It’s Not What You Wear

Serving proudly, openly; marrying freely, openly

You can specialize in detonating every IED on the road to hell, you can protect every convoy hauling diesel across the blowing sands of the dessert under fire, but you better not blog about your family back home, you better not mention your husband or your wife or your girlfriend in that profile update, if you happen to be on the wrong side of the great gender divide.
No, baby … those stars and bars and colors, don’t mean a thing, if you’re the macho Marine wearing the pink panties under those military proper tan fatigues or the butch Army dyke wearing the gray BVDS under your dress blues.
Not a thing.
It is not what you wear, but “how you take it off” that’s important to the United States of America.
OK, come on, knock it off people, I’ve had enough! Whine, whine, whine …
It’s not about letting gays and lesbians into the military. We have been in forever: the military, the latrine, the barracks and the closet. It’s about the military respecting every soldier and serviceperson and their family. It’s also the about consideration of human rights and human dignity.
Betty and I got married in Connecticut last June. Just like that.
The kids came in from Long Island and London. The grandkids stood up with us and hugged and kissed us, as we kissed each other. The minister smiled and blessed us in the name of God and asked us to both say, “I do” and then we did.
Years and years of waiting and wondering whether or not we would ever be able to marry, years and years of enduring dire predictions about the downfall of humanity if we were allowed to marry, and then we did … and nothing happened.
I tried hard to hear the crumbling walls of the Connecticut village, the quaking of the cliffs, the rising of the ocean, the giant wave about to swallow us all. I squinted hard at the clouds overhead for signs of lightening, but not even a solar flare. Nothing.
Birds were singing in the trees, dogs were barking across the street, and no old people fell over dead on the sidewalk in front of us.
And that is exactly what will happen when we finally allow our soldiers to serve honestly and openly in the military.
Will there be some jackass trying to make a point that, “we don’t want ya’ll in here in the latrine with us!” Sure there will be. There will also be a few macho jerks that refuse to serve alongside the queer boys. But there will be more soldiers, who simply relax into the idea that we are all different and fascinating in our own way. Let’s face it, there is a bit of voyeurism in us all. It is interesting to watch each other. Why shouldn’t it be?
But we need to get over the idea that gay, lesbian and all our various transfigurations and conglomerations, are in any way less boring than your normal straight guy. We humans are interesting for about fifteen minutes and then it’s time to go to lunch.
The military leadership has to get over the antiquated idea that you have to be straight to perform your duties as a soldier. It is just not true, it’s bigoted, it is wrong and it is detrimental to our effort to serve and protect our nation.
The military also has to get over the idea that we queers are interested in jumping straight soldier’s bones. It just ain’t happening kids.
We have enough to do, like loading our machine guns, smearing that black grease under our lesbian eyes and applying camel brown eyeliner and ocean blue eye shadow, so as not to clash with the colors the variegated dessert sands.
What, ARE they thinking? Geez.
Carry on soldier.

Categories: Commentary