As you may know, the chairman of House’s Armed Services Committee (Ike Skelton) said the other day we should keep Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because repealing it could mean that parents might have awkward moments with their kids when they ask what it means to be gay.
I’ll just ignore all the other issues (Rachel Maddow covers them beautifully in her segment below), and I’ll answer the question posed by Mr. Skelton…
7 years old is the perfect age to discuss what it means to be gay with your kids. Why? Because at that age it’s not about sex - it’s about the relationship. You don’t have to discuss what you might think of as “icky” sexual practices - you can talk about loving relationships which should never be seen as “icky”. If your 7 year old asks if gay couples have kids, explain adoption to them and say gay couples adopt kids that same-sex couples aren’t able to care for. There’s nothing icky in that either…
I can see where the question could be awkward if the kid is 12 or 13, but I don’t see anything awkward about answering the question when the kid is 7.
I was watching This Week yesterday and hoped an embeddable version of this clip would be available… It’s absolutely brilliant. You’ve got two top notch conservatives (Matthew Dowd - chief strategist for the ‘04 Bush/Cheney campaign, and conservative commentator George Will) saying that repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is long overdue…
After listening to the intro, skip the discussion of the oil spill by clicking in the area to the right of the pause button and jump to time code 7:23 in the video…
Some of the best lines were Matthew Dowd saying “Republican office holders are so far out of step on this”, “it’s way overdue” (his emphasis). And then George Will saying that for young people “being gay is like being left handed - it’s not really very interesting”. And then he quotes a Supreme Court decision that talks about “the evolving standards of decency that mark a maturing society”. I wonder if he realizes just how damning that phrase is of people who favor “traditional values”. It literally says they’re neither mature nor decent. Then he goes on to say “the case is over” and the Republicans in Congress are “not being very intelligent”.
First there was Laura Bush, now Matthew Dowd and George Will… It’s really refreshing to see Republicans standing up for what’s right. But what took them so long? Democrats figured this out decades ago…
People like my parents should sit up and think twice ’cause Laura Bush, one of the people they think can do no wrong, just came out clearly for gay marriage and abortion rights last night on Larry King. While she understands where conservatives like her husband are coming from, she’s firm in saying abortion should stay legal and gay marriage is coming - whether conservatives like it or not. But more than that - that gay marriage is the right thing to do - that we deserve the same rights, privileges and duties as straight couples…
She’s now my conservative hero… Can we clone her?
I wonder if she disagrees with George W on drilling in the arctic and offshore?
Back when I was in college I did my honors thesis on homosexuality in the Middle East. After a fair amount of research I found there are homosexual traditions in the Middle East that are accepted despite the fact that homosexuality is punishable by death under Islamic law. Modern, Western gay relationships are out, but what you find are one of two things - 1) cross dressing, and 2) pedophilia. Think of Middle Eastern cross dressers as pre-op transexuals who live their lives as women. Despite the segregation of men and women, the cross-dressed men are allowed to spend private time with women outside their family (which is unheard of). The pedophilia was well structured and took the form of young “apprentices” to older “masters”. The older men didn’t consider themselves gay because they would have wives and families. The boy was just something on the side.
The other night Frontline had a program the other day on “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan”. Afghanistan has a tradition that’s called “bacha bazi” (بچه بازی) which literally translates to “baby play”. Poor young boys are recruited by an older wealthy men, their families paid pretty well for the boys, and they’re “trained” to entertain men. Not stated in the documentary, but pretty clear from watching which boys are recruited, is the fact that they’re trying to find and recruit kids who are probably gay. It probably also explains why the families are willing to sell the boys - I doubt they’d sell their butch, rugged son, but it’s not such a big deal to sell the kids who they suspect to be gay.
The entertainment consists of dressing them as women and having them dance for a group of men. Curiously, the dancing part is quite modest - like women dancers, hardly any skin shows.
