Predictable; Infuriating

Last week, I wrote about the murder of gay Seaman August Provost, and I noted: "What breaks my heart even beyond the loss of Provost's life is that, if it turns out that he was killed because he was gay, there will be people who cite his death as justification to retain the DADT policy."

Cue Time to draw the connection between the murder and the military's DADT policy, but take the "the murder last week of an apparently gay sailor at California's Camp Pendleton has raised new questions over the readiness of the armed forces to accept openly homosexual personnel" route.

As I said last week, it isn't openly gay servicemembers who are the problem; it is the DADT policy: "The reality, of course, is that the forced association between being gay and secrecy, shame, and silence, the suggestion that being gay is something so bad that it should and must be hidden, created by DADT is precisely what feeds the dangerous homophobia that leads to the mistrust and harassment and harm of gay soldiers. If anything, Provost's death, if indeed a hate crime, argues for DADT's repeal, cries plaintively for a policy that does not tacitly encourage suspicion, contempt, violent hatred of the Other."

Aside from that, asserting that the murder raises "new questions over the readiness of the armed forces to accept openly homosexual personnel" (and what "new questions," btw?) is contingent upon ignoring that there are loads of openly gay soldiers (at least with their peers) who are being accepted without issue—and it is only one, or possibly two, of Provost's peers who didn't accept him. His partner said he was open with friends on the base who he trusted; what about their readiness to accept openly gay peers?

Meanwhile, let us also recall that two weeks ago, I wrote about white supremacists infiltrating the US military care of the increasingly lax regulations on extremism in the ranks. Not to put too fine a point on it, but white supremacists aren't generally known for their tolerance of the queers.

And then there's the evangelicalization of the American military, particularly the Airforce Academy, via shit like "Christian Embassy," an evangelical group affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ, which has as one of its objectives recruiting members of the military. (Recommended viewing: Constantine's Sword.)

Call me kooky, but throwing wide the military's doors to white supremacists and conservative evangelicals just might deserve some attention, if we're looking at agents of intolerance in the military's ranks. Just sayin'.

[H/T to Memeorandum.]