If there is a draft can people "fake gay" their way out?

[bluestateguy]

Just wondering. I wonder if the draft board would require evidence that someone was gay--that could get interesting. Was this really done in the 1960's or was it the stuff of urban legends? At the very least it could force the superchickenhawks to rethink the gays in the military policy should a draft become necessary.

[roughsatori]

1. I have heard that the Joint Chief's are in favor of dropping

the ban on gays if we re-institute a draft. They feel that times have changed and many heterosexual men would feel no shame pretending to be gay to stay out of the draft. I have not link to this, it is just something a Navy friend told me.

[Maple]

2. Welcome to

Canada

[redeye]

6. Yeah...

...but doesn't Canada have now an agreement with the United States by which it won't grant draft dodgers asylum anymore?

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. If all else fails. Bon Jour!!!

Me and son go to France in 13 years.

[corarose]

3. Several of my Male cousins did it and they didn't have to go

They wore their sisters underwear to the draft board and they put a big act on so they wouldn't have to go and all of their friends did the same thing. It got all of the guys out of going and they are married today with kids & grandkids.

Hell, I would have done it also If I didn't agree with the war.

[madrchsod]

10. now that is funny

i would have liked to been there! i got in trouble when i got my notice..i probably still have a file...

[corarose]

13. Picture this

They were 6"4 Red Headed very very white guys with blue eyes. They were so pale that they could have used them as a glow stick in the dark and they had female undies on with holes cut out in the boob area with boa on the bras.

They got kicked out immediately and they went back to playing in there C & W band.

[Iluvleiberman]

4. They would draft hetrosexual women before gays

I'm sure of it.

Now lesbians I don't know. You didn't ask.

[redeye]

5. I don't know...

...that depends who dictates the draft - the fascists who believe that everyone should sacrifice him/herself for the nation, or the fundies who believe gays are untermensch. If the fascists, e.g. Rangel and Cheney, do, then gays will be cannon fodder just like everyone else. If the fundies, e.g. Ashcroft and Byrd, do, then the draft board probably won't require too much evidence that you're gay but will send you to a concentration camp if you say you are.

[Zan_of_Texas]

7. not so fast

During the first Gulf War, one of my small company's staff was a young Latina, lesbian, who had signed up to be in the Navy reserves. She just did it to make a little extra money, and maybe she liked the idea of wearing the uniform.

She never thought she'd be sent anywhere. When the war started, it sort of came out of nowhere, and she got her call up papers. She was pretty frightened by the whole thing, as was her mother, but she ended up going. Thank goodness she came back in one piece and, being on a boat, perhaps she was spared exposure to whatever things caused so many Gulf War illnesses.

In answer to your question -- she was told by a higher up that she would not be able to get out of serving based on homosexuality -- something to the effect of: "While we're in a war, nobody's going to get kicked out for that. If you come back alive, THEN we'll think about doing that."

[directinfection]

23. how hypocritical

so you can get kicked out of the millitary for being gay...but if there's a war they don't make an issue about it? thats pretty lame.
if i was male and a draft came along...id claim to be gay. couldn't you take them to court on that issue seeing that gays aren;t allowed?

[Brian Sweat]

51. Especially since the whole supposed reason for banning gays

is because they don't want to be in foxholes with them.

[directinfection]

52. is because they don't want to be in foxholes with

thats right...they might try to sodomize them giving the enemy the perfect oppurtunity to sneak up on them.

[xJlM]

9. Alice's Restaurant

Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad shack
You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant




I guess there's nobody here old enough to remember that!?

[nostamj]

38. "I guess there's nobody here old enough to remember that!?"

oh, don't be so sure... I've still got the vinyl album!

now, where's that damn walker???

[Walt Starr]

43. Have you heard the new version

Arlo seems to think the draft may come back again. My wife and I have made Alice's Restaurant a Thanksgiving tradition when we visit her family.

:evilgrin:

Methinks that song may have a new relevence to the rightwing brother-in-law. His son is eighteen and will be graduating High School next year.

[Walt Starr]

42. Shrink, I wanna Kill

"Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he tarted jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

[moondust]

44. (excepting Alice)

At Alice's Restaurant!

