Well, I’m back from my vacation abroad, so let’s start up again with some short, but welcome news! New York officially started issuing same-sex marriage licenses yesterday, just days after President Barack Obama certified the end of the military’s silly “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that banned openly gay citizens from serving in the country.

Hundreds of New Yorkers lined up patiently to get their marriage certificates on Sunday, many of whom had waited for decades. The first couple to get their certificate was Phyllis Siegel, 77, and Connie Kopelov, 85, who have spent the last 23 years of their life together. The total number of marriage licenses issued the first day totaled 659, a new record for the state. A great day for the institution of marriage!

The official repeal of the ban on openly gay people in the army will happen on September 20th.

Congratulations to everyone who helped fight for both of these important steps in getting full equality. Keep it up, and soon everyone in the States will get the freedom they were promised!

• Hundreds of New York gay couples exchange vows [CBC News]
• Obama officially ends ban on gays in military [CBC News]

The United States Marine Corps has produced some new training material in anticipation of the official revocation of the country’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy later this year.

Parts of the documents are spot on. It’s a good idea, for example, to prepare authority figures within the military on how to put an end to homophobic harassment and remind recruits that it’s not appropriate to discriminate against or berate their colleagues.

Amusingly, though, the training documents also include expected responses to some hypothetical situations. This includes what should be done if you discover two men from your battalion kissing in a shopping mall, or if you see a fellow Marine marching in a Pride parade on TV.

While the document’s suggested responses are exactly right, (i.e. act like it’s none of your business), I find the situations amusingly alarmist—as if all gay Marines will instantly start making out and flying banners on television. Better prepare the troops so they know exactly what to do if—nay, when—it happens!

At least this is all a little less silly than all those surveys asking how military personnel would feel about showering alongside gay colleagues. Not by much, mind you.

• Marines gets trained on new policy as military prepares for end of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ [Associated Press]

Anti-gay politicians and lobbyists are positively terrified, having already begun predicting consequences of an impossibly dire nature. The arguments mostly involve something about straight soldiers being distracted by their (now openly) gay colleagues, becoming overwhelmed with concern about whether or not other soliders are checking them out—and a distracted solider, they say, can cost lives.

Personally, I’d say bad soliders cost lives, and anyone who is more concerned about what their gay colleagues may or may not be thinking—instead of, say, incoming fire—sounds like a pretty bad solider to me.

If anything, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell probably left the military more vulnerable to blackmail, as learning that someone is gay instantly gives anyone with shady motives leverage over a gay service member’s military career. But opponents are entitled to their own narratives, I suppose…

Canada, by the way, ended its ban in 1992.

• U.S. Senate votes to drop military gay ban [CBC News]

I’m very happy to present today’s Guest Slap. The author, Dr. Flamingo Jones, is a world-renowned archaeologist and researcher at the University of Oxbridgeshire. While I know little about his reclusive past and current whereabouts, he has kindly agreed to share with us, occasionally, his knowledge, discoveries, and insights.

Good day to you, ladies, gentlemen, and those who do not wish to confine yourselves to such limiting terminology. I apologize for my long absence in contributing to this esteemed publication, but I do so without regret. In the intervening year since my last article, I have been on sabbatical from my position as head of the Department of Queer Anthropology at the University of Oxbridgeshire to travel around the world in my ongoing quest for both modern and ancient truths.

With all the controversy in the last few years over the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in the U.S. military, I thought it would be rather illuminating to share with you an example of one of the greatest military teams from antiquity, one which had rather the opposite belief when it came to the sexual orientation of soldiers: the Sacred Band of Thebes.

2388 years ago, in 378 BC, a Theban military commander by the name of Gorgidas had an interesting idea for forming a novel type of elite military unit that would be more loyal than any other. He decided to put to use the homosexuality that has always been quite commonplace in military units throughout the ages. From the regular Theban army, Gorgidas hand-picked 150 pairs of skilled soldiers who were lovers with other soldiers. The logic behind this was that a soldier would fight with utmost ferocity and loyalty if he were fighting alongside his lover, defending him at all costs. The Theban commander himself would often fight among the Sacred Band with his own special companion.

Different commanders would use the Sacred Band of Thebes as a special forces team in different ways, scattered through the front ranks as a morale booster for the other troops, or solidified in one ferocious fighting unit. During the years of the Sacred Band’s existence Thebes gained greater and greater power in their region, even breaking free from Sparta’s dominance when the Sacred Band helped to defeat an army three times their own size.

Unfortunately, in 338BC the Sacred Band was annihilated by Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great). According to Plutarch, most of the Theban soldiers fled in the face of Philip II’s superior military technology, but not the Sacred Band. They stood, fought, and died as one that day, and are even buried together on that same spot, marked today by a statue known as the Lion of Chaironeia. Plato, in his Symposium, best describes the love and determination found of the Sacred Band of Thebes, in which he wrote:

And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this.

I’m super happy to introduce today’s special guest author / illustrator! Premee is not only exceptionally talented, but also living proof that not everyone living in Calgary is necessarily a gun-toting, cowboy hat-wearing, cattle-prodding, grit-eating, hay-growing, gay-hoeing, well, you get the idea…

The US military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy has always been a tough one for gay activists.  The proposed changes may make it a little easier to be a uniformed gay, inasmuch as an anonymous outing is no longer cause for immediate discharge (there’s an investigation now!), but the fact remains that the military culture is generally homophobic and feels that homophobia is a valid excuse to exclude, ostracize, threaten, and whine about undue exposure to gay folks.  “But it’ll ruin unit cohesion!”  “I’m scared I’ll be poked awake one morning!”  “I can’t focus on my job with all that gay around!”  “No man’s foxhole is safe!”

The rational response, of course, would be education and desegregation; unfortunately, it looks like the official response is ghettoization.

Marine Commandant General J. Conway has been interviewed saying “I would not ask our Marines to live with someone that’s homosexual if we can possibly avoid it,” and has gone on to outline his plans to completely segregate gay from straight troops.  This uninformed and frankly nasty attitude promotes a culture of otherness and, so far from progressing gay troops from inferiors to equals, will probably make them targets by setting them apart from the rest of their units.

On the other hand, since single housing is now proposed for those gay servicemen, it might actually end up being a little nicer than life in the closet!

John Sheehan, a retired army general from the United States, has blamed the lifting of a ban on gay troops in the Dutch army for the 1995 Bosnian massacre.

Serbian forces overwhelmed Dutch peacekeepers stationed in Bosnia fifteen years ago, leading to one of the largest genocides in Europe since World War II. Approximately 8,000 men and children were killed by Serbian forces.

Sheehan, speaking to a senate committee currently discussing a proposal to end the country’s ridiculous policy banning openly gay men and women from serving in the military, said that the Dutch would have prevented the Bosnian catastrophe if only they hadn’t “made a conscious effort to socialize their military,” adding “that includes open homosexuality.”

Roger Van de Wetering, a spokesperson for the Dutch Defence Ministry, dismissed the comments as “total nonsense:”

The whole operating in Srebrenica and the drama that took place over there was thoroughly investigated by Dutch and international authorities and none of these investigations as ever concluded or suggested a link between homosexual military personnel and the things that happened over there.

Well, duh!

• General blames gay Dutch troops in massacre [CBC News]