The Human Rights Campaign is holding a rally to support “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal in Norfolk this Wednesday, December 1, at 10:00am at the Five Points Community Farm Market, 2500 Church Street. The full information, including the information if you cannot attend, is below the fold.
THE PUSH IS ON!!
Please join the Human Rights Campaign for a rally to support the repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on Wednesday, December 1.
The event will take place at 10am at the Five Points Community Farm Market in Norfolk. 2500 Church Street Norfolk, VA 23504
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We will hear from veterans about how DADT has affected them personally, and how we can take action now to push for repeal.Can’t make it? Then be sure to call Senator Webb at 202-224-4024 and Senator Warner at 202-224-2023 and ask them to support “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal now.
Let your Senators know that you stand for equality in our military! When our men and women of service put on that uniform and vow to protect us, they deserve the utmost respect, regardless of sexual orientation!
TIME IS SHORT! We need to work for repeal right now, as we can be sure that repeal will not be passed by the next Congress.
To get involved in more DADT efforts in Virginia, please call or email Sarah Showalter at 804-283-5435 and sarah.showalter@hrc.org
If you are a veteran or know a veteran who would be willing to participate, please call Sarah at 804-283-5435
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
As someone who has donated to HRC and has supported some of their past efforts, I am compelled to point out that there is no substantiated data that shows the change to the current personnel policy, will result in an improvement in our military’s ability to fight.
My esteemed fellow citizens who are rigorously pushing for repeal are, no doubt, focused on this as a social issue. However, war fighting is NOT a social issue.
When we go up against the Communist Chinese, either directly, with them invading our territory, or through their proxy, North Korea, America will need to bring our very best to the war. We will be defeated if, instead of bringing our best war fighters, we have a military that is nothing more than a social engineering experiment, or a minority employment program.
Nothing is more serious, nor more consequential, than the quality and readiness of our military.
One of the key reasons that Democrats lost in the last election was due to policy stands of the National Party in favor of repealing the existing policy.
Most Americans have a gut instinct that tells them that our government has already tinkered with our military beyond reason, and to further use the Pentagon as a place where more touchy-feely social experiments take place, is repugnant to most of our citizens; including many who just happen to be among the homosexual community.
A better alternative would be for HRC and supporting activists to DEMAND that our military only recruit those who are best qualified and most able to fight, and that no quotas or goals be in place for hiring or promotion. A MERIT based military will be a successful military.
There are plenty of other areas for homosexuals, and others who are not suited for combat roles, to support our military, as civilian, support personnel.
Thanks for the post Vivian.
Tyler, I agree with you, but the Pentagon report that came out today says it won’t have much of an affect at all.
My personal opinion is that it should be; don’t ask, don’t tell, and we don’t care. Get rid of the third party notification rules and make a few other changes and everything should be fine. Sexual conduct of any kind doesn’t have much of a place in the military, but we shouldn’t be kicking out otherwise stellar people just because of their private sex lives.
Secretary Gates, must resign.
If a college student turned in such an invalid, non-random “survey” and then attempted to draw inferences from the bogus survey, the student would have received an “F.”
The “survey” was not randomized, so Gates gave the gay lobby groups plenty of leverage to motivate their side to get their surveys returned.
One of the first lessons learned in courses on survey design, is that if voluntary response is employed, results will be skewed in favor of any activist element willing to put effort into getting their agenda into the result. Only a randomized method will keep such nonsense out of the result.
The second big lesson in survey design is, how you design the question influences the answer. Gate’s homosexual team in the puzzle-palace (Pentagon) clearly slanted the questions to favor repeal.
For example, the main question should have been, “Does having homosexuals openly serving with you, improve your ability to win in battle?” The answer is an emphatic, NO!
This DADT discussion has never been about “second-class” citizenship. It has always been about our ability to win the next war.
Using our military for, yet another, social engineering experiment, does not help our warriors to win wars.
Gates must resign and Obama should be impeached over this fiasco.
I am even beginning to wonder if I will see, in the near future, the first military coup in America. How far will our military personnel allow themselves to be toyed with?
Hey genius, your arguments work both ways. If people were really that opposed to it, they would have answered in the negative. Obviously they didn’t, therefore it can be logically inferred that those who didn’t answer don’t care one way or the other. If they were so terrified that openly gay people were going to get them killed, you can bet your ass that they would have returned the survey.
I was at the press conference today and what one of the veterans, just back from Afghanistan or Iraq (can’t remember) said shatters your entire argument. No one cares what sexuality you are in a combat situation, all they care about is that you know how to use a rifle. You’d be hard pressed to argue against that.
Are you trying to say that homosexuals are automatically unable to shoot a weapon with accuracy?
Give us all a break, gays already serve openly in many cases, they shouldn’t be kicked out of the service for the private life. You really think the gay people already in the service aren’t known to people they serve with? Its kind of hard to hide who you are completely, people know, and many don’t care.
That being said, my opinion remains that it should be don’t ask, don’t tell, and we don’t care. Make it so you can’t be kicked out for being gay and leave everything else as is.
