A point on American DADT

[sparkindarkness]

Did you realise that soldiers from countries that allow gay service-members (which is a very large number) are reluctant or outright refusing  to serve alongside the US because they fear your bigotry?

Do you see what you’re doing? Your army, your soldiers, are getting an international reputation as unreasoning bigots that is so severe that armies that have serving gay members (and have had for years to no detrimental effect!) have had units refuse to deploy alongside yours.

They do it because they feel they have to protect themselves against the discrimination and bigotry of their allies.

You worry about how this will harm the troops. But here you have missions becoming difficult because they cannot work with their allies. Here you have your troops smeared as bigots and irrational haters. Your troops are viewed with anger and fear by your allies because you have forced them to live in a culture of bigotry.

Is this what you think of your troops? Do you think they are so much more bigoted and hateful than their counterparts in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, the Netherlands and gods alone how many other countries (and, guess what? The countries that ban gay soldiers are not exactly the ones you want to be associated with when it comes to human rights and tolerance) that they simply cannot accept gays? Do you have that little respect for your own soldiers? Do you really think they are so much worse than just about every western military?

Do you think their bigotry is that much worse than it is important to pander to their hatred? Do you think your soldiers are so incurably bigoted that it is worth making working with allies increasingly more difficult?

It seems to me that they don’t respect their troops much at all.