Personally, I have never had the desire to serve in the military. I’m old enough to remember being scared that when I turned 18, my number would come up and I would be drafted and sent to Vietnam. Fortunately, the draft was cancelled before I was old enough to get caught in it. But the military lifestyle just isn’t for me. I’m too free-thinking and independent to develop the needed discipline.
However, I believe that if a person wants to serve their country, laying their life on the line to do so, then it should be their right. Not only that, it shows them to be just the kind of heroic person we need in our armed forces during a time of war.
For decades, we fought the categorical discharge of gay service members. What we got from Bill Clinton was a weak, watered-down apology called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” So now we can serve in the military without anybody knowing we’re gay.
It’s all based on mistaken notions about manhood. They figure that if someone is gay, they aren’t man enough to serve in the military. (By this reasoning, albeit flawed, gay women should be more suited to serve than straight women.) Try to remember that one of history’s greatest warriors — Alexander the Great — was a homo.
Nobody should have to live a secret life to serve their country. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell needs to be done away with, and all who seek to serve and defend their country should be able to do so, regardless of what they do with their privates.
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