Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Apparently in order to be able to work for the government in any capacity especially in our military it is necessary that people be straight. Recently (as many of you I’m sure have heard) an Arabic linguist was dismissed from the military because he was gay. What is perhaps the most ridiculous and offensive however were some of the absurd questions that were asked in uncovering this (fairly unimportant) piece of information, for instance whether or not he had ever been involved in community theatre.

Quite frankly I don’t care if our men and women in the service are tap dancing to Hairspray in their spare time as long as they are pointing their guns at the right people. I’m quite curious as to why the military is perpetuating an absurd stereotype that has more basis in fantasy than fact. For those of you who stay up on the news in New York, or just happen to be fans of the LOGO channel you might of also heard of Rhonda Davis, a wonderfully sweet kind woman who was dismissed from our military because of her sexual orientation.

Perhaps the military should spend less time investigating their soldiers’ personal lives and more time investigating their soldiers’ actions, such as the rape of an Iraqi woman and the murder of her family by American soldiers. Or perhaps the notorious mistreatment of captured prisoners. But no, that is unreasonable. How could anyone suggest that we should pay attention to what is relevant and actually affecting our country as well as other countries and our image world-wide? Instead why don’t we stab ourselves in the back by getting rid of good soldiers for something as irrelevant as sexual orientation. Et tu, America?

Straight people of the world this post is for you, it is in no particular order and just a little informational piece that you might find interesting. Numerous court hearings have been held on the issue of same-sex marriage recently both in the United States as well as over seas. In light of these events I thought you might like to know what your government has said about you.

I’ll start with New York as it is my home state and I would like to address my fellow New Yorkers for a few moments. In New York State the highest court voted down same-sex marriage by a vote of four to two.

“. . .the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. . .The Legislature could also find that [heterosexual] relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. . .” - NYS Court of Appeals Decision (pages 5 and 6)

So lets take a look at that, shall we? The New York State Court of Appeals more or less says that heterosexual men are so careless and frivolous that they require a legally binding contract in order for them not to abandon the women who they will ineviably get pregnant and their offspring. As for heterosexual women, the court apparently believes that they are so free with themselves that they are all too likely to casually have kids (perhaps the nine month waiting period was removed without my notice). In addition the court finds that heterosexual people exist almost solely to produce offspring. Therefore, if you are unable to have children, uninterested in having children, or too old to have children you do not matter in the eyes of New York State. Don’t worry, you have a lot of company (For instance the one million plus New Yorkers who identify as LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender).

In Indiana a similar decision was handed down.

“The Plaintiffs assert that there are three possible, but ultimately unreasonable, reasons for the legislative classification: to promote procreation and child-rearing by both natural parents, to promote the traditional family unit, and to promote the integrity
of traditional marriage.” - Indiana Court of Appeals

But wait! Traditional marriage? How do we define this “traditional marriage”? If what I’ve read is correct traditional marriage was an institution in which African American couples couldn’t marry, inter-racial couples could not marry, and women had no rights? Hey, if it works for all of you it works for me, but somehow I
think there might be a few people with something to say about traditional marriage, just a hunch.

Other rulings against same-sex marriage have come down in Georgia, London, and Washington. Washington State recently upheld a DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) which is a piece of legislation that defines the words “marriage” and “spouse” to exclude same-sex couples. With a vote of five to four. By 2004 33 states had amended their constitutions and passed these acts (as written by B.A. Robinson of Religious Tolerance.org).

DOMA bills are extremely important to the straight community because being gay is just so much fun that if same-sex marriage was legal all of you heterosexuals would say “To hell with opposite-sex marriage, I think I’m going to go out and do that!” (Not that I can blame you with a divorce rate of something like 50% and celebrities like Brittany Spears getting married and then getting it anoled the next day, if that was my choice would probably explore my other options as well). It’s a good thing we have DOMA bills to uphold the sanctity of marriage and keep all you frivoulous, lechers, nymphos, and machines of procreation on track. Otherwise the human race would die out like the dinosaurs. Of course, we could focus on teens who have babies in bathrooms and throw them in trash cans but hey, we have more important things to think about, like stopping homosexual marriage which is threatening the children and the straight people of the world.

(age 18)