For the first time since it introduction in 1993, the American Senate is holding hearings into the abomination known as “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell”
In the first set of hearings, General Petraeus, head of the US Army’s Central theatre of operations covering Iraq and Afghanistan spoke in favor of reviewing the ban and noted that he didn’t think that the troops on the didn’t give a damn about whether they were serving next to an openly gay soldier.
On the other hand there are 82 active and 400 retired generals in the US Marine Corps. Statistically speaking it should not be unexpected that a few of them will be bat shit crazy.
Anti gay bigots might want to reconsider their opposition to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell if the opinions of retired Marine Corps General John Sheehan are all they have to go on.
The sheer relentlous evil that is known as the American Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy which forces gay men looking to serve their country back into the closet and exposes them to hatred and blackmail if they are found out is ongoing.
Hardly a month goes by without a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell horror story. Blackmail can be the least of the problems
All this apropos photographer Jeff Sheng who is looking for as many closeted military personnel for a project on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
Jess, Bend, Oregon, 2009 is part of my newest photography project, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” a series of photographs of closeted men and women in the United States military. For each image, I have asked the individual to wear their uniform, while staging the photoshoot in the bedroom or local hotel room where that person is currently stationed. The reason for this is that I am most interested in the intersections between public and private space, and the government’s policing of our private spaces – the bedroom being the most representative space of this. I have purposely shot each image in a way that obscures to some degree the identity of the individuals, and the final image that is released to the public is first approved by the subject, and is in many ways, their expression of their closeted-ness and lack of identity. The name and location is also fictional: I have asked the subject to give me a first name and a location that is significant to them, but does not actually refer to the true name and location of who is in the photograph. My aim in this project is to use photography to create a visual record of the numerous individuals currently serving our country that are unjustly forced to hide an integral part of who they are.”
It’a worthy project and I hope he gets a lot of positive response. In any case he’s got some stunning pictures on his website. It’s worth checking out for that reason alone.
This story about Jasen Bruce, a marine reservist who beat up a Greek Orthodox priest who was asking him for directions is irritating on a number of levels. In his initial story Mr. Bruce said he beat up the priest because he thought was a ‘terrorist.’ His story’s changed now. Mr. Bruce is now using the ‘gay panic’ defence.
You know, the priest was making a pass at him so that’s why he beat the shit out of him.
Keep in mind when you read this that priest is all of 5′6″ and Jasen Bruce is a marine and a ‘bodybuilder.’ And, given this, the attack has all the hallmarks of ‘roid rage. The poor priest had absolutely no idea what was coming his way.
Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.
That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.
What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.
Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions:
The man tried to rob him.
The man grabbed Bruce’s crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English.
The man yelled “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.
“That’s what they tell you right before they blow you up,” police say Bruce told them.
Bruce ended up in jail, accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was released Tuesday on $7,500 bail. Marakis ended up at the hospital with stitches. He told the police he didn’t want to press charges, espousing biblical forgiveness.
