As if ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ weren’t offensive enough

April 4, 2008

Maj. Alan Rogers, an American serviceman, was killed in Iraq in January. The tragedy wouldn’t otherwise have any real political considerations, except for the fact that Rogers was gay.

And someone at the Pentagon doesn’t want people to know that.

The Washington Blade reports that someone deleted mention of Rogers being gay from his Wikipedia entry.

“Alan’s life was not about his sexual orientation but rather about the body of work he performed ministering to others and helping the defense of the country,” wrote whoever deleted the reference. “Quit trying to press an agenda that Alan wouldn’t have wanted made public just to suit your own ends.”

The Blade reports that “the IP address attached to the deletion of the details and the posted comments is 141.116.168.135. The address belongs to a computer from the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at the Pentagon. The office is headed by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who was present at Rogers’ funeral and presented the flag from Rogers’ coffin to his cousin, Cathy Long.”

And if able-bodied, patriotic American volunteers could serve during a war without regard for sexual orientation, as most of the country would prefer, the Pentagon wouldn’t have to go to these efforts in the first place.

We can blame Bill Clinton for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. His oft-repeated promise during the campaign was to make his first Executive Order repeal of the ban on homosexuals serving in the military. Instead, we’ve been stuck with DADT for sixteen years.

Our country is so perverted heterosexually it makes the whole gay issue comical (where it isn’t tragic). We should all be ashamed, or at least admit that in comparison with Europeans we don’t know shit.

  • I will admit that my first instinct was “well, it depends on whether he was out or not.” After all, if he did keep his orientation private in life, it would smack of opportunism to announce it with his death.

    However, the now-protected Wikipedia entry (hey, Steve, a link in the article would have been nice) notes that “Major Alan Greg Rogers (September 21, 1967 – January 27, 2008) was an ordained pastor, a US Army Major and Intelligence Officer, a civil rights activist in the gay, lesbian and bisexual military community and the first known gay combat fatality of Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

    Given that he was a civil rights activist for LGB people in the military, I don’t think he’d want that kept quiet after his death. So, yeah, shame on the Pentagon. As much as I deride Bush’s fantasy-based administration, DADT is a reminder that the use of pretense and willful disregard for reality can come from either side of the aisle.

  • “Alan’s life was not about his sexual orientation but rather about the body of work he performed ministering to others and helping the defense of the country,”

    Translation:

    “Okay, so our current policy of DADT is both mind-numbingly stupid and horribly wrong. Gays can serve the military just as well as heterosexuals.”

  • I wonder what Lt. Gen. John Kimmons thinks of the sexual orientation of the criminals at KBR described in the Nation article cited in the previous thread. He probably thinks they’re just fine ol’ Amurrikin Boys ‘n all, the way they’re such good heterosexuals.

  • There are two disturbing things about this:

    1. That the military is still so anal about whether or not homosexuals should serve their country;

    2. That someone in the G2 at the Pentagon is surfing the web scrubbing internet entries about someone who worked for non-heterosexual equal rights.

  • Are we positive the Wikipedia edit was motivated by anti-gay bias and not by a concern for Maj. Rogers’ privacy?

  • “Quit trying to press an agenda that Alan wouldn’t have wanted made public just to suit your own ends.”

    Or you could say “Quit trying to suppress a fact that Alan wouldn’t have wanted swept under the rug just to suit your own ends.”

  • [quote]
    1. That the military is still so anal about whether or not homosexuals should serve their country;
    [/quote]

    But I thought the military was AFRAID of anal…

  • Grumpy, @7,

    It couldn’t have been about Roger’s privacy, since he’d been a gay *activist* when alive, ie not at all concerned about remaining “in”. Nah. Pentagon was just a tad “touchy” about not enforcing the DADT when Rogers was alive; like the rest of our country’s “top echelons”, they’re sex-obsessed.

    This sex-obsession — so evident in the US — had struck me as something totally bizarre the year I came here (1973), and I’ve not seen any reason since to change my take on it.

    You penalize and publicly humiliate homosexuals… Prostitution is illegal… Boy-children are taught “tie a knot in your dick” garbage — if they’re taught at all — when it comes to sex-ed (I used to volunteer in the public library. Found many a kid skulking among the adult non-fiction shelves, reading basic biology books, but not daring to check them out and take them home), while girls compose ballads to a seed, lost down the Planned Parenthood drain… A government-financed medical website blocks “abortion” as a search-key… The list goes on, and on, and on, and is all of a piece; an altogether unhealthy attitude towards sex.

    Next stop, we’ll be covering the piano legs and separating books on our bookshelves by the sex of the author, the way the more un-hinged Victorians did in England…

  • And guess what? If they hadn’t tried to make an issue of it by erasing it… No one would have really noticed. I mean, aside from noticing that another good persona and soldier died in this Iraq mess.

  • “Quit trying to press an agenda that Alan wouldn’t have wanted made public just to suit your own ends.”

    I am not going to pretend what this young man wanted, but I am positive the people who require you keep it from public, are probably not the best source to comment on what the soldier really wanted.

    I suspect the person making the original Wiki entry was close enough to the Major to know that he was gay and what he really wanted.

    I am so tired of these jackasses thinking the people that they are suppressing, hold the same views they hold. They don’t. Your archaic policies force them to appear to hold your views or risk their careers. So I ask you Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who is really is really trying to press an agenda ?

  • I believe whoever edited that page was respecting Alan Rogers with his/her actions. No one wants to be remembered for something simply because he was a man, woman, black, white, gay or straight. I’m sure Alan Rogers was proud of being a soldier and that is what should read through on the Wikipedia website. By harping on the fact that he was gay is just reinforcing that that is “unusual” and I don’t think that is what he would have wanted. Being gay didn’t make him special, but being a brave soldier did.

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