THIS is the poison pill question,
for, now, it’s the Pentagon that wants to SAVE THE CHILDREN!
Question # 15 asks:

“What are the MOST IMPORTANT factors you and your spouse consider when making decisions about his or her future in the military? PLEASE MARK UP TO 3 FACTORS.”

Optional answers include:

“Our children’s well-being.”

Do they need to explicitly say, “Being certain the fags can’t molest our children”?
We’ve seen it before; again and again. The irrational fears about gays preying on children have a long history, but they were made THE official antigay political hot button in the United States in 1977 during the “Save Our Children” campaign to repeal Miami’s gay rights ordinance with its spokesperson Anita Bryant, and its motto, “There Is No ‘Human Right’ to Corrupt Our Children.” Leonard Matlovich, the spokesperson for the anti-repeal group who had been a race relations instructor before his discharge from the Air Force, remembered similar fear mongering about “the Black Plague” being used to oppose racial integration, and a photo he had demonstrating it was used in “Vote No on Repeal” advertising.

The ruthless bigots’ success in Florida inspired the nationwide professional Antigay Industry that survives today. In 1978, exploiting such fears nearly got gay teachers [and anyone who supported them] banned from California schools. It was the cornerstone of Prop H8TE’s passage in the same state in 2008, and repeal of marriage equality in Maine last year.
In the last survey, it was implying that servicemembers might be in danger from the fags in their bunks, showers, and bathrooms. Now those who oppose an end to the ban on are hinting about dangers to children if the fags are allowed anywhere on base or in military family housing.
Is there no shame?
WHEN is Gay, Inc., going to rise up TOGETHER and DENOUNCE this taxpayer-funded scheme to torpedo “repeal”?

Question 16I don’t know what to make of this except that our service members’ life decisions are made for them by their spouses.  So what is allegedly the greatest military force in the world is composed, in the main, of henpecked dimwits, like characters in an old comic strip, Maggie and Jiggs or what have you.  
The more the Pentagon writhes and struggles to prevent repeal, the more obvious it becomes that they’re not really keeping us safe at all (assuming such a thing is possible).  The American military looks more and more like a fundamentalist joke, a side branch of the AFA or FRC.  I think in the long run their stalling and contortioning to keep LGBT people out of their ranks will expose our DOD for the phony-baloney Christian house of cards it is.

Questions 24 and 25 really annoy meI’m a military brat and a former Air Force officer.  When we lived in base housing we were expected to get along with our neighbors.  If we couldn’t and caused a ruckus we would have been told that we could no longer reside on base.  And it would affect the career of the active duty member.
Base housing was a benefit for which you gave up your Basic Allowance for Quarters and (in some high cost locations) Variable Housing Allowance.
These are offensive questions in more ways than one.

those may have been the rules you lived underbut, you can imagine if there were a “ruckus” it would be blamed on the same-sex couple for “causing” the “normal” couple to be uncomfortable.  You know, the old “forcing their lifestyle down our throats” charge…

When I first heard about this,It sounded like a bad thing.
I wish I hadn’t been right, but then again, what other purpose could the spouse survey possibly have served?
Ughhhh…

Why are some in Gay, Inc., still sailing down Duh Nile?
Forget trying to have meetings to play patty-cake with the Pentagon about repairing the damage. The homophobic horse has left the barn…TWICE. Both self-fulfilling prophecy surveys have been paid for and are out there. WHEN is all of Gay, Inc., going to put down the Kool Aid and step away from the Obama-Gates Clown Car and stop CHOOSING to believe that the POWERS-that-be actually WANT to end the ban but it’s just that someone at Westat keeps slipping up when ALL the EVIDENCE save smile-fucking us about “supporting” ending the ban screams the contrary, and UNITE to publicly DENOUNCE not just the transparent motivation behind “the study’s” execution but the very idea of it as they SHOULD have when it was announced in February?
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. – Audre Lorde.

Taps and feeds into homophobic sterotypesThe whole tone of “would you move out of housing to shield your children from homosexual pedophiles? Would you still attend military social events with knowingly gay spouses and members?” disgusts me.
This line of questioning only feeds into unbased fear and homophobia.
What a crock of shit.
The the fact that it completely discredits divorced and widows of members is also a crock. Like they aren’t part of the community too.
What “professional” mental case comes up with this shit?

