"... to say McCain is on the wrong side of history is not the same thing as saying he is wrong in the absolute, as Mr Ricks seems naively to assume - those who opposed the hyper liberal agenda of Johnson's great society were in a sense on the wrong side of history but many of their warnings of problems ahead still managed to be quite accurate. There's a reasonable chance that the same will prove true for those who oppose the repeal of DADT.
It will all depend on how politicized the LGBT agenda becomes or attempts to become within the military itself - the inclusion of women never became a huge problem because extremist feminist ideology was waning and therefore the military was allowed to deal with the cultural shift on its own terms - you never had women picketing outside army bases demanding that the girls get to serve on the front lines etc etc - but the extremism of the LGBT community is cresting - this is a highly politicized left wing ideology which is as a matter of course at odds with the governing ethos of the military mind - sure, Americans are increasingly ok with gay marriage etc but that's because they are blandly ignorant of the extreme 'scholarship' emanating from the supporting activist community - if this agenda seeks out a confrontation with the conventions of a military mindset - in other words, if the issue becomes politicized within the military - you will have a problem.
I only talk with Marines so I don't have much of an idea as to how the other branches of the service feel about the repeal of DADT - but what I hear from Marines is they have no real problems with this, just so long as 'an agenda' isn't shoved in their faces - if you start forcing these boys to sign up for 'sensitivity' training etc or start punishing them for letting a 'faggot' drop in reference to a washout recruit etc or if the leftist sensibilities of LGBT community attempt to gain a proselytizing foothold within the ranks or impose an exogenous liberal agenda on the military so as to make it conform to the new found rights and needs of gay service members - well, then you're gonna have some unhappy grunts, regardless of the anodyne blandishments of advocates like Mr Ricks..."
