The Few, the Proud, the Convicted Felons

Sara Whitman has a good editorial at Gaywired that looks at the Pentagon's pitiful and insulting policy of rejecting qualified and honorable LGBT citizens from military service yet now accepting increasing numbers of convicted felons. One can be a criminal thug or gang member and that's fine, but be gay and you're unacceptable and/or out the door. What makes matters worse is that the whole DADT policy foisted on us by Billary actually only serves the Christianist agenda of stigmatizing and doing everything possible to publicly brand gays as less than full, equal citizens. The whole policy is wrong and disgusting. Here are some highlights from the column:

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The military doesn’t want gay men or lesbians serving in the armed forces but they are actively recruiting convicted felons. Rape, manslaughter, arson, kidnapping on your record? No problem. Just don’t be queer.

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On April 21st, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows that in 2006 and 2007 Americans who were convicted of serious crimes including sexual offences, manslaughter, "terrorist threats including bomb threats", burglary, kidnapping or abduction, aggravated assault and sexual assault were allowed into the military under moral waivers granted by the services. same in Iraq.

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If morals are at stake when a gay man is next to a straight man in the fox hole, as is so often described, how will that straight man feel sitting next to a child rapist? The military has gone to a new extreme to find soldiers and yet they continue to dismiss honorably serving gays and lesbians every day. People with no criminal records and, in fact, people who tend to be highly sought after linguists. More than one in ten new Army recruits have criminal and violent records.

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And we’re not talking about some teenage kid caught with a joint in his pocket. It is beyond me, as a lesbian, to think that an arsonist is more welcome to serve our country than I am. A kidnapper is more highly regarded by General Petraeus than my wife. A rapist gets a paycheck and a gun from the government.