“The new policy, dubbed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue,’ bars the Pentagon from asking service members if they are gay, but forces gays to hide their sexual orientation or face expulsion,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported at the time. Facing strong opposition from both the military and the Congress, Clinton compromised. military (the fact that it wasn’t an issue for other nations’ militaries never seemed to get much traction inside the Pentagon). The scare tactics worked for a nation uncertain about the wisdom of integrating gays into a tradition-bound culture like the U.S. Added a female sailor aboard a sub tender: “There’s going to be a lot of problems-a lot of personal injuries, if not deaths-against gays and lesbians.” “There’s going to be a lot of men overboard” because heterosexuals won’t tolerate gays working alongside them aboard ship, warned a sailor from the carrier USS John F. They were reflecting the views of many of their troops: “At the Marine Corps ball,” one Marine wondered, “will we see homosexual couples dancing and kissing?”Ĭongress held a hearing in the Navy town of Norfolk, Va., in May 1993 to gauge sailor sentiment toward Clinton’s idea. military leaders, including Army General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Following Clinton’s election, his proposal generated sharp opposition from U.S. It’s hard to overstate how far this debate has come since presidential candidate Bill Clinton declared in 1992 that openly gay men and women should be permitted to serve in uniform. It comes as Carter weighs recommending his openly gay chief of staff, former Air Force undersecretary Eric Fanning, to replace outgoing Army Secretary John McHugh. “Discrimination of any kind has no place in America’s armed forces,” Carter said at a Pentagon ceremony celebrating June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month.” His action adds sexual orientation to race, creed, color, national origin and gender as a protected characteristic that cannot be considered in hiring, firing and promotions. But under the newly expanded equal-opportunity policy, any commander who orders such a hunt will be investigated, instead.
In fact, superiors often launched what were called “witch hunts” to find gay troops and boot them out of the service. They often wear roses in their long hair, and I frequently wish I could see a Pathan entering a gay cocktail party given by Manhattan fairies.Talk about change: less than a generation ago, troops were investigated if commanders suspected they were gay.
Gritty dirt is ingrained in their skin, and soles of their feet are like cracked leather. Pathans often have pale-blue eyes, untamed and a little terrifying, and the young men’s eyes are rimmed with kohl. He carries his head insolently up and his shoulders carelessly back, but without any stiffness as from drilling. A Pathan walks with the grace of a man-eating tiger, in long and unhurried strides, with a lift to them. ’A woman for business, a boy for pleasure, a goat for choice’ is an old Pathan proverb, and one of the most famous of Pathan songs, the ’Zakhmi Dil’ (’Wounded Heart’) begins with the words, ’There’s a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, but, alas, I cannot swim.’ I do not know why homosexuality should affect various peoples so differently, but there was something startlingly incongruous about the idea when associated with these fierce men, physically the hardest people on earth - they use sharp stones for toilet paper - and with the vast, grim jaggedness in which they live. In his book "Bugles and a Tiger" he writes: ""Lawrence noted the tendency of the Arabs to homosexuality. The author only points out a long-existing reality which has been well-noted long ago by admirers of Pathans such as the author John Masters who had spent time in the erstwhile NWFP. So I can’t understand why comments from Pathans on this article have been so negative. The basic reason is lack of easy accessibility to females because the latter lead a very protected and sequestered lives.
This habit to a lesser extent is followed by some males of Pakistan and India also. It is well known in my country Pakistan that Pathans, many but not all, prefer sodomising young boys. One of the comments below the article is interestingĪBID six years ago Pathans or Pashtuns or Pakhtuns live on both sides of the Durand Line.