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03/19/2010

Hey TVC: At depths as low as yours, 'snorkeling' is not recommended

by Jeremy Hooper

The far-right has got to stop saying "gay" when the person is in fact straight-identified! This from the Traditional Values Coalition:

At [yesteday's] Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on overturning the misnamed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military, Senators should look no further than the scandal involving former Congressman Eric Massa. His shameful behavior as a sexual predator in the Navy clearly shows why lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals should not be permitted to openly serve in the Armed Forces.



The ex-Congressman from New York is now the new poster child for upholding the 1993 law banning gays and lesbians from serving in the military. His former Navy colleagues are coming out of hiding to expose his decades-long habit of trying to seduce his subordinates – known as “snorkeling” in the Navy.



As the public learns more about Massa’s aggressive homosexual advances toward his subordinates, his former Navy colleagues are going public with lurid tales of his gay exploits aboard Naval vessels.



Here is a clear case of a gay sexual predator assaulting his subordinates in the Navy and getting away with it. Massa’s shipmates were afraid of turning him in for fear of retaliation.



If the Congress overturns the 1993 law banning gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military, lechers like Massa will have free reign to aggressively stalk and conquer young subordinates.



Does Congress really want to legalize the predatory behaviors of such men? Overturning the 1993 law will give gays and lesbians license to go after young soldiers, sailors and Marines. Men like Massa will then multiply in the Armed Forces – undermining unit cohesion and military readiness.

Disgraced Former Representative Eric Massa Poster Child For Keeping Ban On Gays In Military [TVC]



Okay, so obviously the whole thing is kooky and the denunciations are beyond the pale. It's the Traditional Values Coalition: Who would expect anything else?

But regardless of general nuttiness, this does present a good time to talk about the differences between a hetero-idenitified man who is closeted or curious or whatever, and an actually gay-identified person! Someone like Eric Massa, who is married to a female and who has a family, is undeniably in a different place in his life than is an out gay man. The only kind of "conduct" he can have in terms of same-sex intimacy is that which happens on the sly. That may manifest itself in a number of ways, but none of them are likely to be forthright.

Now, this is not to suggest that being in the closet = being shady. Hopefully that goes without saying. But we do mean to suggest that there's a big difference between an LGB person who lives an open, benign, non-controversial, not-hidden, unashamed life or who is closeted only because of unfortunate situational realities, and someone who lives and identifies and marries as a heterosexual man but has been accused of making same-sex advancements. And with DADT that's what we're talking about: The desire to remove the stigma placed on LGB people by the American armed forces, which demands that LGB existence be either hidden or highly secretive. In fact, one could easily make the case that it's this unfortunate cultural climate, both in the military and at-large, that creates the kind of situations that TVC kookily describes and opportunistically decries!

Actual LGB soldiers gave heartfelt testimonies at yesterday's Armed Services Committee hearing. LGB soldiers chained themselves to the White House fence. Every day, LGB soldiers serve our country valiantly. Eric Massa was never an LGB soldier and is not currently an openly gay man, by his own chosen words. That distinction should matter to everyone -- even groups extreme enough to make the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate groups list!

Your thoughts

I love how they ignore the fact that the Code of Conduct (I think that's what it's called) will STILL prohibit sexual harrassment after DADT is gone. They imply that repealing DADT will make the military one big orgy, with no restrictions on what can (or in their world "will") happen. How I long for the days when "Christians" actually told the truth!!!

Posted by: Ken | Mar 19, 2010 12:26:16 PM

I always find it interesting when anti-gays make the argument that gays shouldn't be able to serve in the military because of the possibility of sexual harassment. A couple of weeks ago, Time magazine ran a short article about how women in the military are more likely to "get raped" by a fellow (male) soldier than they are to "be killed" by enemy fire. Yet, you don't hear TVC calling for a ban on men in the military. In all likelihood, they'd use these statistics as a reason why women should be banned from the military.

Posted by: fannie | Mar 19, 2010 1:44:57 PM

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