This is disgusting. This survey is beyond insulting.  This feels almost sick and abusive.  
Once again my tax dollars being used to marginalize GLBT citizens.  

H.L. Mencken explained it perfectlynearly 90 years ago.  In Notes on Democracy he wrote

The man who hopes absurdly, it appears, is in some fantastic and gaseous manner a better citizen than the man who detects and exposes the truth.  Bear this sweet democratic axiom clearly in mind.  It is, fundamentally, what is wrong with the United States.

Yup.  Bad citizens like you, me and the other regulars here should just quietly go away and let the Obama gang continue to dismantle the Constitution.

Maybe, but probably notIt would depend on the situation, who did what to whom, whether there was physical contact or property damage, who initiated the action, and so forth.  
If their were vandalism of property or assault the offending family would be expelled from base housing.
Barring the above, most likely the military members involved would be told that living in base housing was a privilege and that they were responsible for the actions of their dependents.  

sound and fury, signifying nothing(both the survey, and the hysterical reactions to it.)
before i go down this rabbit hole, i’m going to try to make this totally clear: i don’t think either servicmembers’ or spouses’ opinions are relevant in repealing DADT and removing homosexuality from the UCMJ.  both should be done.
but the military has been forced to justify any DADT change recommendations to congress, and this is one way they’ve decided to do it.  is the survey perfect?  of course not.  it’s impossible to write a perfect survey.  but it’s far from the rampant homophobia push-poll that everyone here seems to think.  ultimately, the test will be in how the data are analyzed and what inferences are drawn.
many of the questions simply reflect the military mentality about policy change – any policy change.  ”ridiculously over-dramatic” question #11 is completely unsurprising when you realize that the military conducts trainings, re-trainings, counseling sessions, and safety stand-downs on every policy change.  if a crosswalk gets repainted on post, they’ll do a training about it.
in addition, something that most people here don’t seem to want to acknowledge is that family considerations play a huge role in force retention.  if “queers aren’t the devil” re-education classes are needed to keep the families comfortable with military service, well, what’s wrong with that?
despite some other commenters’ takes on the questions, there really isn’t a “save the children!” hysteria pervading the instrument.  ”poison pill” question 15 makes no mention of DADT or homosexuality anywhere in the question or 16 provided responses.  those provided responses, btw, cover pretty much all the major issues that all families (military or not) consider when making job decisions:
* current pay and benefits
* job status
* education benefits
* retirement benefits
* time to retirement
* current economic situation and other job availability
* family separations and stability
* medical care
* childcare options
* job satisfaction
* work-life balance
* and, yes, children’s well-being
as a former survey designer, it looks to me like the military is using the DADT survey to gather other basic data abut military families, unconnected to DADT issues.  attempting to make any causal link between responses to those questions and to DADT-specific questions will be a mistake.  (a mistake more likely to be made by the public than by the researchers, i hope.)
sixty years ago, the military was far less interested in the impact its policies had on families or servicemembers, and worrying about the effect of integration on families was a laughable notion.  for good or ill, that has changed, and with an all-volunteer force in an increasingly self-absorbed culture, the military has chosen to try to be more sensitive to family considerations in all areas (with varying levels of success).  that’s simply today’s military reality.  all in all, the survey reads like a “oh, gee, what are we in for when we repeal DADT and allow gays to serve openly?  what are the potential issues that will need to be addressed to make this a functional transition?”
because repeal of DADT and allowing gays to serve openly in the military is inevitable.  the problem isn’t the military rank-and-file.  it’s congress.
 

The latest Christian rubbish from the military:80 soldiers have been disciplined for refusing to attend a Christian rock concert.
http://www.truth-out.org/troop…

How about a Commander in Chief Pollas to how many military families are comfortable with a suspected muslim C in C?
I can only imagine the numbers….

IF YOU’VE BEEN IN A COMA, I APOLOGIZE….
… but before we address the facts you’ve missed for whatever reason, please pay attention:
This is your ass – THIS is a hole in the ground.
YOUR CLAIM: “the military has been forced to justify any DADT change recommendations to congress”…”the problem [is] congress.”
THE FACTS: The so-called “study” was presented TO Congress by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 2, 2010:

SEC. GATES: I have appointed a high-level working group within the department that will immediately begin a review of the issues associated with properly implementing a repeal of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy. … Chairman Mullen and I have determined … the purpose of the review that we are undertaking is to find out what the force – what the men and women in our armed forces, and, as Sen. Webb said, and their families – really think about this.”

