Sunday, October 17, 2010

Don't ask me not to tell . . .

Two things: First, T and I are watching Glee while discussing the recent stay of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell rule. She said she understood the reluctance to change the rule since the idea of "rude sex" as she called it was still hard for her to stomach. My usual counter to this is to point out the flaw in taking the word of this "christian" based hypocrisy as accurate because it has no basis in fact. This discussion took us our usual direction until we reached the point in the show where Kirt sings his duet from both sides. Watch the episode and you'll see what I mean.

Second, I just finished reading Sara Paretsky's, Body Work. If you haven't read it yet be advised that one or two of the main characters are lesbians and there is quite a bit of criticism directed towards the ongoing war in Iraq.

Which lead me to the third thing: The thing that is really wrong about this whole policy. We, by implementing this rule, are asking our soldiers to, if they are gay, lesbian, or tran, to actually go it alone. No loved ones to talk them through the fear, no helpmate to share the constant stress, no outlet, except a secret and stressfilled one, to let them make it through the fight. It is wrong to ask this of anyone who is in a war.

What is being constantly demonstrated in the real world, outside the military base, is that we as a culture are discovering that honesty and openess about our sexuality is good not bad or dangerous as those military geniuses would have us believe. What is being demonstated by our country's reluctance to change this policy is our own fear of the other, and how this fear makes us blind to the very real effect that this policy does have on the ones we are asking to go it alone.