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Regarding the opinion piece on the flaws of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s repeal, [“DADT repeal could have flaws,” Oct. 6],  I have to wonder where the author found his ideas on DADT and gay people. Much of the piece exhibits either great misunderstanding and ignorance, or personal bias – too much for one letter to cover.

If the author truly believes that DADT allowed everyone to be accepted, he could not be more wrong. For someone serving who was other than heterosexual, you kept your mouth shut about your own identity or risked discharge. Should someone find out, the ‘acceptance’ of the armed forces was legendary in how quickly a person was discharged under DADT.

I was also unaware that the armed forces engaged in unprotected Dyonisian orgies in such a regular and indiscriminate fashion that STDs spread as unbounded epidemics across the whole world.

 The author has suggested that openly gay servicemen will make STD rates skyrocket. This perpetuates the myth that gay people are carriers of diseases in abundance compared to straights – a myth that is not only untrue but also tremendously offensive.

The idea that you could contract STDs from sharing canteens or living quarters is odious and totally false.

The author perpetuates dangerous beliefs on how STDs spread, based on medieval, antiquated ideas of medicine. Perhaps he will suggest, in the afterglow of all that promiscuity and utensil sharing, the inhalation of vaporized mercury salts and application of leeches to cure the myriad of resulting venereal diseases.

The author’s [article] has put forward a case for discrimination against LGBT people based on fear. The idea that soldiers cannot get on with the job, no matter who serves in the military, is insulting to the armed forces itself.

His beliefs on STDS are dangerous falsehoods regarding who and how a person gets an STD; though the author might take a hint from the name “sexually transmitted” disease. Suggesting that members of the gay community will contribute by their nature to the spread of disease is invidious, outdated and mired in false, homophobic assumptions – much like the vast majority of the opinion piece as a whole.  

 

Simon Fraser

Chief Justice, PCC Associated Students

The opinion stated in this correspondence is mine and mine alone, and is in no way intended to reflect the opinion of the Supreme Council, the ASPCC government or the Associated Students as a whole.

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