“Any change in the policy would not come any time soon, the two officials made clear. Both Admiral Mullen and Mr. Gates told the committee that there would be a Pentagon review, taking up to a year, to study how to implement any change before they expected Congress to act on a repeal.” – New York Times, Feb. 2, 2010.

“REPORTER: Secretary, first of all, there’s some – seems still to be some disagreement with respect to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the year-long review, some disagreement among even congressional members about whether you’re studying whether to implement or how to implement repeal.” – DOD News Briefing with Secretary Gates and Adm. Mullen, March 25, 2010.

“Dear Secretary Gates,
I am writing about your direction … to conduct a comprehensive review of the issues associated with a repeal of …the statute establishing the policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces. Is the purpose of this comprehensive review to determine ‘whether’ to repeal the statute or is it to assess the issues related to ‘how to implement a repeal of the statute?” – Letter from Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, May 3, 2010.

As you were entirely clueless about the origin of “the study,” your presumption of its innocence is like a cake which has been made with the wrong ingredients: it simply won’t rise.
I do not disagree with the observation that the military is trying to get more bang from the 4.4 MILLION bucks by gathering/updating random information that is not, per se, related to the alleged purpose of the “the study,” but any “former survey designer” would presumably have been trained to understand how imperative it is to avoid inserting anything in question wording and question response options that might influence responses.
After negatives response to their previous “survey,” their spokespersons insisted that the Pentagon was not nor never would consider segregation of gay troops. Yet an option to the question,

“In your opinion, which of the following are the top THREE factors that enable you to fulfill your mission during combat?”

was:

“Having only heterosexual members in the unit.”

Further, inflammatory issues that in 1993 were at the center of justifying turning the policy ban into a statute – “privacy” in sleeping quarters and showers – were unequivocally intentionally ignited again by that survey’s needlessly raising the subjects and its options to the question, “Which are you most likely to do” that included, “Discuss how we expect each other to behave and conduct ourselves….” – both presuming expectation that a problem would exist created by the mere presence of the homosexual that would need remedy.
While political “push polls” are meant not to actually gather information, but plant negative information, these intend to influence the former by doing the latter; its similarity reinforced by another common push poll characteristic, an enormous sample size, in the first “survey,” 400,000 people, and in this one, 150,000.
So anyone looking to the Pentagon for objectivity is fishing for fairness in polluted waters.
Note, too, they weren’t put together by some uneducated flunkie Army private with no understanding of how crucial each word choice is, but by Westat, a research corporation as large as Gallup that has been in business for nearly half a century and doing multiple studies for the Pentagon for at least thirty years.
Translation: they’re professional flunkies for the one who pays the piper calls the tune, and that would be SECDEF Gates who has, despite lip service to the contrary, repeatedly demonstrated that he is intent at least upon delaying ending the ban as long as possible if not prevent it entirely.
PS: that Gates’ repeated claim that the purpose of “the study” is not just to measure hostility to open service but figure out how to fix it is another Big Lie is demonstrated both by the total absence in the surveys of discussion of any possible “remedies” beyond the suggestion of segregation and confrontation of the presumed Sexually Compulsive Homosexuals Without Any Self-Control or refusing to sleep/shower/shit in their vicinity or boycotting social events where they and their partners might be in attendance, and by the reality of programs that already exist.
As any SECDEF knows, for DECADES the DoD has spent millions on teaching and ENFORCING diversity acceptance as a part of the Military Equal Opportunity program [MEO]. Five levels below him on his org chart is the director of the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute [DEOMI], with their own building on Patrick Air Force Base in Florida where officers, NCOs, and their advisors go to be trained in equal opportunity [EO]/diversity management re race, ethnicity, gender, and religious and political affiliation to “maximize combat readiness”  by “fostering positive human relations throughout diverse armed services.”
DEOMI publishes its own magazine, brochures, and training manuals; produces videos, podcasts, satellite broadcasts, and materials for producing base “special observances,” one of the main responsibilities of military EO professionals.
EVERY YEAR, diversity “Climate Surveys” are distributed throughout the military. If anything in their results indicates an officer or NCO is not respecting, even advancing equal opportunity and diversity respect, he/she will NOT be promoted.
Further, because they are also charged with training managers of DoD civilian employees who ARE protected by federal gay non-discrimination policies, they are already experienced in including sexual orientation in their training and education programs.
An even more painful irony is that DEOMI has become so successful that they now also conduct an International Military Student Program to, “Serve as a resource for equal opportunity, human relations, and diversity training and consultation to requesting international clients” that have included Canada, Great Britain, Slovenia, and South Africa, who, unlike the government of their instructors, allow out gays to serve.
Anyone want to guess what one of their first questions undoubtedly is of their hosts the first day of class?
More on DEOMI and why ending the ban is “shovel ready” at http://www.gaymilitarysignal.c…

