Gay students graduate openly at military academies
Gay students at America’s military service academies wrapped up the first year when they no longer had to hide their sexual orientation, benefiting from the end of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that used to bar them from seemingly ordinary activities like taking their partners openly to graduation events.
While I appreciate that the cessation of discrimination against one group is a cause for appreciation, I struggle with using the phrase “social justice” to describe what might arguably be called an expansion of militarism into a previous non-militaristic community. Social justice will be more appropriately used to describe the day when young, unprivileged young men and women do not have to sell themselves into servitude to the military in order to afford an education and avoid working at KFC.
I agree that we should strive toward having a society where military service isn’t the last and only hope for the underprivileged, but your comment seems to suggest that everyone in the military is there because they have no better choice. I don’t believe that is the case.
I think this is a big win for gays and lesbians who genuinely want to be part of the military and who no longer want to be covert about their sexual orientation. It’s not the end point of “social justice” but it sure seems like a step in the right direction.