Do Other Countries Allow Gays to Serve Openly in the Military?

There are other countries in the world besides the United States who have dealt with the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people serving in the military. Let's take a look at them.

Israel allowed LGBT to serve openly in 1993. The Israeli intelligence service has the highest number of LGBT. May explain why their intelligence service is better than ours.

Australia since 1992.

Canada since 1992.

British Navy since 1999. The British Army incrementally in the last 10 years.

Republic of China since 2002.

Denmark since 1981. This is not a surprise, is it?

France since 2000.

Germany since 2000.

Ireland since 1993. Yes, Catholic Ireland.

Netherlands since 1974, the first.

New Zealand since 1993.

Norway since 1979.

Alphabetically, the following countries also allow LGBT to serve openly: Albania, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Peru, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and of course, Uruguay.

India, the world's largest democracy decriminalized homosexuality in 2009. Ancient Indian culture was tolerant toward homosexuality - modern India, not so much.

Communist China has a policy of no approval, no disapproval, no promotion. 'Let's not talk about it and it's not a problem' seems to be the approach. A lot like 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'

That's great, the country the U.S. policy resembles most closely is Communist China. Wonderful.

What about North Korea, Iran and Libya? These countries are evil, right?

We don't know what the policy is in North Korea. Since the revolution in Iran in 1979 the government has been hostile to LGBT rights. Homosexuality is illegal in Libya.

May have missed some countries, but this quick survey shows that other countries have dealt with the same issues we have been wringing our hands over the past few years. We don't need to be xenophobic about this.

We can ask other countries for advice on how they have handled the issue and how it's working out for them.

This reminds me somewhat of the furor over Virginia Military Institute's refusal to admit women.

In 1996, VMI was forced by the Supreme Court to admit women. Virginia Tech allowed women in the Corps of Cadets in 1973 and fully integrated women into the Corps by 1979.

As a Hokie alum, it made me proud when the Virginia Tech Corps volunteered to help VMI integrate, to show them how it could be done and done well.

I'm still waiting for our government to come to its senses. I'd much rather have us be like Israel than like Libya. Like Canada instead of Iran. Someday, maybe.

In America, we should heed the words of noted conservative Barry Goldwater, Sr., who famously said "You don't need to be straight to shoot straight."

Wading into the Family Gene Pool

My sister and I recently participated in the National Geographic Genographic Project.

The Genographic Project is primarily interested in human migration patterns. It is not an ethnic test. I understand there are DNA testing groups that can determine ethnicity. My sister has done enough research of our family's genealogy to have a good picture of our ethnic makeup, we were interested in where our ancient ancestors came from.

Genetic research is a relatively new field. Most genetic studies date from 2004 to the present. I have learned about haplogroups, subclades, alleles and short tandem repeats. Because the research is so new, much of the terminology is still in flux. But it makes for fascinating study.

My sister Cathy knows from her research that our father's family is from southern England and our mother's family is from Ireland. The question was, how did they get there?

Cathy had her DNA tested for MtDNA (mother's line) and I tested for the Y chromosome (father's line).

The results were surprising. All women can trace MtDNA to a woman (called Eve) in East Africa 150,000 years ago. MtDNA is mitochondria DNA, passed down from mother to daughter untouched by fertilization.

All men trace their Y chromosome to a man (called Adam) living in East Africa 60,000 years ago. The Y chromosome is passed untouched from father to son. Over time, human DNA has mutated and different groups have mutated differently. These mutations, called genetic markers, can be used to trace human migration patterns.

My father's group left Africa around 45,000 years ago and headed for the Middle East. They were part of the second wave of migration out of Africa. When drought hit Africa 40,000 years ago, my ancestors headed for the steppes of central Asia. The next marker is found in an ancestor in Iran, whose descendants in the next 30,000 years populated most of the planet.

Our ancestors moved to southern Siberia 35,000 years ago to a region where no other hominid species are known to have lived. This explains why my family thinks Minnesota winters are mild.

The first human migration into Europe began 30,000 years ago. My ancestors stuck around in northern France and northern Spain during the last Ice Age (12,000 years ago) and were the first to repopulate southern England.

Ninety percent of the people in Wales and eighty percent of those in Devon/Cornwall have the same genetic markers as my father. Basically, we found out my father's folks were Celts.

My mother's folks were the first group to leave Africa (Cathy says they got kicked out). They wound up in northwest Siberia as a rare subgroup that then moved into Scandinavia. They must have liked cold weather, too.

Cathy's question was 'how did they get into Ireland?'

We don't know that answer. There is this small gap from 1800 CE to 6,000 BCE that we need to fill in.

I also have an unanswered question. If Eve lived 150,000 years ago and Adam lived 60,000 years ago, what did Eve do for 90,000 years?

Extra! Read All About It! Tax Cuts For the Rich! Jobless Benefits for Everyone Else!