The ham-handedness of this survey — like the service member survey — is maddening.These are just two of the more public efforts that are underway as part of this “study”… they are also interviewing various companies on policies and practices.
I had to re-read the request letter to our company several times to go from groaning to gallows humor to trying to craft the responses so that they conveyed the message they NEEDED to hear — not what they may or may not have been trolling for… it was pretty obvious that these folks haven’t been to Diversity 101 training.
Here’s a sample of the language used:

“The United States Department of Defense has asked RAND to conduct a study to inform policy decisions related to homosexual men and women serving in the U.S. military.  The Pentagon is interested in how to implement a change in the policy commonly known as “don’t ask don’t tell”, and we are hoping you can help us with this important research effort.
…For each organization, we plan to talk to individuals responsible for diversity policy or managing diversity.  These interviews are intended to provide information on how organizations have approached integrating openly gay men and women into the workforce, how policies prohibiting discrimination or harassment based on sexual orientation were implemented and enforced, and what the results have been, including how any difficulties have been resolved.

(I found the “integration” question funny — after a bit — as if we were something that had to be tracked down and bussed into the office.)
In the end, our responses underscored that:
1) This is not the issue that it might have been 20 years ago;
2) The “problems” that we’ve dealt with have not been “the gays”, but straight folks who didn’t follow company policies — and that our regular disciplinary proceses worked just fine.
3) Issues that the military are having: recruiting, retention, and resiliency would all be enhanced with DADT repeal.
Probably not what they wanted to hear — but what they needed to anyway… it will be interesting to see just what the final report does say and if the weight of evidence overcomes the inherent bias in the data collection.

and it’s skewedOf course this is to heterosexual spouses — the one they list in the 201 file. Of course, LGBT servicemembers may have partners, registered partners (if they dare) or even married spouses, given the right state. And of course since they don’t admit to it on their 201 file on pain of discharge, the survey only goes to a select polling sample.
Anybody try to mention this endearing little quirk to the OWH or to Gates’ office? Their spouses are a matter of record, and ours have to be strictly hidden.
It’s state-of-the-art hypocrisy. Hey, Pentagon, complete this sentence: “ask a stupid question and …”

24. Assume Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you live [in] on-base housing, in one of those cheesy side-by-side ’50′s-vintage duplex quarters. If a gay or lesbian Service member lived in your neighborhood with their partner, would you stay on-base or try to move out?
- I would stay on-base
- I would try to move out
- I would try to move out even if I knew it might adversely affect my BAQ allowances?
- I would burn a cross on their lawn?
- Don’t Know
- What do you mean, I don’t know? Don’t you people think I have an opinion, since you’re asking me??
- Does not apply, I would not live on-base, unless it meant living with my mother-in-law
27. Assume Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed; it’s a stretch, we realize, but Let’s Pretend. Would attendance of a gay or lesbian Service member with his or her, um, partner/live-in boyfriend/whatchamacallit affect how often you attend these types of military social events? Even though you knew the battalion commander expects full turnout at his/her social events or your hubby’s OER/EER would be affected?
- Yes, I would attend these types of military social events more often
- Yes, I would attend these types of military social events less often
- No, it would not affect my attendance at these types of military social events
- If this means the Colonel’s Sunday softball team would play better I might go along.
- Don’t know, but then again I don’t know much anyway

yes, ask the OWH if they’re comfortable taking a poll about HIM?Like the Pew (!) poll’s latest, in which 18% of the public think he’s a Muslim, despite considerable evidence to the contrary (see, e.g., Rev. Jeremiah Wright), or, even more disturbing, only 34% think he’s Christian. (Apparently the President needs to tout, spout, and parade his belief loudly and often, but see, e.g., Matthew 6:1-7 for a contrary opinion).
http://pewforum.org/Politics-a…
(Extra points if you notice that they only asked if he was Christian or Muslim. The Pentagon’s not the only one with skewed polling. My theory that he’s a Druid (Reformed) goes completely unremarked).
BTW, according to Pew, the public wasn’t sure of George W. Bush’s religious beliefs vis à vis policy, even though he actually said that God told him to invade Iraq.

