The question stirring in my head was Why would anyone -- irrespective of sexuality -- want to be in the military? I can understand the economic compulsions where job possibilities are limited to illegal work, military and appallingly badly-paid work, but as a goal, as, you say, a "noble calling"... ?? I also couldn't quite get the whole idea of 'being prepared to die for one's country' as the criterion of a particularly grim notion of citizenship and national belonging (Starship Troopers, Fukuyama...).
What prompted my question was Nathan's raising the issue of representational credibility. Of course, I know it's election time in the US and all, so claims to representation are par for the course for those with an interest in a certain outcome; but Ken Sherrill's response left me asking who did he mean by "we". Anyone who's worked on gay lezzo politics -- as well as anything else for that matter -- knows (even if they're on the 'winning side' and want to pretend otherwise) that priorities are a result and reflection of who in those movements has the ability to determine priorities, often enough against another set of priorities, or at the very least, the ability to render other priorities and campaigns invisible. To be sure, this isn't sinister, nor does it entail as a rule bad priorities; but it is how it runs. And it certainly does mean that the most prominent issue of the last few years that I'm aware of in the US was gays in the military. To the exclusion or obscuring of what else?
In similar fashion, the most prominent issue here has been reproductive issues, access to IVF facilities for lesbians, now illegal under law, but informally practiced anyway -- 'family' instead of 'military', i guess. This hasn't really included the issue of gay men as potential fathers, it seems few want to take on the equation between gay man and pedophile that continues to sustain homophobic sentiment.
But the most interesting part of the last decade or so here was the way in which a particularly nasty raid on a queer bar (for drugs, apparently) was transformed into a call for the inclusion of anti-discrimination laws to include ref to sexuality, and we got an awful result, a step back. The irony is that even the best anti-discrimination laws would not have halted this raid, being, as it was claimed, for illicit drugs -- but it resulted in a kind of de fact agreement by event organisers and bar owners that they would themselves take on some of the responsibility of policing events, ie., the granting and solidification of the pretense that the enforcement of drug laws is anything but an act of discrimination, whether against gays and lesbians or recent migrant communities. Anyways, the laws now stipulate that it is illegal to discriminate against someone in employment on the basis of their sexuality, but it is legal to refuse them employment or fire them if it becomes known they're queer _if such employment relates to minors_! So, what was once an ad hoc discrimination has now become fully legal, the legalisation of the doctrine that gays and lesbians are a danger to children, as well as providing no recourse for (or mitigation against) the kinds of raids which sparked the whole campaign in the first place. Go figger. .
Angela _________
> Cynthia Enloe's new book, Maneuvers: The International Politics of
> Militarizing WOmens Lives, has a good analysis of this -- she argues that
> the human interest stories, as framed by both the mainstream media and
the
> mainstream gay movement, reinforced the notion that people who want to
serve
> in the military are by definition admirable citizens. That the gays in
the
> military campaign actually helped legitimize the military and affirmed
the
> idea of military service as a noble calling. I think that's a big part of
> how it became such a big deal in the U.S. -- public sentimentality about
> military heroism combined with pressing government interest in fostering
> that sentimentality.
>
> Liza
>
> ----------
> >From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> >To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >Subject: RE: question
> >Date: Sat, Feb 26, 2000, 10:46 PM
> >
>
> >On seeing Angela's question about how the gays in the military thing
> >became such a big deal in U.S. politics, I forwarded it to Hunter
> >College poli sci prof Ken Sherrill, who knows everything about gay
> >politics. Here's his answer:
> >
> >>I think the answer is that we used the military issue as an extreme
test of
> >>politicians' allegiance to the cause and the politicians thought that
> >>movement leaders cared about the issue. It was a great measure of the
> >>commitment of Democratic politicians. I also think thta the human
interest
> >>stories captured the press.
> >
> >Doug
>