Repealing DADT necessitates repealing the don’t ask part. No one should be able to ask you what your sexuality is and you shouldn’t be able to go around telling people either. Its a private matter and that’s the way it should stay.
If gay rights groups campaigned simply on making it so no one can be kicked out or disciplined simply for being gay, they would have won this fight a decade ago and we could all go on to worry about other things.
With regard to surveys, go to any academic in the field and they will explain that the only way to negate various forms of campaigns by advocates on either side of an issue is to have a randomized survey, where every person has an equal chance of being queried.
That is not what Gates did.
He allowed the gay lobby to hold a months long campaign that told activists and those who supported repeal, to get those surveys turned in.
As is typical, those in favor of the status quo, did not mount any organized campaigns; as is the norm in such cases.
Those who are arguing for repeal on social grounds, completely miss the main point, that there just isn’t any real evidence that a change will improve our war fighting ability.
If gays had some special tactical skill, like the language skills that our “Code Talker” Indians employed in WWII, then there would be a rational basis for repeal, but there isn’t.
Gates should resign or be fired for his misuse of that so-called survey, and the members of the Press who ignored the obvious flaw in the survey method should be held accountable for disseminating such a pile of unadulterated propaganda.
Keep in mind that when the Communist Chinese invade, they will not bring their social-engineered, feminist, lesbian/gay-friendly Army; they will bring their toughest, most ruthless war fighters.
In Communist China, the Red Army simply kills homosexuals in the streets, like dogs. So when they do invade, do not expect “tolerance” or sympathy, from the Chinese Reds.
What Mr. Gates and President Obama are advocating, will be like matching a local co-ed volleyball team against the Superbowl champs.
America’s military must be designed and built to fight and win wars, not serve as an employment program for poor kids who can’t pay for college, or a place to play a never ending array of social engineering experiments.
And also, Robert E. Lee, too.
Every person did have an equal chance of being queried, its called they were sent a survey. You don’t use statistical polling procedures on a body like the US Armed Forces, it wouldn’t make any sense. You are not going to get an accurate picture by surveying a few thousand randomly selected soldiers. If, as you say, soldiers think it will negatively impact their combat experience, IE put them at a greater chance of getting killed, then that is motivation above and beyond anything that could possibly be taught in a regular statistics class.
Remember, people join the military because they are highly motivated individuals. If they get a survey asking their opinion, they are going to return it. If they don’t, its because they don’t care. This isn’t the general American public, this is the best and brightest we have.
Your argument about the Chinese is laughable. First of all, they would never invade the mainland, second, they would kill anyone who resisted regardless. Third, the Art of War 101 says that if your going to subjugate a people like the Americans, you have to let them maintain as much of their culture as possible unless you want a protracted guerrilla war on your hands. The Chinese are smarter than that, they wrote the Art of War for goodness sake.
Your analogies and arguments are so stupid that I can’t believe you can even type them with a straight face. Gays and lesbians already serve. Simply making it so that they can’t get kicked out for being gay won’t change much of anything. If they get caught having sex on duty they will still get kicked out like any straight person. If they get caught doing anything sexual they will get kicked out like any straight person.
This isn’t social engineering, all it will do is make it so you can’t get kicked out for simply being gay. Its not going to let people wear dresses on duty or allow people to have anal sex in the barracks. Quit being so paranoid.
The Red Army is infamous for ignoring the lessons of Sun Tsu. Their tactics include murdering all of the civic leaders and “intellectuals” and sending the rest to forced labor camps.
Do not hold on to any romantic view of the Chinese based on the past. They are coming for us and they have made no secret about their long term goal being to “displace” the United States, on every front.
As for your discounting of the use of randomized studies, you are going against the entire body of knowledge in the field of professional polling research and statistical analysis. I hope that your livelihood does not depend on your understanding polling, or the associated data.
The reason Gates used the non-scientific method was so that he could game the results. The President and Congressional Democratic leadership needed to provide political cover for the “moderates” on this issue. The only trouble for that strategy is that a growing number of people are pointing out that the survey was a crock, and that the real issue about the effect that repeal will have on war-fighting remains, that there is no benefit to our military to change the existing policy.
Yeah, because Mao wasn’t such an ardent student of Sun Tzu. Have you even read the book? China is following its principals practically to the letter, the recently released diplomatic cables confirm that.
As for the polling, you are still missing the point. This was a survey sent out to every soldier, if they didn’t return it, they didn’t care. You haven’t even attempted to refute that because you can’t.
I’m not discounting the use of randomized studies, I’m just saying that your prejudice is stopping you from seeing that a randomized study would be far less credible than what Gates did. You don’t discern the mood of a body like the armed services on an issue such as this by selecting a few thousand people at random, that’s absolutely ludicrous.
This wasn’t a poll, this was more like an election. Elections are decided by the people who show up. If a soldier didn’t care enough about the issue to return the survey, then he is signifying that he doesn’t care about the issue one way or another.
Again, these are the best and brightest we have. They aren’t average people. If they didn’t return the survey, they didn’t care. You could never make that argument about any other body in the world, but for the US military, I’d say its a very logical conclusion to make, especially given what’s at stake (their lives)