Crossposted at dKos and My Left Wing

Un-fucking-believable… just when you thought the anti-gay fervor in this country, (championed by Neophyte-In-Chief George W. Scrub II and his Christio-Fascist Inquisitors), had reached rock bottom, (or new heights, depending on your perspective), along comes a new low. A Pentagon spokesman has today admitted that, without consulting the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon has partially suspended, (covertly of course), its ban on openly gay soldiers. Sounds good… right? Well there’s a catch, and a pretty fucking big one at that. Here’s the scoop from the Washington Blade:

Members of the Army Reserves and the National Guard who inform their commanders that they are gay are routinely converted into active duty status and sent to the Iraq war and other high priority military assignments, according to a spokesperson for an Army command charged with deploying troops.

More below the fold…

The spokesperson, Kim Waldron, a civilian who works for the U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson, Ga., said the active duty deployment of Reservists and National Guard troops who say they are gay, or who are accused of being gay, takes place under a Forces Command or “FORSCOM” regulation issued in 1999.

Waldron said the regulation is aimed at preventing Reservists and National Guard members from using their sexual orientation — or from pretending to be gay — to escape combat.

“The bottom line is some people are using sexual orientation to avoid deployment,” Waldron said. “So in this case, with the Reserve and Guard forces, if a soldier `tells,’ they still have to go to war and the homosexual issue is postponed until they return to the U.S. and the unit is demobilized.”

Yes, commonly known as the Corporal Klinger Foil.

So let me get this straight, (no pun intended), the military is concerned that soldiers will “use their sexual orientation” to escape combat, but at the same time they have a policy that forbids gays from serving openly, under penalty of discharge, because it will “upset unit cohesion?”

Waldron said the FORSCOM regulation doesn’t conflict with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy because Department of Defense regulations that implemented “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” provide for a similar procedure for retaining service members who attempt to circumvent deployment by claiming they are gay.

The existence of the 1999 FORSCOM regulation was revealed earlier this month by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, a think tank affiliated with the University of California at Santa Barbara. In a news release issued on Sept. 13, the group said its researchers discovered the document while assisting the ABC television program “Nightline” with research on gays in the military.

Aaron Belkin, executive director of the CSSMM, said he was “astonished” that a military spokesperson has confirmed that military commanders routinely deploy service members thought to be gay into active duty assignments.

“The Pentagon has consistently denied that, when mobilization requires bolstering troop strength, it sends gays to fight despite the existence of a gay ban,” Belkin said.

OK, I just have to pause for a moment and ponder… a think tank titled “The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military?” Just what we need… another freakin’ think tank. Instead, how about sexual minorities in a real tank, thinking about the pride they feel about being able to openly serve their tolerant country? (Well, that and the fact that there’s an insurgent on the side of the road who’d like to see them blown to smithereens.)

Too much to ask? Almost certainly with the current occupant of the White House… James Dobson, (at least in spirit).

But, I digress… let’s get to the stats:

Statistics released by the DOD show that the number of gay discharges rose steadily between 1993, when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was adopted, and 2001, when the U.S. deployed troops to Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The number of gay discharges peaked in 2001 at 1,227, according to DOD figures. By 2004, as U.S. soldiers continued to fight the war in Iraq, the number of gay discharges dropped to 653.

Lt. Col. Ellen Kranke, a DOD spokesperson at the Pentagon, said the DOD has no comment on the FORSCOM regulation other than that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy remains in effect.

“Our policy has not changed,” she said.

(Sounds of crickets chirping…)

As Commander in Chief, Preznit Shrub has obviously implemented his “fuzzy math” policy throughout the armed forces.

Belkin said the discovery of the FORSCOM regulation represents the first written documentation stating that military commanders actually deploy soldiers suspected of being gay or who admit to being gay to active duty assignments.

“Scholars, lawyers and, most importantly, gay service members themselves, have long known of the military’s practice of looking the other way when it’s time to fight a war,” Belkin said. “Now we have documentation showing this has been a deliberate policy.”

The handbook document in question, FORESCOM Regulation 500-3-3, is called “FORSCOM Mobilization & Deployment Planning System: Volume III Reserve Component Unit Commander’s Handbook.”

The handbook states that if a discharge of a Reservist or National Guard member for homosexual conduct “is not requested prior to the unit’s receipt of alert notification, discharge is not authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit.”

Well, this makes perfect sense under America’s current Dobsonite ideology… if God is punishing America with wars, natural disasters and the destruction of the family, why not send gays to die for for a situation for which they’re so clearly responsible? And if they survive, we’ll just denigrate them, dishonor their sacrifice, and destroy their careers when they get home… it’s a win-win situation!

Ok, I’m a little peeved that this story is only being reported in the gay press and not the MSM, but I’m posting it on Booman Tribune with the hopes that my liberal brethren and sisteren, (is that a word… it should be), will spread it far and wide.

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