“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple,” he told a group of Marines at a base in South Korea. “It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.
“You all joined for a reason: to serve,” he continued. “To protect our nation, right?”
“Yes, sergeant major,” Marines replied.
“How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” Sgt. Maj. Barrett continued, raising his voice just a notch. “Right?”
Sgt. Maj. Barrett then described conversations with U.K. troops, who saw a similar ban lifted a decade ago, with little disruption. And to drive the point home, he produced a pocket copy of the Constitution.
“Get over it,” he said. “We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be. … Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.”
Well I think that about sums up the attitude the military needs to embrace in order to successfully do away with DADT, don't you?
I have to say that reading that caused me to get a little lump in my throat.
Two thumbs up to the Sergeant Major.
ReplyDeleteIt's war that brings a lump to my throat. In fact, it suffocates me.
ReplyDeleteAnd it really is just as simple as that! Hoorah!
ReplyDeleteSemper Fi, and from personal experience, you don't fuck with the top of the top's.
ReplyDeleteSorry for off topic, but I had to bring this to your attention.
ReplyDeleteNo Joke: Sarah Palin Reportedly Quits One Nation Bus Tour Halfway Through
http://www.mediaite.com/online/no-joke-sarah-palin-reportedly-quits-one-nation-bus-tour-halfway-through/#comments
Love that attitude. It is long overdue.
ReplyDeletePat Padrnos
Great article.
ReplyDeleteSo, Gryphen, did you kak up that hairball in your throat or what? LOL
Our country is finally growing up.
ReplyDeleteI think America will look back and be ashamed that it took us this long to establish equality for all citizens.
ReplyDeleteWe need to END DISCRIMINATION LAWS!!
The DADT repeal is a start.
Now let's get moving and help BAN laws that DICTATE who ADULTS should marry!
Change that last quote to read we're Americans instead of marines and they become words for all of us to live by.
ReplyDeleteOne of these men may save your life
ReplyDeleteone of these days, understand?
Then again, maybe one of us won't.
According to christian supremacists, the constitution doesn't apply.
ReplyDeleteOnly their own bible and it's interpration by their leaders really matters. Net result is that whatever the sheep are told is what they are going to believe.
I've heard stories about the Air Force academy in Colorado in which non religious cadets have been harassed, insulted, and even assaulted
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/acad-a30.shtml
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/02/981245/-Air-Force-Academy-Leadership-Digs-a-Deeper-Hole
Quote:
"353 cadets (at Air Force academy) (almost 1 out of every 5 survey participants) reported having been subjected to unwanted religious proselytizing, and 23 cadets (13 of them Christians) reported living 'in fear of their physical safety' because of their religious beliefs."
I couldn't agree more. War is bad enough..we don't need any distractions, just get on with the business at hand. Let the soldiers do their job and then get the hell outta there!
ReplyDeleteI truly think the anti-gay sentiment is a creation of the media. It's about time some of the leaders are speaking out - frankly, the 'conservatives' listen to a man in uniform so yay on the Sergeant Major.
ReplyDeleteI live in one of the most conservative states in the union, and most folks NO LONGER CARE if a person is gay. It's just a matter of the politicians/lawmakers catching up to public sentiment (why do politicians always start a sentence with "the American people want" when it seems like the rest of the exclamation is the exact opposite of what we want??!!)
John McCain never listens to enlisted men or Marines.
ReplyDelete6:14
ReplyDeleteAs the old song goes
Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear
She's gone quiet, pulled the troops back to Wasilla and now she quits her trip.
Wonder what's cooking? Mediate has some great bot crap btw in the comments.
One mentioned she was going to have a HUGE TV event with over ten thousand people watching. I think there's that many on QVC at two a.m.
Could be the walls are closing in, lots of her slime is percolating up and I'm guessing Briskets little smarmy bitch session isn't playing well either.
Keep pushing Gryph, I think the work you and the others, plus the books, are starting to get people wondering. Plus her bots have to be starting to worry all that money they've sent her has been wasted, actually spent on her own lifestyle
Hey Sara, feeling the heat yet?
Let's get that movie out there and bulk up the SaraPAC
Now, that is man is a hero! He brought tears to my eyes!
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party contender may seem like a goofball, but be warned: Her presidential campaign is no laughing matter
ReplyDeleteClose your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don't laugh.
It may be the hardest thing you ever do, for Michele Bachmann is almost certainly the funniest thing that has ever happened to American presidential politics. Fans of obscure 1970s television may remember a short-lived children's show called Far Out Space Nuts, in which a pair of dimwitted NASA repairmen, one of whom is played by Bob (Gilligan) Denver, accidentally send themselves into space by pressing "launch" instead of "lunch" inside a capsule they were fixing at Cape Canaveral. This plot device roughly approximates the political and cultural mechanism that is sending Michele Bachmann hurtling in the direction of the Oval Office.
Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government. She kicked off her unofficial presidential campaign in New Hampshire, by mistakenly declaring it the birthplace of the American Revolution. "It's your state that fired the shot that was heard around the world!" she gushed. "You are the state of Lexington and Concord, you started the battle for liberty right here in your backyard."
http://www.rollingstone.com/
politics/news/michele-bachmanns-h
HooRah!!!
ReplyDeleteGay men and women have always served in our military, the extreme right tries to act like they haven't.