[Walt Starr]

45. It's the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

[IranianDemocrat]

11. I would just grab my drill sergeants ass and wink at him.

That's the ticket home ;-)

[catmandu57]

37. And then he would beat the living shit out of you

When you awoke from your coma if ever the world would be gone. You don't mess with DI's they're full out fanatics.

[dsc]

12. I would imagine

that it wouldn't work now. There are two precedents. In the 1960's several people, including Chevy Chase, pretended to be gay to avoid the draft. In 1991, several soldiers outed themselves in an attempt to avoid the gulf war. Instead they were sent, fought in it, and were discharged.

For a good read on this try Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts. It is the definate history on gays in the military.

One other interesting note. It was actually much harder for people who really were gay to avoid the draft than it was for those playing gay. The latter group tended to conform to stereotypes much better and thus were more likely to be believed.

[QC]

14. During Vietnam, lots claimed to be gay and got out of it

and others got drafted.

Perry Watkins, who was drafted during Vietnam, told them he was gay and they didn't care. They drafted him anyway.

He served as openly gay, re-enlisting several times. He even did drag shows at the OC.

But when he was nearing retirement, the Army discovered that he was--June Cleaver, clutch your pearls--GAY!!!!!

They tried to kick him out when he was nearing retirement and lost.

I strongly suspect that the whole "gay deceiver" thing was, like all other forms of privilege, closely tied to class.

[QC]

15. Good Perry Watkins Site Here

http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/watkins.html

[dsc]

16. Not if Shilts is accurate

He didn't mention class but mainly ability to conform to a stereotype. I think that probably there would have been a racial and cultural difference in the willingness to be thought of as gay in an official sense though which could enter in to it.

[QC]

19. Well, I'm not Randy Shilts and never claimed to be,

but I know that draft boards were much more solicitous of the privileged than of the run of the mill of us, so it's not hard for me to imagine them cutting more slack to the children of the privileged.

Let's not forget that L'il George got a pilot slot even though he only got 25/100 on the flight test.

Guys like my dad didn't even sign up for the test because it seemed so unapproachable that only college boys would even dare take it and most of them had no hope at all.

[dsc]

22. There were

as you point out, many more desireable ways to avoid the draft back then. I think for most people who played this was a desperation move or one done in utter ignorance of the kind of discrimination they could have opened themselves up for. I really don't think this was some sort of class thing.

[QC]

24. Perhaps--all I know is that a whole lot of blue-collar fags

got a free tour of Southeast Asia during that time, while the local orthodontist's kid got a free pass from the whole unpleasantness.

So I don't think it was quite as easy as saying to the local recruiter, "No, thank you, but I prefer penises," though I will gladly back off in the face of contrary evidence.

[dsc]

26. Please don't use that word

it is enormously offensive. As I pointed out above it was actually easier for fakers to get out than for real gays. The fakers were better able to conform to stereotype. I also think it was army doctors (psychologists) who made the determination not draft boards.

[QC]

32. Yes, people who conformed to stereotypes had an easier time.

But I still like to use that word now and then. In some contexts it is useful, such as when we want to remind people how we are talked about when we're not around.

As Christopher Isherwood said, a faggot is a nice homosexual gentleman who has just left the room.

[corarose]

17. Class?

My cousins were from a family of 8 kids and they were drafted because they picked middle and lower class kids.

[QC]

21. If they all got sent off,

then I'm inclined to doubt that they were genuinely middle-class.

In America, let's not forget, everyone is either middle or upper class.

There is no lower class in America.

ON EDIT: And no, that does not make any sense at all, but that's my point. We pretend that people are middle class who would be proles anywhere else in the world, because America's national mythology cannot admit the existence of proles.

[Dr Fate]

18. Well, you could become a male cheerleader like Bush did.

...or Trent "Master Tee" Lott...Both of these macho patriots refused to serve in Vietnam, choosing to be male cheerleaders instead...


Bush as Male-cheerleader during Vietnam War

[Clete]

20. You could do a Sgt. Klinger in MASH.

It didn't really work for him either, though.

[Oracle]

25. I plan to...

I'm going to be more intrigued with Clinton's dick...to save my ass....

[bluestateguy]

27. None of this logic makes any sense

The military says we can't have gays in the military because it will undermine unit cohesion and morale in combat. OK, fine. So when there is a war--and I've heard there tends to be a lot of combat in wars--the military says "we aren't going to discharge gays until the war is over". Huh?

