Word: gays
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tell" was itself a misnomer, a media-friendly term that did not accurately describe the 1993 law passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Clinton. The law did not actually prevent the Pentagon from "asking" any service member or potential service member whether he or she is gay. The Pentagon did agree to stop asking about sexuality in recruitment forms and interviews, but it never agreed to stop investigating whether those serving in the military are gay. That's why discharges of gays did not substantially decrease after the law was enacted. Compare the period between...
Military commanders had only to read the law to see that Congress wasn't serious about protecting gay service members. The law's text is a tissue of barely disguised bigotry. For instance, it points out that service members must "accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive and characterized by forced intimacy, with little or no privacy." One can forgive the historically inappropriate reference to the Spartans - fierce warriors whose loyalty to one another in no way excluded sexual relationships, and indeed may have encouraged them. But the specter of "forced intimacy" recalled the worst kind...
Nunn has never repudiated his tactics, and although he recently said that the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy should be reevaluated, he has not said whether he personally opposes it. (Which is why activists have told the Obama campaign that picking Nunn would cause problems with gay fund raising.) For his part, Obama has long said he would repeal the policy, but he has not said how or when he would do so. Because the law gives the Secretary of Defense the sole power to devise the "procedures" under which homosexual conduct or statements are discovered, a President...
...issue, no. ''Hanoi is bending over backward looking for old bones.'' The trouble is, according to the herd of entrepreneurs moving cross the country like a solid wind, Bill Clinton has played out his string with the Pentagon, what with all the base closings and the gay controversy. So what if there are Americans unaccounted for? There are 300,000 Vietnamese missing. Let's get on with commerce. We're talking 69 million consumers here. And besides, said my companion Dave, who should know, just put it out of your mind that there are any old American soldiers presently living...
...might be the Ascot Gavotte from My Fair Lady. Nostalgia, as wispy as the scent of marijuana that permeated the SkyDome, is itself decadent. By highlighting the past, Madonna is saying the present has little to offer. In doing so, she is also forging a bond with her loyal gay audience. It is an axiom of pop culture that no uncloseted gay man can be a star but that women can be stars by appropriating gay motifs. Bette Midler steals gays' jokes; Madonna steals their style. It's not just in the Nazified naughtiness of her night-at-the-Anvil...