Monday, November 8, 2010

Marines Commander Express Same Anti-Gay Attitude as Moulitsas Did on DADT

Marines' leader: Keep policy on gays in military


FILE - In this Tuesday, June 22, 2010 file photo, Gen. James Amos, Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corp, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military suicides. Gen. James Amos, the new commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps said Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010 that now is the wrong time to overturn the
Having come to office with a promise to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy that requires gays in the military to pretend that they are heterosexual, now President Obama should request and accept the resignation of Gen. James Amos, Assistant Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corp, because James Amos is unable to carry out the mission set by the President, his Commander in Chief.

The decision to get rid of DADT, is a political one made in the 2008 Democratic Primaries and General Election.  But, like Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ), Asst. Commandant Amos says:

"There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women - and when you talk of infantry, we're talking our young men - laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers," he said. "I don't know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion, it's combat effectiveness." 
That sounds an awful lot like what MAMZ wrote and published at his college newspaper against ALL gay participation in the military back in 1993:
Under military circumstances, as much has to be done as possible to focus the unit's mission and keep disciplinary problems to a minimum. Worrying about whether the known homosexual sleeping next to you is watching as you change your underwear may seem trivial as you read this, but to the soldier who's short-tempered after three weeks in the field and four hours of daily sleep, it becomes a matter of great importance to his pride and sensibilities.  (If the above link doesn't work, look here the MAMZ article whose URL address has changed four times in three years.)
The nonsense is the same although it's now seventeen years since the implementation of the DADT policy, which itself was a compromise between those who support equal rights and responsibilities, on the one hand, and those who opposed gay service in the military.


MAMZ also agreed with the most rightward members of the military when he wrote in the same letter:
And in any case, there aren't many people who would change clothes in a group of co-workers if members of the opposite sex were in the same room watching. There is something inherently uncomfortable about it.
I've always found this to be a strange attitude, since men have to undress in front of women, and women must become undressed with men in or to engage in heterosexual coitus. Is MAMZ saying that he doesn't engage in sex with women men or men at all, or that he only does so with his clothes on.

And what are the circumstances in life when "members of the opposite sex [are] in there watching?" Does MAMZ really believe that women want to watch him undress, or that gays want to look at his underpants.  Even if that were so, would that really make him so uncomfortable?  It seems to me that MAMZ was acknowledging that there was no one at all in front of whom he would feel comfortable getting undressed.

Trying to find the sexual logic in this, without any information except that which MAMZ himself provided in his letter to the editor, it seems more likely to me that MAMZ's real fear is that he, himself, will become attracted or aroused by seeing other soldiers changing "their underpants."  Like so many of MAMZ's statements, he criticizes gays without ever clearly stating whether or not he, himself, is gay.  Whether or not he is gay is relevant to determining whether MAMZ is a homosexual homophobic hypocrite, like Senator Larry Craig.  MAMZ has never, to my knowledge, stated that he, himself, is NOT gay. 

It is not unusual for MAMZ to deny the public even the most basic information about himself, to the point of refusing to tell the public what the "C" in the name "Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga stands for.  Where there's smoke there's fire.

Getting back to President Obama, there are two ways that the Administration can honor its commitment to overturning DADT:
  1. The administration can stop defending DADT in Court and file a brief agreeing with the plaintiffs who opposed the rules against gay service in the military,or
  2. The president can overturn DADT during the lame duck Congressional season, where Republican-minded Democrats have nothing to lose by supporting the president.

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