Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Let me begin by saying that I am intentionally leaving out a lot of details from this and I ask that anyone who has heard any details not included herein to please not add them in, please trust my judgment on this one.

So I was at a party and ended up hooking up with a semi random guy. We will him USA Guy. Well while unlike most random hook ups we actually laid there and talked after we finished. One of the things we talked at length about was relationships and how neither one of us was really relationship material right now, mainly because at this point we are both career and goal driven, and anything more than friends just wouldn’t be fair, also add in the fact he is currently living many miles away from here. However, USA guys circumstances are a bit different than mine, my being gay won’t preclude me from my profession or finding a job I will enjoy when I finish my degrees. USA guy on the other hand, is gay and in the US Army, something he admits he loves doing even though under current rules he has to hide a very big and important part of himself. Every since we met and had that discussion it has had me thinking. Honestly I don’t get don’t ask don’t tell, I have never been a fan of Bill Clintons and this is one of the reasons. During his campaign, for the presidency he promised the GLBT community that he would allow homosexuals to serve in the military, many believe he implied openly serve. As I see it DADT was and still is a pathetic excuse and attempt to fulfill a campaign promise, something Clinton excelled at, promising the world and delivering very little of it and somehow people love him for it. Now I have several friends in the armed forces and they all share the belief that they don’t care who the guy next to them sleeps with as long as they can shoot straight (no pun intended) when the times comes, and do their job to the best of their ability and look out for their fellow soldiers. And the argument I like the best is that DADT protects gay and lesbian soldiers from harassment and physical harm from fellow soldiers by keeping their sexual orientation a secret, but you tell me is the trade between potential physical assault and the mental/emotional damage of having to constantly hide who and what you are just to be accepted. Gays and Lesbians are required to pay taxes, they are allowed to vote, they are allowed to hold public office, but a homosexual is not allowed to take up arms in defense of their country because some Washington bureaucrat thinks they can tells homo’s what is and is not good for them. It’s kind of like the joke from when I worked at the county, the eight scariest words of all time are I’m from the government, I’m here to help. But anyway, I’m glad I got to spend at least some time with an insanely attractive, extremely smart, kind, caring guy maybe someday in this fucked up world he will be able to have both, a career he loves and a partner he can love openly, but until then to all the homo’s in the Armed forces, keep going, a new day will come, as it inevitably does, we might not see it in our generation, but it will come.