[dsc]

28. because like most bigots

they only wish to be bigots when they don't have to pay a price to be them. It is too big a price to pay to actually have to accept the consequences of their bigotry so they don't.

[Pax Argent]

29. If gay doesn't work

my uncle got out of the service by showing up at his exam on acid. As it is one of my family's dark little secrets, I've never heard the complete story, but it seemed to have worked.

[corarose]

30. LOL that reminds me of one of my cousins

He smoked weed all day long and walked in as a stoner and offered them a joint and I don't think that he got busted but he didn't get drafted either.

My Dad served in WW11 and he was drafted and I had to add that in because it seems like my family were draft dodgers. My cousins on my Mothers side of the family served in the Viet Nam war and one of them is messed up and he thinks that he's still in Nam some times.

My ancestors go back to the civil war and they fought with the North because WV went with the North.

[shimmergal]

46. A step-nephew tried to enlist.

They wouldn't take him because he tested positive for pot use.

Eventually he stayed off long enough to pass the test, and has been in for about 4 years now.

[knight_of_the_star]

33. LMAO

I'm going to have to remember that. If they reinstate the draft I'll just find some peyote and get busy :).

[MiltonLeBerle]

34. Gary Busey/Jan Michael Vincent in the movie "Big Wednesday"

played surfers in California in the 60's trying to get out of the draft. Busey's character pulled a stunt that seemd to be inspired by Ted Nugent's draft board appearance, and his character was sent to a mental institution for a short while.
Jan Michael Vincent beat his shins with a cane, put on leg braces, and claimed it was a birth defect.
Another guy pretended to be blind, and a fourth one pretended to be gay.

The only one that did get drafted was the one that pretended to be gay.

[sexybomber]

39. LOL ... great idea

If they ever institute a draft, that's probably the most fun way to get out of it too.

[Terwilliger]

31. why don't you claim a "fake gay" status?

that way, you can avoid the results of the your two-party system.

[JI7]

35. bill clinton said

president clinton said that when he got into office he heard how there were gays who had served in the military and including into the gulf war and they were either open about it or it was known some other way, but the military kept them for the combat. but once combat for that war was over, they were "let go" for being gay. he says this is what really got him to want to do something about the gays in the military issue. of course we now know the "don't ask don't tell" policy was a failure, but it shows the hypocrisy of the whole thing. it's really disgusting also. i only found this out when he told it at the class on his presidency.

[Festivito]

36. Take that U of Michigan class on how to be gay.

At least one can be an well educated fake.

[maha]

40. That didn't work in the 1960s.

It was tried, a lot. Didn't work.

[corarose]

41. Did you grow up in the 60's?

It worked and lots of boys used it to get out of the draft and going to jail.
I bet they are all on a GAY list somewhere that the government has on the ones that got out of the draft that way.

[maha]

49. I grew up in the 1950s.

I spent the summer of '70 on post at Ford Ord, California. I was all of 20, staying with my brother, a career officer who had returned from 'Nam, and my sister-in-law, who worked on post. What a mess Fort Ord was! But I got to date a lot of cute officers.

Anyway, it was a fact that guys tried to get out of service by claiming to be gay, and it did not work. I remember it well.

What did work was "shy bowel syndrome." If a soldier was suffering chronic constipation because he couldn't use a latrine with other guys around, the army let him go. They also sent home bed-wetters.

But claiming to be gay didn't cut it.

[Mari333]

47. They are trying to deploy my son, heres a website

for anyone who needs it

http://girights.objector.org/

[Hamlette]

48. Faking being gay

Read Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts it's a history of gays in the military.

Several men tried it during Vietnam. They were told they needed testimony from a shrink and 2 people they had had sex with. Many just went into the draft instead. When they finished their tour of duty the military went back, found those who had checked "gay" on their papers and gave them a dishonorable discharge. They were all denied GI or vets benefits.

I'm not making this up. It makes me sick.

[slackmaster]

50. Maybe some people can

Personally I'd rather go to war than suck dick.

[Sweetpea]

53. LOL LOL

:D

[9215]

54. Do what Limbaugh did

get a pilloidnal (Spelling) cyst and, oops, Sorry, Limbaugh really was gay.