All posts tagged don't ask don't tell

From a piece on the “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” Repeal:

The soldier facing an investigation in Baghdad said he came out to a few of his comrades in mid-March, about six weeks after Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, condemned the current policy for forcing troops to lie about their sexual orientation.

At the time, the soldier and his fellow field artillery soldiers were at Camp Victory, just outside Baghdad, debating politics, the “tea party” movement and “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“The conversation kept building, and I felt the voice inside of me screaming. If from that conversation it was not noticeable that I was gay, they were crazy,” he recalled in a blog that he started this year to protest the law.

“I am gay,” he recalled saying loudly.

After coming out to his fellow soldiers, he said he felt energized. “I was on the verge of tears and laughter,” he wrote. “I felt those same emotions that ran through my head as a teenager following the coming out to my parents.”

The next day he was told that he was being investigated. “The other day I felt honorable,” he wrote in his blog post. “Today I feel like a … criminal. I am tired. After serving this country for three years in two deployments I am no longer a soldier. I am now a prisoner.”

Although the soldier has been told that he will be allowed to finish his Iraq deployment, his fate remains unclear. In the interview, he said he’s worried that his command will restart the investigation when his unit finishes its tour.

“My biggest fear,” he said, “is what happens when we are at home and they don’t really need me any more.”

Undercover Nun weeps that this young man, this unique and precious child of God would worry that he is unneeded.

I marvel at the idea that it’s somehow okay to let a gay man finish out his tour in Iraq, but not to let him continue to serve in the military afterward.  I remember hearing that the problem with gay persons serving in the military is that their fellow soldiers would somehow feel unable to count on them in combat. Does nobody remember how Jesus railed against hypocrites, against those who wield the law as a weapon?

Undercover Nun does.  Shame on this young man’s superiors.  Shame on our military.  Shame on our government.  Shame on us all.

I pray for my beloved nation, for an end to fear and hate.  And I pray for this young man, for healing of the deep hurts and fears he lives with every day.

outingthemusicindustry:

Coming out as gay and knowing that you might end up losing your family for making the decision in order to remain true to yourself is a very brave and tough decision to make, however what  heterogay, a Reddit user, decided to do last week takes it to a different level, He came out to his family in response to their negative attitude to gays and DADT even though he isn’t even gay!

Yes, that’s right heterogay is 100% straight, but decided that if his family couldn’t bring themselves to love him as a gay man he didn’t want to have anything to do with them, and from their response since it seems they can’t, something that heterogay admits he’s finding very hard, but feels so strongly about gay rights that he wouldn’t now have any other way.

Heterogay, you are our hero.

You can read his message about what happened below:

“I’m a straight male. Very straight. I love women.

I also totally support gay rights – with all my heart. I can’t STAND bigotry and it really pisses me off that you don’t have equal rights.

I’m straight but if I have a son or daughter that’s gay I’ll be damned if they don’t have the same rights that I do….

My family however, is fairly homophobic.

They live on the east coast. I live in SF.

I’ve never let them say anything discriminatory in front of me without it being challenged and flat out calling them hateful bigots.

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Undercover Nun weeps for this young man.  He ends his story thus: “So here I am…. one of you. I’m ostracized from my family. I’m out of the closet and kicked in the teeth. This is harder than I thought.” 

It is indeed incredibly difficult to experience life as one of the disenfranchised.  You learn a whole lot about privilege, the privilege that “majority” folks take for granted.  Whether you are non-white, gay, polyamorous, non-Christian (in the US), non-Muslim (in other countries or communities), autistic, bipolar, poor, wheelchair-bound, blind, or any number of other states or conditions, all of the sudden, you see every aspect of life differently.  It takes courage and strength just to exist in the same world as the privileged.

Undercover Nun has sensed what seems to be a lack of agreement as to what the Christian response to this should be.  Scripture is quoted, and people are attacked (“GOD HATES FAGS” — really? Last I checked, God didn’t hate anybody!), and nobody feels very good about it.  So here is where Undercover Nun stands.

1. God weeps at rage, fear, and hate.  God rejoices in love, forgiveness, and welcome — even when we have to struggle for it.  I know I do it often enough, but I don’t like to make God weep.  It’s uncomfortably similar — and far, far worse — to seeing my mother weep.
2. I’m not convinced that scripture passages from Leviticus and New Testament letters speak to loving, supportive, faithful, committed relationships between partners of the same sex.
3. I’m not completely convinced that we flawed and unlovely humans are truly capable of loving the sinner while hating the sin. 
4. I have learned that hate and anger and fear take way too much energy, which could be used in much more constructive ways for God’s kingdom.
5. It is not my place to judge any one form of sin as worse or less-bad than any other.  Neither am I qualified to judge any one sinner as worse or less-bad than any other.  That’s God’s job, and I take it on at the risk of my own soul.
6. I love every single person that is, that was, and that ever will be.  I’m not always good at this, and much of the time, I need God’s help.  It’s hard to love people who never learned how to load the dishwasher properly, who commit genocide, who park in my parking spot, who let oil rigs blow up, who sit in my pew at church, or who abuse and discriminate against other children of God.

So Heterogay?  Undercover Nun loves you.  So do a whole bunch of others.  Jesus once said that he came to set father against son and mother against daughter.  I’ve always been troubled by that line, but your story captures its truth. 

Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.  Or that he lay down his family for them.

May you be blessed, brave man.  You’re in my prayers.