Wow. Just . . . Wow. I'm having a lot of trouble these days finding reasons to not hate this country.

The women also have separate showers.

Just throwing it out there.

My money was on the Pentagon allowing gays and lesbians in to do "gay" tasks for the troops, like cut hair, design new uniforms, prepare fab meals. You know...gay stuff!!

But Dan, remember when you asked who Sarah Palin's gay friends were? You should've asked who Obama's gay friends were. I don't think he has any.

I don't know. I'm totally anti-segregation; it's a bad idea for all of the obvious ethical, practical, and precedent reasons.

However, I'm not sure I'm against the idea of _considering_ segregation. I mean, they're the military. Aren't they supposed to do contingency planning, evaluate multiple courses of action, etc? Wouldn't _not_ looking at segregation leave a huge future risk?

Maybe I'm naive. But I'm hopeful that they can consider all options, including segregation, and then come an evidence-based decision that will make harder for conservatives to implement segregation later on the same "it's obviously the right thing to" basis.

@4, you DIDN'T just go there did you?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? WOW!!! And I thought I'VE said shit to piss people off on Slog before. WOW!! Just WOW!!!!

They gonna put us in pink uniforms too?

This would be laughable if it weren't so sad. As though the troops aren't already serving with gay and lesbian co-workers. Does the monolithic Pentagon really think that allowing GLBT servicemembers to be honest about their lives will make such a difference that they'll be an actual physical or psychological threat to the straight ones? Hot news, Pentagon folks: just because we're gay doesn't mean we're after any old same-sex ass we can grab at -- we've got standards, whether you realize it or not.

Hey, don't some American institutions, corporations, and services do sort of this very same facilities segregation thing for transgenders? Isn't the necessity for segregation what Barney Frank always gets his panties in a bunch over whenever ENDA was (and/or is) brought up? Didn't he like the idea of segregation and/or exclusion?

Should the shoe fit on the other foot, eh?

also is right: we're talking about an organization that keeps nuclear first-strike as an option on the table. So yes, segregated homos is an option under consideration (mostly because the Marine Commandant wants it to be considered), but it is beyond unlikely that it will actually be implemented.

I don't know what I think about it except, mmmm naked army guys in shower.

Of course it's wrong wrong wrong, but imagining it is kind of hot.

What happens if someone doesn't self-identify? Assumed straight until proven otherwise? And what about the bisexuals? Who do they get to shower with?

It'd be easy to do, though. They'd just have the make sure to sew pink triangles on the uniforms.

I mean, not that I'm betting for transgenders, really, but it really is poetic irony to see this kind of absurd proposal be advanced by the U.S. military and to watch the very same LGBT activists (who wanted their transgender brethren to be treated specially and separately with distinct policy language) freak out once the notion of separate-but-"equal" is suddenly thrown upon them. Loss of entitlement sounds much worse once a larger chorus of people say it together.

That said, you guys should bitch-slap some sense into your military by whatever means are within your legal disposal.

@6, probably more like Reno 911.

But seriously, this segregation is a bad idea. It will perpetuate homophobia.

End segregated bathrooms for women and men now. Not only are they separate, but they are totally unequal. The men's room is always dirtier and stinkier, and often women's rooms are better appointed. Or so I've heard.

BTW, aren't gays and lesbians already showering with our blessed straight soldiers...and not only that soldiers in a military with a NUCLEAR FIRST STRIKE OPTION ON THE TABLE!?!?!?!?!?

Seriously, some of the arguments in this thread make some of you sound like KKK members.

The whole reason for this stupidity is the American "value" that nudity is intrinsically sexual which, of course, is bullshit.

@16: Hahahahaha so you're heard!

We know how to be messy, too.

All they need are showers that separate the men from the boys.

again, why does anyone gay want to be in the military in the 1st place? it is bankrupting the nation and strangling what's left of our democracy. arguing over DADT is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

This is not "from a black president", as the article suggests. Obama does not run the Pentagon.

I'm cool with it just as long as they have gay & straight water fountains along with the showers.

@22: Oh yeah, cuz' Robert Gates is the Commander-in-chief, right?

Well shit. Would someone please explain to them which pocket to put the bandanna in.

@22, well, we've all learned that Obama isn't in charge of anything and therefore not responsible for anything. Hence we blame Bush/Cheney for everything!

All gay showers? Visions of hot steamy bath houses that require no membership, just dog tags, are dancing through popper soaked, tweaker minds right now. This may encourage a boom in military enrollment!

