Pride
Good on Lt (N) Stephen Churm:
I especially liked his spanking of the Hamilton pride parade organizers:
I love that dis.
Just for the record, and speaking only for myself here: I don't care if you're gay or straight, if you're black, white, or polka-dotted, if you're a woman or a man. If you can meet the performance standards in the CF - not diversity quotas or social engineering experiments foisted upon a results-driven, life and death organization like the CF - then I say you should be welcome to serve.
The Canadian Forces will be on the march Sunday, but on a different kind of mission. For the first time, men and women in uniform from across the country will represent the military in Toronto's Pride parade.
"This will send out a national message that the Canadian Forces is an employer of choice for all people," Lieut. Stephen Churm said yesterday. The naval officer will be among 17 military personnel walking and interacting with the crowd.
...
A diversity officer with the Hamilton recruitment centre, Churm has been openly gay at work since 2001. In 2004, he led the charge to create a military presence in Hamilton's annual Pride festival, and began with four soldiers at an information booth. Last year, he and a small group of soldiers marched in the parade for the first time.
He wanted to correct a perception in the gay community that the Canadian military "had a policy of `Don't ask, don't tell.'"
I especially liked his spanking of the Hamilton pride parade organizers:
Churm said Hamilton Pride officials consulted neither that community nor the military before making a "political decision" to ban the military from this year's parade.
Hamilton Pride organizers imposed the ban because of a complaint from a recent immigrant who feared the military because of persecution by soldiers in their own country. They also allege the Canadian Forces is responsible for worldwide human rights abuses.
Churm said that while the Canadian Forces respects Hamilton Pride officials' right to decide who is a part of the parade, "we would have liked to the opportunity to discuss it with organizers.
"The irony here is we had no intention of attending because we were concentrating on Toronto," which has a higher profile, he said. [Babbler's emphasis]
I love that dis.
Just for the record, and speaking only for myself here: I don't care if you're gay or straight, if you're black, white, or polka-dotted, if you're a woman or a man. If you can meet the performance standards in the CF - not diversity quotas or social engineering experiments foisted upon a results-driven, life and death organization like the CF - then I say you should be welcome to serve.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 11:41 a.m.
1 Comments:
I have to admit I'm torn on that one. I have what most would call conservative social values. I'm also a USAF veteran from the days when either an officer or enlisted man just admitting that he or she was a practicing homosexual - officer or enlisted - would get one a pretty damn quick less-than-honorable discharge.
However, I also have to acknowledge that here in the US, almost all the military sexual scandals of the past decades (Tail Hook, etc.) were about heterosexual men acting like pigs, rather than as decent men, much less responsible military men. (Ditto for a few scandals involving hetero women.)
Still, because of what it does and the consequences of failure or success, a military organization really should be the ultimate meritocracy based on ability and performance, rather than a Politically Correct social engineering experiment.
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