The issue is that after the performance their “master” (owner) may lend the boy to another man for the evening and sex is expected. From a western perspective this is literally sexual slavery of minors. The other big problem is that while some of the boys manage to fit in (the femmy gay ones), ones who resist and cause problems are often killed.
What’s interesting is that it’s all practiced pretty openly. Frontline even showed one case where bacha bazi was the entertainment for men attending a wedding. And most of the men who involved are powerful, with standing in the community - military commanders, police chiefs, businessmen, etc.
When I was in college studying sociology and Middle Eastern studies one of the big challenges was to try to look at cultures from their own eyes - cultural relativism. The Afghans who are outraged about bacha bazi are typically western educated, English speakers, or strict Muslims (the Taliban banned bacha bazi). I think part of their outrage comes from that fact that rich, powerful “straight” men with families might actually be gay or bisexual. Yes, there are serious exploitation issues with bacha bazi, but I think homophobia is a big part of the opposition to it. If the boys were older and things were more consensual (like western drag queen) many of the opponents would probably still be opposed to it.
However, the traditional Afghan seems to pretty much accept bacha bazi, and in a culture that isn’t all that fond of educating women and makes women wear burqas, it’s really not that surprising. Human life just isn’t intrinsically valued in Afghanistan like it is in the west. All men are not created equal. In Afghanistan if you’re male and wealthy you get to do pretty much what you want. And if you’re poor or female your life will be dictated by others with more power. Women literally can’t show their faces in public and some poor boys are required to have sex with older wealthy men.
So ultimately this is less about a sex crime and more about principles of basic equality. You can pass all the laws you want outlawing bacha bazi (as the Taiban did), but it will have little effect if you don’t instill in people that everyone is inherently equal and that there are certain human right everyone just gets without earning them.
If you’re sitting there thinking the Afghans are so horrible for accepting bacha bazi, think again. Many in the “Tea Party” movement seem to have big problems with the fact that the country is being led by a black man and say pretty horrible things about him based solely on his skin color. Others spend millions of dollars fighting civil rights for gay people. Others don’t like to ride in airplanes with Muslims. Then there are the thousands of hate crimes that are reported every year with some people getting killed simply because of the color of their skin, or their religion or their sexual orientation. We’re really not in a position to throw stones at the Afghans.
To add insult to many years of injury, the Pentagon has decided that the next step in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is to “study” the problem despite the fact that more than enough studies have been done already, and every other first world country has successfully implemented openly gay men and women into their armed forces without any problem.
How would you like it if some did a study as to whether people like you should be treated with equality and respect? They’re literally going around asking service members and their families whether they have a problem with gay men and lesbians serving, as if we should care if they don’t.
What would the reaction be if we were asking people if they minded if Jews, Mormons or African Americans served in the military? It’s an absurd question on it’s face.
Yet these things do happen… I remember when I went to the University of Texas at Austin I stayed in a private dorm that was run by Jews (orthodox Jews got the lowest floors, then more mainstream Jews were on the floors above them, then there was a mixed intensive study floor, and then the top of the dorm was where the ‘goyim’ lived). When I sat down with them and they were trying to find a room for me they said “well, we have a spot on the intensive study floor, but your roommate would be Latino - do you mind that?” The question floored me. While I was brought up in an almost all white environment I had been taught race didn’t matter.
I know none of this sort of thing comes as a shock to people who are racial minorities and have faced inequality all their lives, but I still really wish I could turn the table on some of these bigots and have a study which asked people if they should be treated with dignity and respect. They seemed to have forgotten “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”…
I know it’s just a matter of time before Don’t Ask Don’t tell is gone, but it sorta galls me that a President who’s had to deal personally with racial discrimination can’t stand up for the core principle of treating everyone equally. Taking policies like this down slowly reinforces the idea that it’s understandable to be a bigot.
And how can a military that doesn’t live by “equality and justice for all” police that concept around the world? Military conflicts just get worse when soldiers think the person they’re pointing their guns at aren’t as good as they are…
