I read this tonight and wanted to post about something I think is important. And no one ever mentions this aloud, at least not from anything I’ve read or heard from the media.

I can tell you all first hand there are gays in the military. I’ve dated marines, naval officers, privates in the army, and once I had a six month relationship with a guy in the national guard. Most people didn’t even know we were gay when we were out in public.

I know other gay men who have dated other guys in the military, and nothing bad happened. The churches are still standing; God didn’t come down and strike us all dead.

There are plenty of gay men in the military now, and there always have been. I didn’t turn the guys in the military I dated gay. In fact, the aggressive military guys always pursued me. It’s simple, it’s natural, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Here’s the link, and here’s the article:

A federal appeals court in San Francisco issued a ruling Wednesday that ends enforcement of the law banning openly gay people from serving in the military, citing the Obama administration’s recent determination that gays and lesbians have suffered a history of discrimination.

The statute known as “don’t ask, don’t tell” was ruled unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips in September, and a ban on its enforcement was imposed a month later. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Phillips’ ruling, though, while it was being appealed and to allow the Defense Department time to prepare for integrating gays into the armed services.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court lifted that stay in a two-page order Wednesday, granting a motion brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay-rights advocacy group that sued the federal government over “don’t ask, don’t tell” seven years ago.

The 9th Circuit order signed by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski and two appointees of President Clinton cited recent changes in administration policy calling for “heightened scrutiny” of laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, like the Defense of Marriage Act, which deprives same-sex married couples of federal benefits.

“Gay and lesbian individuals have suffered a long and significant history of purposeful discrimination,” the administration said last week in ordering equal treatment of the spouse of a lesbian lawyer who works for the 9th Circuit.

The appeals panel also noted that the Defense Department “is well under way” in its training of soldiers and sailors for the transition to openly gay service by mid-summer.