I'm a firm believer in baby steps. Though at this point gays have been serving in the military side-by-side straights for so long that it would be a major step backwards for equality.

how about we just do away with group showers? that way everybody has privacy. I'm straight, but that doesn't mean I like taking showers with a bunch of guys, whether they are straight or gay or whatever. Segregate every single one of them.

@12 - I was wondering what they were going to do with the bisexuals as well.

At firehouses, it was (and still is) common for all the firefighters to bunk in one room to sleep. New firehouses are being built with separate accommodations for every firefighter. Then they don't have to worry about how many beds they have for the female firefighters vs. the male ones.

Would it be that much trouble for the military to put up some curtains or something to grant everyone some privacy?

@18 My thoughts exactly. If people actually thought about it rationally, I think they'd realize that this is the old puritan background rearing its ugly head, and that this has more to do with our obsession with nudity than anything else. When we were in Scandinavia, our hosts went skinny dipping every morning, their kids swam naked all day (as did ours after about 5 minutes). If they did want to put a bathing suit on, they grabbed one off the line, stripped naked, and put it on, it was just done so naturally, and there was nothing sexual about it. Can you imagine taking 20 random people off the street and showering with them? Do you really think it'd make you want to fuck them? God, what is happening to this country? We appear to be *un*evolving.

Makes perfect sense. Just like black men were clearly looking to rape white women, gay men are clearly looking to rape our wholesome straight soldier boys.

Seriously though, I'm confused. If "inappropriate behavior" is what they're concerned about, I would imagine putting together a bunch of people who are openly gay is less productive than putting them in with a straight majority who have no interest in fucking them.

@31: Should we avoid talking about what Harper said at Stampede over the weekend?

They don't segregate the gays in other armies, we don't need to do it in ours.

Unless they basically want to argue that Americans are too bigoted to handle it, while Brits and Swedes and such are more mature.

@26 - Okay, that made me laugh out loud. So old school!

@33 Oh God, what did he say? I missed it, as I stay far, far away from all things "country"....

I like @29's idea. Everyone gets privacy and no Steve Crow laws needed. You hear constantly that some places don't have room for this, but there are no requirements and no pressure to build separable/more private facilities whenever something is built or overhauled.

BTW, husband saw this survey at work and apparently it was sent out very strangely; the wording was vague about names having been provided to a third party by the military, and there was no clear indication of who was conducting or sponsoring the survey. Husband actually thought it was some sort of right wing organization using deliberately inflammatory language to compile responses and "prove" that service members would leave in droves if they had to work with The Gays.

Segregation on the basis of gender and sexual differences is not the same as segregation on the basis of racial issues. It is wholly appropriate to have segregated bathrooms for straight men and straight women, why not for gay men and gay women?

That said, it in fact is the military: issue an order stating no canoodling and that it will be punished severely. Then, follow on with that. Problem solved.

I don't really understand. It isn't like there aren't already gay folks in the military. My brother and sister are both in the service and while they are both straight they say they know gay folks and it doesn't bother them at all. Sure there are a few back water retards that I have met who think that all gay men want to sodomize them in the shower but i can't imagine the majority think that.

This is not "from a black president", as the article suggests.

What? You were expecting logic and facts from Savage and Aravosis?

Sure there are a few back water retards that I have met who think that all gay men want to sodomize them in the shower but i can't imagine the majority think that.

Are you kidding? The majority of the military is made up of poor/lower middle class, painfully young (read: immature) men. If you think the majority of them have positive opinions about gays, you're on crazy pills.

@7 -- Ha! No kidding....Why are straight people so obsessed with sex that they think everybody wants to do it with them all the time?

Look guys, I wouldn't flatter yourselves so much...

What are they so frightened of? Are these little scaredy cats defending this country? Are they so terrified some guy is going to look at their bare butt? What frightens them so? For crap sake, grow up! You always showered with gay guys! Always! Stop acting like grammar school children!

@40 The majority of older folks I have met do seem to think that but i'm actually from TN and the newer generation is a lot more... positive about gays. I went to school in TN, and while I went to a somewhat progressive school I never once saw any of my gay or lesbian friends picked on. I'd like to think that once all the boomers die, this country will be a lot better off, civil rights and tolerance wise.

@33: Calgary is hardly "country" — seeing how it's the fifth largest census metropolitan area in the nation (and a population nearly twice that of the city of Vancouver).

Oh, basically fear and bullying tactics of thwarting an opposition coalition government between the NDP, Bloc, and Grits (which of course would be a majority of the electorate over a CPC minority). Harper of course more or less destroyed Toronto a few weeks ago. And he also eats babies.

