What is this man’s problem? His Marines are already bunking and showering with teh homos and nothing has occurred. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway is obsessing so hard over this — this has to be at least the third time he’s made a public comment about needing separate quarters — that he must be having very vivid man-dreams at night about how it could all go horribly hornily wrong. (Igor Volsky at Think Progress):
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski is reporting that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway has reiterated his position that if Congress repeals Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Marines who “don’t want to room” with openly gay soldiers should be allowed to live separately:
On a different, but related subject, Conway suggested that if the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law is repealed, the Marines may consider allowing Marines not to share quarters with homosexuals.
Conway said the Marines may make such housing arrangements “voluntary” to accommodate any “moral concerns.” He said many Marines are “very religious” and because of their moral concerns “don’t want to room” with homosexuals.
Even the Pentagon thought Conway was a bit paranoid and attempted to distance itself from his “messaging.” Igor spoke with Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morell who said: “no one is considering ‘separate but equal’ bathing or living facilities for you know, gay and straight troops. That’s just not ever a consideration.”
Conway at least has given up on wholly separate barracks, but is very concerned about man-to-man relationships when it comes to shut-eye quarters. He wants, in a post-DADT world that there must be the flexibility to opt out of bunking with the guy you were bunking with the night before he came out of the closet.
“Well, I think, as a commander, you try to satisfy the requirements of all your Marines. And if the law changes and we have homosexual Marines, we’ll be as concerned about their rights, their privileges, their morale, as we will Marines who feel differently about that whole paradigm.” He added that local commanders will be required “to assist us in making sure that every Marine is provided for and is focused on the fight at hand.”




15 Comments


I used to worry about the same thing…when I was in the closet!
Methinks the laddie doth protest too much! n/t
WHERE IS OBAMA?McChrystal gets fired for saying things “off-message” to an interviewer, but this guy gets to keep his job?
Where is President O-so-supportive? Conway needs to be told to shut his trap on this issue, or resign. Period. End of story.
UnprofessionalismI was pretty much openly gay in the military. NO ONE CARED.
I shared close quarters with 60 other professional men.
They appreciated my honesty and had no problem about bunking next to a homosexual.
All they cared about is if you were clean, didn’t make noise so they could sleep, and if you didn’t stink like a sewer.
These so-called professional military leaders need to grow up and stop acting like children. OMG the gays have cooties! What if they rape me in my sleep?
Do you honestly think that?
These leaders need a dose of reality. Perhaps talk to some of the troops on the ground in a non-staged event.
Grow up Pentagon.
The president has little problem with gay-bashingI mean, look at his strong rebuke when his “Justice” Department defended the Denial of Marriage Act by comparing same-sex couples to pedophiles.
But going off-message? That is just plain bad.
Why is it alwaysthe ones we wouldn’t touch with a barge pole?
Disguising you bigotry against gay people…… as sincere religious belief does not actually disguise it very well. Why is it that as a Hindu, I can totally reject the god of the Abrhamic religions and all of the related scripture and theology, and this bothers no one but the most rabid of fundamentalists. And even then, they probably would go along. But let me say i’m gay and reject just this milimicron of conservative Christian belief, and their religion/morality is so offended that they must have separate living quarters. Or maybe they wouldn’t want to serve.
Methinks it is not about morality or sincere religious belief at all, merely about what it is ALWAYS about: how much the very existence/thought/fantasy of gay people offends, bothers, attracts, entices, and frightens some straight people, and some people-who-wanna-be-straight-but-ain’t.
As I always say, straight people needs gay people as the scapegoats for their own misbehaviour. They accuse us of being child molesters, when 50% of the molestations are caused by fathers and the like. They make a mess of marriage, and then we can’t get married because marirage must be protected from the likes of us.
Who is really attacking unit cohesion and morale: the gay men and women who just want to be able to serve their country and live their lives freely, or the moralizing homobigot who will put his prejudices before everything, including the admonishments of his own rleigion not to judge others, and certainly before something as worthless as esprit-de-corps.
McChrystal went off mesage. Conway is precisely on it.You-know-who is in the mix, remember? Besides…you seriously expect Obama to stand up to a right-winger, any right-winger? The DNC would have to buy him a pair of balls first. Hell, if Conway really did resign, Obama would probably appoint Rick Warren to replace him.
They’re not acting like children.They’re acting like fundamentalist ideologues, which is precisely what they are. In the United States of America, our military leaders think “Onward Christian Soldiers” is not a dreary old hymn; for them, it’s a constitutional mandate.
Conway pulled a McCrystal today about the withdrawal from Afghanistan
…and was quoted as saying that the Marines would still be there killing insurgents after August 2012. (openly stating the opposite of the Commander in Chief’s announced policy)
Buh Bye General…
Col. Klink, excuse me, Gen. Conway is a mentally-challenged putz!
The tens thousands of decent Marines he smears everytime he opens his mouth about the ban should “blanket” him.
The Marines can justly be proud of many things, including the fact that it was a GAY Marine Vietnam vet who saved President Ford from assassination.
But more than one commandant has stained the Corps with naked bigotry. In the ’40s, Conway’s predecessor said he’d rather have 5000 white Marines than 250,000 black Marines and…wait for it…drum roll….wanted separate barracks for blacks.
Supposedly Conway retires in September, and many hope a less redneck leatherneck will replace him. But, nota bene, this fish of the ban has rotted from the head down since January 20, 2009. Until the CIC and the SECDEF to whom he has unconscionably surrendered total control of the ban issue change their behaviors, any more benign member of the JCS will remain irrelevant, at least in terms of policy change.
As I’ve noted previously, the way it should and could be:
http://www.leonardmatlovich.com
Sounds mighty Wilsonian to me.
Like there aren’t gay/bi- Marines now?I did a Craigslist search just before Netroots Nation; I repeated it here tonight, filtering for the word “marine”.
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org…
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org…
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org…
Well, if any of those marines needs a place to stayI could put one or two up.
More proof thatidiots abound.