwaine.livejournal.com]

See, I think that exact "got any pussy during Christmas" kind of mentality causes so many distortions among the female ranks, too. It's crazy. I could go on for DAYS ranting about the inequalities-but I won't. At least not on your journal. :D