Was there ever any doubt that the wealthiest Americans would get their tax cuts extended? Did anybody really believe Obama and the Democrats when they demagogued about making the wealthiest pay their fair share?

Obama is an Ivy League lawyer. Did you really expect him to give rat's patootie about the working class?

Extending jobless benefits is the trade off in a compromise to give the wealthiest people in this country what they were going to get anyway.

Are you kidding me? Jobless benefits is the best you can do?

HOW ABOUT GIVING AMERICANS JOBS!

If the best the Democratic Party can do for the working class is extend jobless benefits, they need to go to timeout and not come back until they develop vertebrae.

We expect the Republican Party to favor the rich, they always have. The 'Compassionate Conservatism' Republicans trotted out a few years ago was ... well what was it ... I can't remember? Got lost somewhere in that latest surge of layoffs and disappearing retirement accounts.

The richest people in this country have been telling us since 1980 that the American economy is dependent upon their tax cuts. How's that working out? Trickle-down economics it has been called. How's the trickle? I guess the trickle is not having a job but getting paid about half of a what a lousy job is worth.

The American working class good - good, decent people who work hard all day every day - have found it harder and harder to provide adequate shelter, insurance, and education for their families.

Would an American family rather earn $60,000 and pay $15,000 in taxes or earn $25,000 and pay no taxes?

Lost in this heated debate over extending tax cuts is the sobering reality that nobody in our government is interested in fiscal responsibility. Extensive tax cuts HAVE NOT helped the American economy. It has helped the richest Americans. And helping the richest Americans is all our government cares about.

We are broke as a nation because we are fighting two wars. The last country I know of to fight two wars at the same time was Germany. How did that work out for them?

Tax cuts in the middle of wartime? Where is the money coming from to pay for fighting these wars?

There are so many things broken in the American economy it may not be capable of being fixed. Our national security depends upon being fiscally solvent. When foreign countries own our debt, they own us. The Saudis and the Chinese own our country, they own our future.

Wasting Time Waiting in Line - A Wonderful American Tradition

I have spent the last two days trying to get our son's car registered with the Motor Vehicle commission. In New Jersey, the second most corrupt state in the country (we try harder), the MVC has a Byzantine reputation.

Scandals involving MVC employees running a black market in fake driver licenses and horrific delays cause every governor to promise reform. It gets a little better for awhile, then plummets back into darkness between campaigns.

Somewhere, the concept of public service got lost. MVC employees are imperious, autocratic, tyrannical and thoroughly unpleasant. Marge Simpson's sisters are everywhere, lurking behind every window, telling you after a three-hour wait you are in the wrong line or don't have the right form.

This is odd, because the first thing you do upon entering is wait in line to talk to the employee at the information desk to find out what you need. It's either a conspiracy to annoy you or the MVC employees are inept beyond belief.

Rich people do not wait in line at the MVC. They have people do it for them, usually car dealers. Car dealers have their own line and it always moves the fastest. It reminded me of the latest scandal involving sexual groping at airports. Rich people don't go through security. They have their own private jets that leave from their own private airports.

It's only us poor folk who have to wait in line all day. The line was so long the first day that it wound around the parking lot outside for an hour or two. The good thing was it didn't rain, the bad thing was a lot of people were smoking.

Second day, the good thing was nobody smoked outside and the bad thing was it rained. It rained so hard and the wind was so strong umbrellas were useless. I had stashed the necessary paperwork in a plastic bag, anticipating the rain.

But it didn't do me any good. When I finally got to see a clerk, I was told I needed an additional form. I asked, as politely as I could, why I was not told about the additional form the previous day.

The clerk explained that somebody should have told me. She then spent another fifteen minutes trying to find the employee who gave me the incorrect information. When this employee was found (why it was necessary to do so is beyond me) she insisted it was my fault.

I felt like doing a John Cleese Basil Fawlty impersonation, but I was convinced in this climate I would get arrested.

I tried, again politely, to explain that I was highly motivated the day before to find out exactly what I had to do so I wouldn't have to come back a third time. The MVC employee then admitted she may have made a mistake. But it was my fault for not explaining my situation better.

I needed a license plate for my son's car, for crying out loud! It's not that complicated. At this point, I stopped being polite. I have learned the hard way that if you are polite in Jersey, people view it as a sign of weakness and they either ignore you or try and take advantage of you.

My paperwork got initialed and I was told I wouldn't have to wait outside in line when I came back. I told them that's what I was told the day before. I left the MVC convinced that the human race is not capable of competence.

Everywhere we turn, government, business, the military, Wall Street, there is incompetence and mediocrity. The latest leaks about our government in action are not flattering.

What has happened to our once proud, industrious nation? Maybe we're not a democracy anymore, maybe the comedy film "Idiocracy' got it right. Have we have degenerated into a country of citizens that allow torture of prisoners and sexual molestation in airports?

Maybe we don't deserve the bald eagle as a national emblem. Sheep is more fitting. Everybody say "baaa."