Saturday, December 11, 2010

DADT Study Biased!


DADT Study Biased

http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Pentagon-DADT-study-was...

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady (Medal of Honor)

I was surprised to see the magnitude of favorable coverage of the Pentagon study on ending the ban on lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people serving in the military. The negatives on a quad-sexual military don't make the front page.

Where was it reported that 1,167 retired generals and flag officers support the ban on homosexuals? Why wasn't the focus that the vast majority of our combat troops and Marines oppose a quad-sexual military?

Let's put this study in perspective. The commander gives the order to take the hill. Wait, let's poll the troops. Duh! The study presented those polled with a fait accompli — not if but how. Amazingly, no question on ban repeal was asked! Why? The pollsters said troops shouldn't vote on policy. Excuse me. The whole purpose of the poll was to support a vote on policy about to be jammed through Congress.

Few Americans object to working with LGBT folks — but most do not want to live with them. Forced intimacy is not an American favorite as we see in the outrage over patdowns in airports. Intimacy is common, indeed, necessary in the military. Who wants to share showers, bathrooms and sleeping areas with those who see them as sexual objects (71 percent oppose open showers)? Rather than asking if our troops were biased against LGBTs in the workplace, they should have asked questions concerning forced intimacy, forced morality and the LGBT medical readiness issues.

Military communities are different. Try searching someone who enters a gated civilian community if you doubt that. Is the military OK with LGBT clubs on posts and near posts; and same-sex couples in military housing? Do military families agree to their children being taught the goodness of same-sex sex in post schools? Are they OK with forced morality at church? Imagine a gay pride parade at Fort Sam Houston. I have seen them in San Francisco; no child should be exposed to one.

Many Americans may be OK with the civilian chain of command dancing together, but many soldiers will have a problem if their commander is seen dancing and romancing another male at the O'club.

Surely it's known that once we legalize sodomy in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (required to legalize a quad-sexual military) we will have to do the same with adultery.

Most egregiously, the military will have to be retrained — and re-moralized — before implementation since there will be zero tolerance for opposition to homosexual conduct. What does that mean? Soldiers will have to abandon their belief system? Are they serious? Think draft.

Nothing in the study cited benefits to readiness (24 percent would leave or consider leaving); astonishingly, the logistics of implementation were ignored. When will some courageous journalist headline the tragic health disparities in the LGBT community? Multiple studies document significant, and costly, health disparities in rates of disease among sexual minorities resulting in loss of productivity (sickness), reduced life span, attempted suicide and substance abuse. An active homosexual cannot give blood, vital in combat. Who would knowingly receive a transfusion from a homosexual?

The military has a saying: Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. For example, one university added special toilet units for transgendered people with privacy concerns costing $2,500 each. Extrapolate that to the military. Amateurs did this study.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady is a recipient of the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, where he flew more than 2,500 combat missions and helped rescue more than 5,000 wounded.

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