"Domestication" and DADT

When I was a young teenager my fellow geek best friend complained while I was sitting on a park swing that I “wanted a playmate not a companion.” Which young friend from reports 10 years after seems was gay. I don’t know if it made me feel “shallow” at the time but for a heterosexual male I was operating according to (innate) plan.

You can call the evolution of animal behavior by a fancy name, “sociobiology”, or you can just say human animals are “domesticated” to live with each other according to prescribed practical patterns – with simple interfaces that can be clunky (a million lawyers rise for the judge but never think: I don’t have to salute the flag :-]).

Straight male camaraderie with males is based on what gay males might think of as very one-dimensional: on mutual interest only. The chief gay male interest in males is the same as the chief straight male interest in females – getting into their pants. This very non-mutual interest may be easy to ignore -- or even have fun to kidding about -- in a civilian workplace but can automatically obstruct the kind of (innate-straight) all-for-one and one-for-all fellowship that combat arms operate optimally with (“saves lives”).

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The sexual harassment to be feared from gay males living openly in the non-privacy of armed forces life is as multi-dimensional as male sexual harassment itself.

Straight males pester women on sex and everything else because our social perceptions have evolved blind to anything like the “overweening male ego” in females. I know this from observing the exact behavior in reverse from gays of both sexes. I often have to cut them slack for “taking me much too lightly” – they are incapable of learning “what they are up against”: my extremely self-important self (they would laugh -- this key trait may have evolved to get human males into child raising: monogamy – read “Lucy”). Expect endless trouble once pestering (especially – sneaky? – sexual type) gets type casted with gay – for their part they will never learn.

One more odd concept: gays do not understand why straight males and females are afraid of men because they are not afraid of men – they are afraid of women.

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I sincerely hope that Obama’s accepting gay recruits just two weeks before elections doesn’t make a hole in the Democratic Party the way school busing harmed the Democratic Party of the 70s. For fence sitting (what I would call) moderates, it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many.

Giving in to one federal judge’s ruling to overturn Congress seems to pave the way (it may have been paved thus already and I didn’t know about it) for a two-branch, executive/judicial-veto/government. The executive now seems to just need any lone federal judge to claim a law unconstitutional and it can claim the administration must follow the judge – no need to fight all the way to Supreme Court: as much as it thinks nobody notices.

Still think coming out in the armed services should not pose any fundamental social upset that cannot be overcome by a modest slice or two of practical indoctrination? If you had a 12 year old gay son or daughter would you advise them not to worry too much about coming out in grammar school?