Spartan Daily

"Don't ask, don't tell" is more like: We know, don't care

Jesse Jones

After 18 years of being forced to hide who they really are, service men and women are now allowed to be their true selves.

"As of today, patriotic Americans in uniform will no longer have to lie about who they are in order to serve the country they love," President Obama said in a statement on September 20, 2011.

This policy was a blatant showing of hatred towards homosexuals. If you are gay you are not allowed to serve and protect the country that you love, a country that supposedly says you have the freedom to be who you want to be.

Ever since this policy was put into effect in 1993 around 14,000 service men and women have been discharged from the military for being homosexual. These people that were forced out of their career will now be allowed to re-enlist back into the job they once had.

Their rehiring, however, cannot be guaranteed because of the fact that people have been enlisting in the military more lately, due to the poor economy.

Even people who are ex-military that were not kicked out for sexual orientation are having trouble re-enlisting.

I personally believe it has been a long time coming that homosexuals should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

I mean, they already served before the repeal of this policy and the military did just fine.

It’s not like allowing gays to serve openly means the military is going to send it to hell in a handbag. It seems as if a lot of the people who oppose gays in the military fear the integrity of the military will be ruined.

Just to inform those people the integrity of the military was compromised with such acts as Abu Ghraib, mass murders in Afghanistan and Iraq, waterboarding, and many other instances of acts of hatred towards the human race.

Just because someone is homosexual does not mean they are going to try and paint our tanks pink with flowers. 

This policy ruined the careers of many soldiers serving their country. They tried serving their country when many would not and they were run out because of the fear of their sexual orientation.

These men and women tried to serve their country with pride and were thrown out with the utmost disrespect. This is just pure hatred and ignorance of a group of people.

Before anyone decides to complain about me not knowing what it is like to serve in the military, I served for four years in the Army Infantry. I did my tour in Iraq for 15 months. I will tell you now, neither I nor the men and women I served with could care less if someone was gay or not.

Also, before people start saying the only reason I am writing this is because I am gay, hate to burst your bubble — I am straight.

I just don’t care if someone is gay or straight. Because no matter what their sexual orientation they are still a person and that, my friend, is all that matters.