There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it, no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse and the desire of the right owner to keep it.
-On Liberty, J.S. Mill

“The inmates are running the asylum.”
1. As I noted above, they did NOT need to go “outside” to ask the questions I’m dumbfounded to discover they’re asking yours and others, because:
  (a) The DoD’s DEOMI has already been dealing with handling any issues related to gays among CIVILIAN employees of the DoD – they already KNOW what works. And, by definition, many of those employees must interact with those in uniform, albeit, assumingly, not sharing sleeping quarters and showers.
  (b) They already have on their shelves a study that addressed all those questions, and studied successful organizational change methodology. I’ve never seen a figure for how much it cost, but the HUGE 1993 RAND study they commissioned and then ignored because they didn’t like its answer: “With leadership and zero tolerance there will be NO measurable problems.”
2. As Frank Kameny often puts it: “When the military had problems with  racial integration they didn’t throw the blacks out, they threw the recalcitrant racists out.”
3. While I think there is PR value for our side in denouncing both the idea of “the study” and its execution [that is, there would be if Gay, Inc., got off their naive asses and stop treating it as if it could be fixed rather than admitting that it was broken in concept], again, the bottom line is that, regardless of anything else, the “results” we hear will be whatever Gates wants them to be.
Not only is that obvious to me from everything else he’s done in the last year and seven months, but Gates has done it before: he was accused of tweaking information to suit whatever President Reagan wanted to hear when he was at the CIA.

That poll will come in 2012.And there will be a dry run this November.  And it’s a cinch that Obama and his stooges will lay the blame for all the boy blows they’re going to take on 1) the “professional left” and 2) the Cheetos-stained gay bloggers.  Obama is about as likely to take the blame for his failures as Aaron Burr was.

Let me quote Addison DeWitt:

You have a point.  A stupid one, but a point.

Everything you say would be true if there are any reason to think Obama, Gates and the Pentagon are anything like neutral and fair-minded on this subject.  But it couldn’t be much clearer that they’ll do anything they can to prevent repeal of DADT.  This survey was designed to aid them in their efforts.
Haven’t you been paying attention?  Have you been in a coma for the last year and a half?

CHECK YOUR FACTS (and please stop shouting)senator webb, at that same feb 2, 2010 hearing you’re quoting:

“I salute both of you for very careful statements and Adm. Mullen for the courage of what you said. But I want to also emphasize you balanced that in your statement, saying you don’t know what’s going to come out of this. We don’t know.
“What we’re looking for here is an examination of the present law. What is the most damaging aspect of the present policy? And I think, Adm. Mullen, you made a powerful statement about the integrity of the individual as your deciding factor on your personal view.
“On the other hand, what’s the great value of this law if we were to do away with it and move to something else? What are the perils of undoing the law? Where are we going? Would we know we’re going in the proper direction? We don’t — we can’t really say that today.
“…whether the ultimate decision might be here with the Congress, that decision can’t be made in a proper way without a full and open input from all of those who are serving, not just combatant commanders. Family members, people who are in the operating units.“

these surveys, however much you disagree with them, are how the military chose to investigate exactly what a member of the senate armed services committee requested.  the impetus did not originate with the military, but with congress.  get your facts straight.
as to the rest of your points, the biggest weakness in the survey as disseminated is that it asks benign, well-worded questions – such as #15 – in the same survey as far more politically loaded questions.  could that taint the overall response?  sure. but the questions themselves aren’t poorly worded just because you disagree with the information they’re trying to gather – or believe the motive for gathering it is suspect.
as i said in the earlier thread on the topic, the best information that will come out of this survey is an idea of how homophobic respondent spouses are.  will that prevent the survey results from being characterized in other ways?  probably not.  it’s even possible that the argument made will be “we can’t repeal DADT because the families are too homophobic!” but that’s not a failure of the instrument.  that’s a failure how the results are used.