Military Integration

I think that I figured out how we can change the discussion over gays in the military. By changing the terminology… starting to call it what it REALLY is… military integration. And if we need to have a segregated military first… a military with gay battalions and straight battalions, so be it.

I’ve always been aware that many of the arguments against homosexuals being able to marry are the same arguments that were once used against interracial marriage. Now I’ve discovered, by reading a book on the Tuskegee Airmen, America’s first black military fliers, that many of the arguments against homosexual integration into our military are the same as the arguments presented once upon a time against racial integration.

For instance, how about this… “This policy has been proven satisfactory over a long period of years and to make changes would produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparations for national defense.” Although that sounds like someone defending “don’t ask, don’t tell”, it’s actually part of a memo from Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson to President Roosevelt in 1940.

And on both issues, integrating the military and allowing homosexuals to marry, I think that President Truman (then SENATOR Truman’s) comment to a black soldier who wasn’t being allowed to fly says it all. “Are you a citizen? Do you pay taxes?” Truman’s argument was that if both of these things are true, then nothing should stop them from enjoying all the benefits of citizenship. It’s just not right that they are not able to.

Peace.

Randal