December 17, 2010

"In the end, Marines in combat will treat sexual orientation the same way they treat race, religion and..."

"... one's stance on the likelihood of the Patriots winning another Super Bowl. I do not believe the intense desire we all feel as Marines to accomplish the mission and protect each other will be affected in the slightest by knowing the sexual orientation of the man or woman next to us.... I believe the reluctance many Marines feel about repeal is based on the false stereotype, borne out of ignorance, that homosexuals don't do things like pull other Marines from burning vehicles. The truth is, they do it all the time. We simply don't know it because they can't tell us."

Nathan Cox, an infantry captain in the Marine Corps.

206 comments:

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Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I'm not saying I'm gay, BTW, but basing my response on what I've observed in close friends who are.

Fen said...

You're intelligent enough to have come up with a less offensive response than that

Why do you find that offensive?

Even Plato (since the ancients appear to be our authority in this thread) says its "unnatural".

Do you at least agree that bringing incest into a family unit would damage it?

Fen said...

I'm not saying I'm gay, BTW, but basing my response on what I've observed in close friends who are.

What % of those close friends have made a pass at you?

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I find it offensive to pervert our understanding of nature by confusing the distinction between familial bonds or bonds of friendship or of mission with sexual longings. Freud might have created a whole new field of study. His ideas should also be taken with a grain of salt and their fuzzy methodologies not needlessly replicated.

Plato is not an authority of one. Whatever his contemporaries did, I'm sure other contemporaries thought differently.

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

What % of those close friends have made a pass at you?

None, so far as I can tell.

I used to be less comfortable with the idea of a gay friend at one point.

You might consider that it might be harder for them to date given a much shrunken pool of available partners. OTOH, they don't have to deal with the bullshit of male-female differences, for which I at one point envied them.

But then our understanding of close ties tend to evolve over time. I have a friend with whom we both feel pretty comfortable talking about sexual issues, moreso having to do with the people we're dating. They never cross into us directing those issues onto each other. But that makes it obvious we're close while respecting a certain difference. He likes to feel accepted as a person.

At the same time, I've gotten to the point where I've got female friends that I can talk about issues involving other women without the need for an attraction developing between me and them.

Fen said...

Plato is not an authority of one.


Then neither is Alexander.

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