This morning a donation appeared on Equality Rider Monica Carmean’s page from “friends of cadets” in the amount of $670. This hardly a coincidence since tomorrow the Equality Ride arrives at West Point. Under military rules, cadets aren’t allowed to “protest” in their official capacity and so the donation was done under the “friends of” title. Twenty cadets contributed to the donation, fourteen of whom are heterosexual according to my source at West Point who wished not to be named. I inquired how Monica was chosen as the recipient; One cadet “thought she was cute” and another had previously corresponded with her expressing their support.
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This is very encouraging.
Perhaps this reflects on the growing opinion that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is an arrogant obsolete expression of the prejudices of a previous generation. With a large majority of the county as well as a majority of enlisted servicemen agreeing that gay people are perfectly capable of serving their country in the military, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that young cadets are willing to find a way to show their support for inclusion of gays and lesbians – even if it does come at some risk to them.
And this one day after a federal judge threw out a challenge to DADT.
It certainly is. How sweet that heterosexual love is part of the motivation for supporting gay love.
Actually Randi, Daniel never said the source said the person supporting the Equality Riders because Monica is “cute” was male, 14 cadets, only 14 confirmed heterosexuals, presumably 6 gay/bi/asexual :-).
make that “20” cadets
How do we know they were “confirmed” heterosexuals? What does that mean? Who did the confirmation? Where can I volunteer?
“Twenty cadets contributed to the donation, fourteen of whom are heterosexual according to my source at West Point who wished not to be named.”
That’s what I based my comment on Zeke, directly from Daniel’s post. I don’t know the accuracy, I just know that’s what HE said was confirmed. For all I know ALL of the 20 were heterosexual, he just said 14 were though.
These people really are all heroes, and I am so very proud of the risks and the efforts the people on this freedom ride have made. In my mind, they have done more work and shown more courage for our community than our national organizations have done in a very long time – and I am grateful for their courage.
In a few weeks, they have exposed the utter hypocrisy in the administration of many “religious” schools, and yet it seems they have also found sympathy and support and made friends among many REAL christians and citizens along the way. If there is anything the forces of darkness truly fear, it is the sight of justice and truth which, when seen in its full light, rapidly extinguishes the power of deliberate deception and lies.
All of the publicity, all of the lawsuits, all of the tantrums, and all of the phoniness – the millions of wasted dollars these wingnut “religious” organizations spend on demonizing others…still cannot resonate with the truth that the American people really feel.
Posted by: Kendall at April 25, 2006 05:53 PM
Kendall, forgive me for not giving the proper scrutiny to a sweet little good news story. Last time I heard, though females were mighty rare at West Point, I suspect odds are pretty good this was heterosexual love.
I remember this lawyer woman who was the host of a radio show I call to.
The subject was gays openly in the military. My call was at the top of her show, but she was not supportive of gays serving at all.
She kept repeating the same old excuse: it will disrupt unit cohesion.
She never cited any real incidents of that. Nor did she mention how many gay people had and were already serving honorably and how much we needed their skills, since we’re at war.
When it was my turn, I told her about that. That skilled soldiers had been dismissed, not for incompetence or difficulty with other soldiers, but simply the disclosure of being gay.
Add to that, other countries in the coalition such as Britain and Israel had lifted their bans years ago so our soldiers were already serving with openly gay soldiers from elsewhere.
Well, she reiterated her statement on unit cohesion and how important it was that soldiers be able to apply themselves to their tasks and not be confronted with soldiers they didn’t feel comfortable with.
To which I said: oh, like openly MUSLIM soldiers, who have already turned on their own fellow American soldiers with deadly results?
In an all volunteer army, those not comfortable with who they MUST serve with, don’t have to sign up. That’s better than NOT being honest about who and what you are once you’re already there.
She hung up on me, and told the audience what I’d said was inflammatory.
But the other callers gave her a hard time after that. One man asked her about anyone in HER family or herself serving in the military. He told her he’d served in the first Gulf War with gay soldiers. He said when your ass is on the line you forget who is gay or who is not, your only concern is SKILLS.
And that I was right, Muslim soldiers could be more problematic than gay soldiers at this point.
They all just want to win and go home, that’s what on a soldier’s mind.
She wasn’t very coherent after that. I wondered why KABC even has her there, she doesn’t seem to ready for dissent, her talking points weren’t too strong up against war’s realities.
And whose planning it as opposed to who is fighting it.
Anyhoo, this sounds great, what’s happening at West Point.
Now it gets down to it. What do they want, SKILLS…or prejudice to prevail for a combat ready serviceperson?