@43,

The majority of young Americans != the majority of people in the military. The military trends much more conservative than the country as a whole. The majority of Americans also don't particularly like treating women like shit, which is practically required of male servicemembers.

this is why Commander-in-Chief Obama should have just ordered them to implement it and when they questioned it, sent them to Nome, Alaska.

Well, at the very least, gay showers would be hotter than mixed ones...

...

...

... Just trying to find a silver lining to all of this crap...

wow. you just blamed obama for some shit that came out of the most homophobic institution in the country. really? seriously? wow. holy shit. yeah - cause, it's BECAUSE of obama that the military is homophobic. and it was OBAMA's statement you were just quoting? when you go off the rails, you REALLY go off the friggin' rails. and to make it EVEN better, we're talking about a discussion that wasn't even CLOSE to happening two years ago. dude - give it a rest with the obama shit. i mean, have you met a general lately? have you tried to deal with the pentagon before? he just had to FIRE one for God's sake. and WHEN has the government done anything it didn't want to do without a study and a commission and senate panels and all the other stall forever tactics. these are the same people who won't get a claim for disability processed for five years. and you think you're just going WALK in the front door? dude. wow. they don't want people to have healthcare or unemployment checks. a president had to get shot in the fucking head for the civil rights bill to get passed AND hundreds of people died on the way. so, black president, gay president, whoever, the pentagon will stall and study for as LONG as they can before the give up the pleasure of showering together in the ignorant bliss of thinking no one is checking out their asses.

pack a lunch and stay for the day. it's gonna take a while. took black people almost a hundred YEARS of segregated service before they changed that shit. you might want to take a seat, it's gonna be a wait.

Separate but equal?! And I'm tired of this separate but equal "men's" and "women's" bathrooms too. Sure the Pentagon is a little retarded, but I'm sure they're just trying to figure out what they're going to have to do. Not everything is a political ploy. Sometimes they just don't think ahead.

@49, He's their boss. He doesn't have to put up with any shit from them he doesn't want to. The people in the Pentagon now aren't necessarily who he put there, but he does have the power to change it.

@49, Obama is the Commander in Chief of the military. He can do a lot more than he's doing. Truman knew what he could do when he desegregated the military. Your argument is basically, "Look, all the other Presidents have been weak-willed political hacks who never try to do anything that might be controversial or politically detrimental, even if it was morally right, so you can't expect Obama to be any better than that."

Obama knows he can depend on people like you as he breaks campaign promises, increases the secrecy of the state, denies habeas corpus to terror suspects, and continues to blow up civilian men, women, and children in Afghanistan. He appreciates your support.

They've put about zillion times more effort and planning into this "survey" than they did into planning our disastrous failed foreign wars--priorities, peeples!

Yeah, it'll be a total shock when the "results" show that 1,000% of the troops wanna shove every GLBT American into the segregated showers that spew cyanide gas.

4 is right. Of course they're considering that as an option. They're considering everything as an option. That's the whole point of the commission. You look at all the options and find the one that works. Really though why aren't "segregated" showers a perfectly reasonable option? We currently "segregate" showers by who we think people are going to want to see naked right? Segregated barracks sound a little overboard to me but again, we segregate men and women into separate barracks now and nobody seems to be complaining.

Wait a minute, what's missing from all these dire predictions is reality. there are several countries that allow gays to service openly ( the Netherlands, Germany and Israel) and they have no problem with gays or use segregated facilities. This is just juvenile homophobia. Grow up.

@52 Most of the people I served with didn't feel that way about gay people. Don't stereotype.

I didn't feel like reading all 55 comments, did anybody scream bloody murder about comparing civil rights for blacks (and other non-white races and ethnicities) with civil rights for gay people (or anyone else for that matter)?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-2…

A lot of people threw out the comparison, but I see nobody actually address it! Can somebody please explain WHY it is considered normal to segregate men and women's showers and barracks? I mean, explain it in a way that it WON'T be applicable to gay and straight showers and barracks? Because I see nothing but status quo bias...

Also, 32 FTW. LOL!

All gay military showers? Sounds like a few pornos I've watched.

Every jackass here posting shit about how "hot" soldiers, marines, sailors (all right, that one's probably a lost cause) are and porno movies about soldiers in the shower and all such bullshit is demonstrating why soldiers and marines don't want to serve with you. Get it through your head--you may think it's harmless, or that it's "just a joke, Gawd, get a sense of humor," but that's YOU. THEY TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. You want equal rights? Stop acting like immature assholes or arch little queens and start acting like grown-ups.