Personally, I am happy that a brave gay man was serving beside my father in WWII because he saved my Dad's life. This brave man risked himself to go and get my injured father and pull him to safety and render first aide that most likely saved my Dad's life. He saved my Dad TWICE in a matter of minutes. This brave soldier later became an extra "uncle" to us and was an extra role model for us as we grew up. Gay soldiers served along side my husband and brothers in VN, gay soldiers served along side my sone in Iraq and Afghanistan...who cares what their sexual preference is, we NEED honotable people to serve all of us.
I guess I'd rather have an honorable person beside my relatives that are currently deployed than a violent scumbag like Jeremy Morlock, who not only is a serial killer, but dishonored the uniform he chose to wear.
i happened to be around a group of veterans over the weekend, none of whom i had met before.
ReplyDeletei am also a veteran, but ive not been around many vets over the last few decades.
i walked away deep in thought of how i felt while gathered with these people many who had done 20yrs. i felt safe; with the many colors of them the many varieties of them; short tall dark light and no concern at all for the more personal aspects of their lives.
we were a unit, period.
we all knew, we Knew, we could count on each other.
thanks for posting this gryph.
What a great, simple approach by the Sergeant Major! I served, and I served with gay men and women. The fact that those brave men and women have to hide their personal lives is shameful and I'm so glad it's almost over. Imagine being an injured soldier, in a hospital, and your partner of 10 years can't even get in to visit you because he's not family or your designated emergency contact. (If you had listed him as your contact, people would find out about the real you.)
ReplyDeleteHey, what is this guy? Some sort of limp wristed commie?
ReplyDeleteSemper Fi, Sergeant Major, Semper fi!
Did anybody notice quitter hanging from the statue of liberty waving a sarahpac sign behind Jon huntsman yesterday?
ReplyDelete7:04
ReplyDeleteIn "A Few Good Men" it was summarized quite nicely regarding our "love" for the Navy. Something like we love you navy boys, you take us where we need to go to fight.
I would diss him further but he did his time as a POW.
But your comment about McCain and the Marine Corps just made me laugh as I recalled a number of face to faces I encountered with the navy boys over the years.
6:59
ReplyDeleteAFA has long been a hotbed of extreme far right thinking. That hasn't changed over the years and won't. Remember though, they control the nukes.
I am impressed by the Sergent Major's truthfulness!
ReplyDeleteReligious prejudice has no place in the armed services or any other office of any level of government.
No one can point to any science or fact as to why they "feel" (because you cannot say "think" without basis in facts) that homosexuality is wrong.
It is all about belief systems.
And this will help tremendously with the "gay marriage" issue.
State sanctioned marriage is a legal contract that has nothing to do with any Church, Temple or Synagogue etc., except where churches and clergy have applied to the government for PERMISSION, to perform LEGAL marriage ceremonies.
The separation of church and state makes it clear that the various religions should marry whomever they want, and the state must protect the equal rights of it's citizens.
If the various religions do not wish to marry gays, then they can rescind their licences as sanctioned by the state, to represent the state over these ceremonies.
You know, "as vested in me by the state of ....fill in the blank...., I now pronounce you man and wife"
They could say "as vested in me by this church of heterosexual only marriage...I now pronounce you man and wife , strictly in the eyes of the God the WE believe in".
Couples can have their "sanctified" religious ceremony at their place of worship, then go to the courthouse to have their legal government marriage contract fulfilled, if they so choose.
You know Baptisms, Communions, Bat Mitzvahs, etc. are not any part of the governments pervue or concern and neither should religious marriage be.
No representative from any place of worship has to apply to the government to perform these Baptisms, Communions, Bat Mitzvahs, etc.
A legal marriage contract is none of the business of any religion.
It should never be interfered with any more than any other legal contract, by ANY religious group or individual, and other religious ceremonies should remain out of the grasp of government authority and licensing.
The laws concerning a legal marriage contract should never have the SLIGHTEST consideration based in religion.....just like all of the other legal contracts the state oversees.
The law is meant to deal ONLY with FACT, it was built on "equal protection under the law", not "equal protection under the law as long as the church agrees"
I really think many people are confused and confounded by this.
Beautiful! When I get depressed because folks like the Palins and Rep Bachmann make me embarrassed to be American I will think of this and hold my head high.
ReplyDeleteToo bad the CIC doesn't have the balls to say it so clearly and commandingly.
ReplyDeleteHe has let this drag on and on and on. And the longer Obama lets the Generals who want to keep DADT drag this out the less likely it is that full implementation of Civil law and Constitutional law will be applied.
Harry Truman fired the most popular General in the US for less insubordination.
And Harry was correct to do so.
I like the "firmness" part of his credo; everyone should definitely be treated to a dose of "firmness" :-)
ReplyDeleteI don't feel the anti gay bias is a creation of the media. I know it's a fundamental priciple of right wing conservatism. I live in Pennsylvania, where pretty boy Santorum once equated homosexuality with bestiality, along with some very strong language against gay people marrying and (Gawd Forbid) rearing children.
ReplyDeleteAnd Pennsylvania does have large pockets of conseravative voters. Not one spoke out against his statements, but many moderates and liberals did. The media just reports what they see, and manipulates it to fit the beliefs of those who pay their bills.
This isn't a "gay" issue, it's a "human" issue. This man's choice of words and courageous stance should be newsworthy.
A loving gay couple, having the same rights I do as a married woman is no one else's business, especially government. And it doesn't affect my marriage and my family in any way. Love is what matters, not what two people do in their own bedroom. DADT is a slap in the face to all people.
Imagine being straight was taboo, and you had to hide your true self in order to serve your country? Be denied the benefits that come with marriage? Absurd isn't it, expecially when it's fine to pay taxes, start businesses, and contribute to society while being gay.